In an earlier post I reflected on how the earliest groups of Christians built community and stayed in touch with one another despite the challenges of communication in the ancient world. In this post I will address the diversity we encounter in those earliest churches.
Obviously, the "first" Christians were the Jews who had known Jesus personally and those who joined the movement on the basis of their testimony. Unfortunately, we know precious little about those first Palestinian Christians. As a result, this post involves those earliest churches that formed in prominent cities around the eastern Mediterranean. These cities provided hubs for travel and new ideas. Many contained decent-sized Jewish communities. Those factors proved helpful to the Jesus movement's expansion.
Though bound by common languages and by Roman imperial commerce and culture, these cities varied in significant ways, as did the churches. We do not know how the great church in Rome began, but our best evidence suggests that the church started among Jews and eventually was dominated by Gentiles. Paul's letter to the Romans implies that several churches gathered in various homes throughout the city. On the other hand, Paul's first epistle to Thessalonica reflects an entirely Gentile congregation. Perhaps his letters to Corinth do as well. Relationships between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus pose a significant challenge in some of Paul's letters, but not in others.
People used to assume that Christianity flourished only among the poor. First Corinthians 1:26 -- "not many among you were wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many well-born" -- still influences how many imagine the first Christians. However, Paul's words actually describe the population in general, in which not many did enjoy education, wealth, power, or status. Economic historians still debate just how many people lived in poverty in the ancient world and what such poverty entailed. The ancient Mediterranean included very few people who were fabulously rich, others who depended upon those wealthy persons, some relatively prosperous merchants and tradespersons, and masses of people who lived just above or below subsistence level. Slaves also constituted a significant portion of the population, perhaps between one-third to one-half the population of some major cities.
Our primary sources suggest that the early churches included just that sort of mix. For example, in 1 Corinthians 11:17-22 Paul describes church gatherings in Corinth. Some eat and get drunk while others go away hungry. Paul's contempt burns against the prosperous members of the church: "Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?" The epistle of James likewise addresses tensions between rich and poor Christians (2:1-9). Meanwhile, the book of Revelation describes the church in Smyrna as poor (2:9) but the church in Laodicea as rich (3:17-18). Indeed, later Christian apocalypses such as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Ascension of Isaiah complain against wealthy believers who do not care for the poor in their midst.
Paul's letters also address both slaves and slaveholders. His epistle to Philemon apparently encourages a slaveholder to accept his (runaway?) slave Onesimus with kindness. Interpreters continue to debate whether or not Paul is calling Philemon to grant Onesimus his freedom. (We do know that some later Christian communities did purchase the freedom of slaves.) And in 1 Corinthians 7:21-24 Paul advises slaves to grab their freedom if they can get it. (Pay attention to how various translations handle 1 Corinthians 7:21!)
The churches in Paul's circle of influence almost surely included some persons of means. For one thing, Paul depends upon "patrons" like Phoebe (Romans 16:1) and potential donors in Rome to send him along in his journeys. And what about Chloe, who had "people" who could communicate with Paul on her behalf (1 Corinthians 1:11), or Erastus, the city treasurer of Corinth (Romans 16:23)? We also find that some Christians resented not being invited to support Paul (see 1 Corinthians 9), suggesting that they could afford to make contributions. Paul's well-known attempts to raise funds for poor believers in Jerusalem also suggest disposable income among some Christian communities. Surely the churches included persons of varying means.
An early church meeting must have been a wild scene. Many churches included Jews and Gentiles who were figuring out how to build community together. Almost all churches included masters and their own slaves, the rich and the destitute, tradespersons and menial laborers. We ought not romanticize the movement, as if sunshine and lollipops attended their every gathering. Indeed, the signs of conflict leap off the pages of various ancient documents. Nevertheless, the movement appealed to and gathered an extraordinarily wide range of people.
In a third and final post I'll explore the contributions of women to the earliest churches.
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From Jesus To Christ - The First Christians | FRONTLINE | PBS
The First Christians | From Jesus To Christ - The First Christians ...
From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians (Pt. 1) | FRONTLINE | PBS ...
Jesus represents the constellation or zodiac sign of Pisces. When one understands that the bible is a metaphor, not literal truth, then they can begin to understand the bible in the way that it was originally written.
Here are some good resources
http://thedivineeye.net/the-eye/awakening-of-aquarius-the-new-christianity
http://www.christianism.com/
http://www.crystalinks.com
Why?
Because, if you do not think that there was a very profound change in Eve after she fell, so drastic a change that she must be under subjection lest she destroy the wold world, then you haven't been reading your Bible.
