Week 1- Intro to History of Christianity PDF

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY WHY DOES HISTORY MATTER? Christianity is a historical religion and a sense of the past is at the core of Christian faith, one that is always contextual in its expression. Scriptures is essentially a primary historical record, in which God’s dealings with his people ar...

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY WHY DOES HISTORY MATTER? Christianity is a historical religion and a sense of the past is at the core of Christian faith, one that is always contextual in its expression. Scriptures is essentially a primary historical record, in which God’s dealings with his people are set out. The incarnation means that at a particular moment in time and place God entered history.  GOD’S CREATION BEGAN TIME; THE COMING OF JESUS IS ITS MID-POINT, AND HIS RETURN WILL BRING TIME TO AN END. 1. Christianity is inherently based on real history. 2. History serves to remind us of the faith of martyrs 3. History serves to remind us of God’s faithfulness 4. History helps us to remember the theological errors of the past 6. History helps us to remember our common heritage amidst our diversity 7. The importance of history in Christianity lies in the fact that it links our past to the future WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? From the Roman perspective, Christians were simply one more Jewish sect. Yet, according to some Jewish leaders, Christians were renegades who had abandoned the ancient and venerable Jewish faith. Christianity expanded among non-Jews. Christians’ practices increasingly separated them from the Jewish faith that Jesus and his first apostles had practiced. By A.D. 100, the Christian and Jewish faiths were recognized as two separate groups. Jewish synagogues had excluded Christians, and the Roman Empire had engaged in widespread persecution of Christians. Paul’s missionary journeys spread Christianity through Asia Minor and the Western Roman Empire. Believers were first called Christians in Antioch, in modern Turkey. WHY WERE THE CHRISTIANS PERSECUTED? AD 64- Rome burned. Flames ravaged the city for six days. When the smoke cleared, ten of Rome’s fourteen districts had been reduced to charred rubbish. Nero, the Roman emperor, was several miles away when the fire began. According to one rumor, Nero had ordered his servants to start the fire. Nero torched Rome so he could rebuild the city according to his own whims. Later rumors even insisted that Nero had played his harp while Rome burned. Nero became the first emperor to recognize publicly that Christianity was a different religion, and he began immediately to persecute this faith. One Roman historian described the persecution in this way, “Some were dressed in furs and killed by dogs. Others were crucified, or burned alive, to light the night.”  The apostle Peter was martyred in Rome during Nero’s persecution. According to ancient tradition, Peter didn’t believe he was worthy to die like his Savior, so the big fisherman asked to be crucified upside down. Roman authorities also arrested the apostle Paul. Since it was illegal to crucify a Roman citizen, Paul probably died by the sword. REASONS WHY CHRISTIANITY BECAME UNPOPULAR CHRISTIANS REJECTED ALL OTHER GODS Christians believed in only one God—the God of Israel, revealed in Jesus Christ (Deuteronomy 6:4; 1 Timothy 2:5). This belief seemed arrogant to the Romans. Most Romans covered all their spiritual bases by sacrificing to many gods. REASONS WHY CHRISTIANITY BECAME UNPOPULAR CHRISTIAN CUSTOMS WERE WIDELY MISUNDERSTOOD When they described their worship, Christians talked about consuming the “body” and “blood” of Christ at their “love-feasts” (John 6:53-56; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:23-27; Jude 1:12). Believers called one another “brothers and sisters”— terms used in Egypt to refer to sexual partners. When early Christians shared the Lord’s Supper, they wouldn’t even let nonbelievers watch. ROMANS BEGAN TO ACCUSE CHRISTIANS FALSELY OF CANNIBALISM AND INCEST REASONS WHY CHRISTIANITY BECAME UNPOPULAR CHRISTIAN CHALLENGED THE SOCIAL ORDER The church challenged the entire structure of Roman society by welcoming the lower classes and by valuing every human life. The laws of Rome prevented slaves from inheriting property; the customs of the empire treated women as lesser beings. If a Roman father didn’t want his child, he left the infant alone in a field, to die. Christians defied such social structures by adopting unwanted infants and by welcoming slaves and women as equal inheritors of God’s grace. New and improved products seem to fascinate people today. The trend in ancient Roman society was precisely the opposite: It seemed better to them to choose an old, proven product than to fall for a new, improved gimmick. Romans tolerated the Jews’ belief in one God partly because the Jewish faith was so ancient. One thousand years before Rome was founded, Abraham had encountered Yahweh [YAH-way] in the desert. JERUSALEM BURNS AND BLEEDS The Romans tolerated the Jewish faith because of its ancient roots, but the Romans rarely showed any real respect for the Jewish people. A new Roman ruler, a man named Florus, arrived in Judea in ad 64. For two years, Florus flagrantly insulted the Jews. When several Jewish leaders demanded that Florus stop stealing from the temple, Florus sent his soldiers into the market. Their orders? Slaughter and steal. Before the day ended, 3,600 Jews were dead. Emperor Nero knew that, to maintain his hold on this corner of the Roman Empire, it was necessary to stop the rebellion. He provided 60,000 soldiers to a Roman general named Vespasian. Vespasian’s mission was to regain the Galilean and Judean provinces at any cost. As Vespasian prepared to attack Jerusalem, he received an unexpected message: Nero had committed suicide. This provided Vespasian with a chance to seize the throne for himself. Vespasian did rule the Roman Empire, but he never forgot his previous task. As soon as his position was relatively secure, Vespasian sent an army to besiege Jerusalem. On August 5, ad 70, Jerusalem fell. Only one wall of the temple mount—a segment