Skip to main content

The New Testament Period: Historical Friday

Today marks the beginning of a long series over viewing the history of Christianity. With all the things we've been discussing, I feel that it is important that we all have a basic framework to reference. Today's section, the New Testament period, is one most already are pretty familiar with. Since that is the case, allow me to briefly describe how this will work.

Each time period will have three sections; a brief overarching history, important events, and important people. From time to time we will take a break from the usual big picture pieces in order to focus on particular events or people that are very important. Overall these may be a little longer than normal since there is so much ground to cover.

So today we begin with the New Testament period. This is basically the first century AD; the time of Christ and the Apostles. This blog will be shorter than most since we are familiar with this period from the New Testament.

Brief History

The story of Christianity really begins with the Ascension of Jesus Christ and the day of Pentecost. This is when the first disciples of Christ began to spread the word of Jesus' resurrection and begin converting people specifically to Jesus. 

From the day of Pentecost going forward, Christianity spread like wildfire throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. At first the Roman government considered it a new branch of Judaism, which was legal in the Empire. After a while they began to realize that this was something new altogether and began to specifically target Christians. 

Important Events

I am going to list a few of the big ones, but if you read your New Testament you will find a lot more.

The Day of Pentecost - when the Holy Spirit filled the believers and gave them the courage and ability to spread the message of Jesus.

Paul's Missionary Journeys - this spread Christianity to much of the Roman world.

The Death of Peter and Paul - this was significant since both of these men were looked up to as leaders in the church. They both died in Rome around the same time.

John's Vision on Patmos - what was recorded as the book of Revelation. This is the last book of the Bible to be written.

Important People

Again I will list a few, but read the New Testament to learn more.

Jesus - this goes without saying. None of this would have happened without Jesus. He is the king and ruler of all things. 

Peter - the main preacher at Pentecost, Apostle to the Jews, and the first to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles.

Paul - the Apostle to the Gentiles and author of most of the New Testament.

Nero - the first Roman Emperor to legalize persecution of Christians.

John - the last Apostle living. Wrote the Gospel of John, the letters of John, and Revelation.

Conclusion

This is all pretty much laid out for us in the New Testament. We typically know this history pretty well, but we don't always know what comes after. This is the format I will be using. Future blogs will have more detail. This one, again, we already know these people and events relatively well.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Be Kind

This last Sunday I was asked to preach and I struggled for a while with what to preach on. It's always difficult when you are filling in and everyone else knows you are filling in. You don't want to overlap too much with the current sermon series, but you also don't want your topic to be so unrelated to what's been going on that it has no impact.  I found inspiration simply from scrolling on Facebook. People, and it seems especially Christians, are mean.  Now of course not all Christians are rude and combative, but there are a shocking number who are. We argue in Facebook comments, send hateful messages, and generally act just like the world. This extends beyond the realm of social media and into our day-to-day interactions with so many. The Sunday lunch crowd at restaurants is infamously the worst tipping and most disrespectful, and these are mostly Christians who have just come from church. We need to be kind. Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit, but it is one we often ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Justice

Our view of justice is narrow and limited. Typically when we, as Christians, talk about justice we are really only referring to punishing wrongdoers for their crimes. While that is certainly a part of justice that isn't the only thing. In the Bible justice consists of much more. Consider the book of Amos, one of the minor prophets and therefore a book that most Christians barely touch. Amos is announcing judgment against the nation of Israel for their infidelity to their covenant with God. What do you think is the most repeated indictment against Israel? Interestingly it's not idolatry, sexual immorality, or war although these things are mentioned. The primary sin of in Amos is Israel's neglect of the poor and their oppression of the needy. Over and over again Amos declares that judgment is coming to Israel because of their treatment of those less fortunate. The poor are trampled and the needy are crushed. There is no justice in the land. Biblical justice includes both crim...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jesus or Nothing

"Non Nisse Te Domine." - Thomas Aquinas I have the above quote engraved on the bottom of a watch that my father gave me several years ago. It means "Nothing if not you, Lord." Thomas Aquinas, 13th century monk and one of the most influential theologians and philosophers in all of history, said this after having a vision of Jesus. Reportedly Christ appeared to him and said "You have written well of me, Thomas. What what you have as a reward?" "Non nisse te Domine," was the response. After that, even though Thomas had dedicated his life to writing theology and was in the middle of writing his massive Summa Theologia, Thomas stopped writing. He said it was because all he had written, tomes and tomes of brilliant work, were as straw compared to seeing the actual Lord. Whatever you may think about such a mystical event, I personally believe it happened but I understand the more skeptical among us, the response of Thomas is what matters. When asked for...
Post a Comment
Read more