How Did The Spread Of Early Christianity

Justin Martyr in his Second Apology dated AD 165 contends, Jesus Christ is the presence of God in the world. Justin addresses the hostility of his antagonists, by engaging and challenging their understanding. He boldly denounces their wrong and unfair treatment via exposing their accusations were in fact their practice. He discloses, the wicked would be punished in eternal fire and the just; those who accepted Jesus, would be brought healing through the Logos that was manifested in Jesus. He affirms Christians and discounts oppressors in this account in that those who followed Christ and became Christian would dwell with God free from suffering.

Justin Martyr answered the Romans objection to Christianity by writing his Apologies. Justin’s Apology 2 to the Romans shows how Christians make better citizens of Rome than do other Romans because of their reason and virtues. Justin gives a thorough discussion of Christian virtues of not being afraid to die and their truthful nature. And he also discusses their belief in the Logos as being Christ and that Christians are definitely not atheist he shows reasonable objections to the Roman’s beliefs concerning Christians.

The city of Antioch was founded around the end of the 4th century BC by one of Alexander the Great’s generals, in the southern part of where we now have modern day Turkey. Antioch was called “the cradle of Christianity” because of its long resulting and pivotal role it played in early Christianity. Antioch was a large city with a population of about 500,000 people. It began to decline during the Middle Ages due to war, earthquakes, and changes in trade routes. Antioch lies within the intersection of two major trade routes from the Mediterranean, in a plain near Antioch Lake. Early missionaries were attracted to Antioch because of the city’s large Jewish population. Amongst the early missionaries that visited Antioch were Peter first and later

Using Antioch as a starting place to proclaim the power of the Gospel, he began his first of three missionary journeys where he began his gentile mission. Paul’s purpose form that time forward was to bring the Gospel to all areas of the world and to open up the Church for everyone. Following this, when persecution started to become fierce, the leaders of the Christian community in Jerusalem made the decision to relocate to the City of Pella which was a gentile city. This provided yet another opportunity for the Gospel to be proclaimed, and as time progressed the Jewish church found itself in increasing isolation. Once converts became a part of the Christian movement the primary focus on Jewish law started to diminish, and the Gentile community within the Church started to grow. Around 135 CE leadership had passed into the hands of the Gentile Christians. The Law-observant Jews proved to be unexpectedly resistant to the Gospel and non- observant Gentiles proved to be unexpectedly receptive. The Jewish hierarchy’s rejection of this Christian sect pushed the Church into gentile territory thus aiding the shift from predominantly Jews to predominantly gentile. With this being said, it is clear that in the Early days of Christianity the gentile church was closely connected to the Jewish church that was in Jerusalem. Paul patterned the Gentile

Christianity began in 50 AD with Saint Paul, born Saul of Tarsus, located the southern region of Turkey.? Paul spent a majority of his active ministry traveling in Turkey, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ (3).? Antioch (now called Antakya) was an early center for Christianity and a place of Christian learning (4).?

In 51 AD after visiting Athens, St. Paul visited Corinth, a city founded in 700 BCE and an important location in the development of Christianity. When he was in Corinth, he set up a tent shop, and used it to talk about Christianity with travelers as they passed by and engaged in business. For 18 months, until 52AD, St. Paul used his business to spread the word and convert people to Christianity. When he was in Corinth, his message was focused on “how Jesus had come for all and there was a place in the Christian community for everyone who put their faith in the risen Lord” (Textbook Reference). This is supported in his 1st letter to the Corinthians, which states that " ...that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…"(1 Corinthians 15:3-4 NRSVCE). Consequently, Corinth was significant in the life of the early church because it was a city of trade and culture. Therefore, Christianity spread faster and more people converted because there were no strict traditions, making it a significant location in the early development of Christianity.