known today as the “Wailing Wall”—remained. Within a few years, every rebel stronghold had fallen to the Romans. The Jewish defenders of the final fortress —Masada, near the Dead Sea—chose mass- suicide instead of surrender. The revolt was over. After the revolt, the religious landscape of the Roman Empire shifted. Many people wanted to ensure they weren’t associated with odd religious sects. During the last half of the first- century AD, this shift would eventually lead to rejection and widespread persecution of Christians. After the death of Vespasian, his son Domitian became emperor. Previous emperors had waited until death to be declared divine. Domitian didn’t want to wait, though. He demanded the title “Lord and God” throughout his reign. Persecution continued even after a new emperor, Trajan, took the throne. Pliny, a governor in northern Asia Minor— the region now known as Turkey—wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan. Pliny described how he treated Christians. He gave alleged followers of Jesus three chances to recant. All who cursed Christ, he released. Roman citizens who refused to curse Christ went to Rome to await their trial. Common persons who refused to curse Christ were executed immediately.  Christians were even accused of “atheism,” because they rejected the reality of the Roman gods and goddesses CHRISTIAN APOLOGISTS In the mid-100s Christian scholars began to answer the charges that critics hurled at them. These scholars were called “APOLOGISTS”  One of the most famous apologists was Justin. Unlike some Christians, Justin embraced Greek philosophy. When forced to choose between Jesus and the Roman gods, the apologist chose Jesus without hesitation and apology. Around AD 165, he was beheaded for his faith. He soon became known as “Justin Martyr.” JUSTIN MARTYR Polycarp of Smyrna was a prominent pastor who had personally known John the apostolic elder. When several Christians were executed at the arena in Smyrna—a city in modern Turkey, known in modern times as Izmir— the crowd began to chant, “Away with the atheists! Find Polycarp!” “Eighty-six years, I have served Christ, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my king, the one who has saved me?” Polycarp was burned alive  WHY, THEN, DID PEOPLE CONTINUE TO BECOME CHRISTIANS, EVEN WHEN CHRISTIAN FAITH COULD COST THEM THEIR LIVES? CHRISTIANITY PROVIDED MORAL GUIDELINES By the mid-100s, the moral depravity of the ancient Roman Empire repulsed not only Jews and Christians but also many Gentiles who had never heard God’s moral law. These Gentiles received a title of respect from the Jewish people— “God-fearers”. CHRISTIANITY OFFERED EQUALITY AND RESPECT One pagan writer depicted the role of women in this way: “We have courtesans for pleasurable sex, young female slaves for day- by-day physical usage, and wives to produce legitimate children and to serve us faithfully by managing our houses.” CHRISTIANITY OFFERED EQUALITY AND RESPECT The church’s acceptance of women and slaves provided ammunition for many pagan writers who wanted to ridicule the Christian faith. Celsus, an anti- Christian writer, put it this way: “Because Christians admit that ignorant people are worthy of their God, Christians show that they want and can convert only foolish, dishonorable, stupid people, and only slaves, women, and little children.” WHY DID CHRISTIANS TREAT WOMEN WITH RESPECT? In the early church, Philip’s four daughters served as prophets (Acts 21:9). The apostle Paul may have referred to a woman named Junias as a person whom the apostles found to be noteworthy (Romans 16:7). Phoebe may have served as a deaconess in the early church. (The word translated “servant” in Romans 16:1 in many Bibles is the word rendered “deacon” in passages such as Philippians 1:1.) CHRISTIANITY OFFERED A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD Christians claimed to provide a pathway to direct fellowship with the divine realm. Yet Christianity offered more than fellowship with the divine. Christians claimed that they worshiped a deity who became flesh and whose life had intersected human history (John 1:14-18). This deity not only embraced human flesh but also experienced human suffering CHRISTIANITY OFFERED A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD The knowledge of Christ’s sufferings strengthened thousands of early martyrs. In the city of Lyon in the region known today as France, nearly fifty Christians died in one bloody massacre, during the early August festivities that celebrated the greatness of the Roman emperors. Pothinus the pastor of Lyon, now 92 years old, was tortured and imprisoned in a cell that was about the size of a small refrigerator. Two days after he was confined to his cell, Pothinus died The deacon Sanctus had red-hot plates of steel pressed against his groin before being placed on the rack. It was later said that, as death claimed Sanctus, it was seen that “NOTHING IS FEARFUL WHERE THE FATHER’S LOVE IS FOUND, AND NOTHING IS PAINFUL SO LONG AS THE GLORY OF CHRIST IS NEAR.” Others were tormented in the amphitheater to entertain the crowds. From dawn until evening, Blandina, a physically challenged slave, was tortured. Still, she refused to offer incense to the emperor. In the arena, Blandina’s tormentors hanged her naked body on a cross. Wild beasts were released to devour the girl, but they did not touch her. Blandina was stripped from the cross and scourged. Still refusing to offer incense, Blandina was thrown on a red-hot grill. Finally, a bull gored her twisted body and tossed her to the ground. There, she died. As fellow-Christians watched her, it was said that “they saw in the form of their sister”—an eyewitness recalled—“him who was crucified for them.” They glimpsed a reflection of the One who understood their sorrow “Despite of the sufferings in life, we should become more strengthened because Jesus ensured us that as long as we remain in him we will be with him at the end of time.”  “Ang tunay na nagmamahal ay nanatili sa hirap at sakit. Ang tunay na nagmamahal ay hindi nang-iiwan. Ang nagmamahal ay handang masaktan para sa kanyang minamahal.”  MANANATILI MAGMAMAHAL DAHIL ANG DIYOS AY HINDI NAGPAPAASA