As Rome was the seat of the occupying power oppressing Judea and all other Jewish populated regions, there was not a large community of Jewish there freely. So indeed the original churches in Rome were populated by gentile. As for the Roman Church, it was the split of the larger early Christian Church, when the conflicts between an infusion of local practices began to take hold. It actually was a three way split, Roman, Greek, and then what was left of the Christian, or Christ followers. to wit came the Roman Catholic, the Greek Orthodox powerhouses.
Maybe Jesus was reteaching the Laws that were slowly being twist spin and lost? Exactly what God forewarns all not to do, take on the man made rituals practices of other Nations around them? May be Jesus was reteaching what was sadly being lost,? Maybe Jesus his preaching to all to return to the religion of his forefathers, which Jesus being Jewish continue to fully obey and observe ? Maybe Jesus did not come at all to start a new religion, but return to the faith and belief system practices of Abraham, and all the faith who followed after. Maybe Jesus whole message was to reteach that which was slowly beginning to replace what God sent forth right in the beginning? They did not call themselves Christians did they, why one will never find any existence of Christians.Who they today what to even be called Christians or would they even accept it? Just asking
All that is missing is in watching carefully how Paul..with a tone almost boardering on comtempt..uses the phrases "weak and beggarly"..."Elemental principles of the world" in asserting that ALL Rituals, whether they be Pagan or Jewish, which up to that point in History, such often lawful practices as animal sacrifices offered in a temple, were acting or serving as a substitute to make contact with the Living God, as there was no other means to do so.
But, now with Jesus having given His life as an atonement for our sins, a "New and Living way" had been provided by the graciousness of the Father, that we may "come boldly to the throne of God" and to directly make contact with God through the Holy Spirit..within our own spirits!!
That all rituals Laws of Judaism has been cast aside, for this direct contact with the Father through Christ, is not only the whole thrust of the Pauline Epistles, but they constitute every argument Paul mounts against the Judaisers: that there is no middle wall of petition, which is now standing between us the believers in Christ, and God the Father.
This free and untrameled access to God the Father, is the very definition of Christianity!
Christian is defined as Christ follower, or imitator of Christ .. and that is how the term was used.
Christ came not to abolish, but to fulfill every commandment, every law which man could not, would not bring himself to obey. So, then by following Christs lead, accepting His complete fulfillment in our stead... we may then go to the Creator, the Father, the I AM. And this is no longer done via ritualistic event, through human proxy as it once was in the old Law... you so correctly identify that it is via Christ, and then with the Great Teacher, The Holy Spirit; alive with in our own beings, communicating with our own spirit that we may know and follow the True Living Word... Jesus Christ.
Precious little? How about absolutely NOTHING. That's right NOTHING.
Do you know why? Because there isn't a single shred of evidence of any "grassroots" Christian "church" in existence.
Do the research, for hundreds of years Historians and biblical scholars have studied every single scroll, book, or scrap of writing from the four middle eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and there isn't a single corroborating piece of real historical writing that confirms the existence of Christians before about 220 CE. For the mentally challenged that is almost 200 years after the crucifixion, assuming that even happened.
You owe it to yourself to not take anyone's word for this kind of nonsense, no matter the authority that they claim to have on such matters.
Lucian of Samosata
The Christians . . . worship a man to this day--the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . . . [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.{27}
The Babylonian Talmud
On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald . . . cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy."{21}
Josephus
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he . . . wrought surprising feats. . . . He was the Christ. When Pilate . . .condemned him to be crucified, those who had . . . come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared . . . restored to life. . . . And the tribe of Christians . . . has . . . not disappeared.{17}
That Josephus WOULDN'T mention Jesus is not, in itself, surprising. There were half a dozen known "Messiahs" wandering Palestine in the early 1st century. Jesus himself, his life and death, and the post-crucifixion "movement" would have been obscure and known to relatively few people at the time Josephus wrote "The Jewish Wars"
I don't ever recall reading about Palestinian Christians in the Bible.
This recap only reveals that the focus on money by the Church has a long history that is alive and well in the third millennium.
Love was the main theme of Christ’s teachings. He knew that all of God’s requirements could be summed up in the two greatest commandments, & he therefore said: “‘You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart & with your whole soul & with your whole mind.’ This is the greatest & first commandment. The second, like it, is this, ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Matthew 22:37-40) “All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must likewise do to them; this, in fact, is what the Law & the Prophets mean.” (Matthew 7:12) Christ excelled in teaching the way of love. Both by word & by deed, he acquainted others with the love that is shown by self-sacrifice.
Christ’s teachings were not in opposition to the Torah. He said: “Do not think I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I came, not to destroy, but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17) Not only did he fulfill the letter of the Law but he also fulfilled the spirit behind it.
So, the Church formed around the disciples who went out and preached according to what they thought they knew . . Peter was a hot head who carried a lot of guilt but covered it up by performing good works . .a theme which resonates to this day . . .