Christianity was still quite young at the time Paul wrote to Philemon and was faced with much opposition. The Church existed as local bodies of believers, meeting primarily in homes because there were no church buildings for worship. Persecution of the Church was prevalent and their survival depended heavily on dependence on one another and unity. Many misconceptions and even blatant lies

Now in considering these earlier formed communities of Christians, we realize that, the evangelist and preachers to these communities used and borrowed the language of the people to communicate to them. Speaking in the language and context of the audience made it very possible to communicate the person of Jesus and his saving works to such communities. I see this approach of evangelization of the early apostles as very instrumental in conveying the Gospel message. That is why I think by proposing a Christology like mine my target community would really come to grasp to a better extent the identity and mission of Jesus. From the mentality and life situation of these communities the apostles were able to borrow ideas, and basic elements which

Modern Scholars agree that there was a man named Jesus who was crucified and had a following of followers known as Christians that continued to pursue His teachings. It is a historical fact that followers of Jesus Christ existed in various places in the Roman Empire. It is also fact that various Christian churches and Christian communities were established in the mid-1st Century. It is hard to rationalize that over 40 churches came into existence in the mid-1st Century from the belief of a man sent from God, who performed mighty works, if that man didn’t exist.

It's no question that Jesus played the biggest part in the forming of Christianity. The question is how much of Christianity is based off of his teachings? For starters, there are a lot of his teachings that are not used in modern day. Christianity is built off of a whole lot. Namely the Pharisee tradition of Judaism and all that comes with it (the old testament, the concept of heaven/hell, the resurrection, the devil, etc). Furthermore, Christianity is not based solely off of the teachings of Jesus per say, rather it is based off of the story. Namely the crucifixion and resurrection. As far as how we should live, we get a lot of that from Jesus, Paul, John, Peter, and the early church. Unfortunately, denominations, churches, and theologies tend to give principals and rules rather than equip the average believer to actually walk with and know God. As far as doctrines such as the trinity, and general Christology we get this very much from the early Church. So ultimately you have the Old Testament through the lens of the Pharisee's, the life of Christ, the teachings and histories in the new testament, and then the doctrines found to be truth by the early Christians.

Justin Martyr was a very important Greek philosopher-Apologist in early Christianity and one of the three pro-philosophical Fathers. In Justin’s early years he moved to Rome where he became a teacher and a writer. He taught philosophy and taught it as the true philosophy due to the influence of an old man that made him see philosophy in a new perspective. During the days that he was a teacher, public preaching was very dangerous so he had held private lectures for people that wanted to learn about Christianity. He was passionate when it came to defending the Christian faith against Jews, Pagans, Heretics, etc. Justin along with other Christian believers were arrested for their faith and they had refused to sacrifice to the Roman Gods so ultimately

The early Church had the joy of a young child. Like young children, the people of the Church proclaimed the good news to all. They told everyone that would hear them in places of the public such as in forums. Many, being made aware of the gospel and being confronted with people who had been living the life of a Christian, had a change of heart and were converted.

The church is the bride of Christ. Scripture tells us “These are those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their personal savior and have received eternal life. In the New Testament, Christ, the Bridegroom, has sacrificially and lovingly chosen the church to be His bride” This is something to not be taken lightly; in fact this is a very serious matter. Scripture tells us that the church is the institution that God desired to use to reach the world to himself. In Matthew chapter 28 Jesus tells his disciples to “go and make disciples.” It is interesting that Jesus left it up to mere man to continue the message of the gospel. Jesus could have advanced the church in anyway that He wanted to, and yet he chose man to spread the news. The book of acts is full of these incredible stories of how Jesus followers carried out their mission. I am writing this paper on this topic today because of the success of Jesus followers in the early church. Through much persecution, tribulation, and trials, they were successful. The reality is, this is not something to be taken lightly, but something that is incredibly critical and applicable in the culture in which we live. We live in a very unique culture and Leonard Sweet, in the book “The Church in Emerging Culture” states, “of course the problem of how Christians relate with culture is as old as Christianity itself. The New Testament makes it clear that there were sharp difference of opinion in the first century over how to

Historically churches started from the Ark of the Covenant that was developed into a bigger temple and there came synagogues that were used as place for Jesus to worship and study God. After the generation times of synagogues, disciples went of Israel to share the good news of Gospel. The Barbaric tribes in Europe were the first Born-Again Christian in the west. There was a rapid spread of Christianity all over the world because of the colonization from the European countries, such as Spain and England.

Over 40 communities were established by the year 100,many in Anatolia , also known as Asia Minor, such as the seven churches of Asia. By the end of the first century, Christianity had already spread to Rome,India, and major cities in armenia, Greece and syria, serving as foundations for the mass spread of Christianity, eventually throughout the world.