(2001 James O. Richards All Rights Reserved.)
Christianity
as a Basis for
Outline of Lecture
1. Introduction: Christianity as a New Culture with Distinctive Beliefs, Values, and Ideals
2. Frame of Reference: Christianity from Judaic Beginnings to 200 A.D.
3. Revelation and Jesus Christ: A New View of God
4. Revelation and the Uniqueness and Worth of Man
5. Revelation and the World
6. The Coming Kingdom of Heaven and the Future
7. The Coming Kingdom and Society
8. Conclusion
Introduction
Christianity became the unifying center of a new culture, mingling elements of the Judaic and classical views into a new outlook on human nature and destiny, the world, and the character and purpose of God. Unlike other views to which people turned in the empire, Christianity made an appeal to all social classes. It said much which had been said before--reasserting many tenets of Judaism, borrowing heavily from classical thought to argue and explain its own beliefs, and adopting many features of Judaism and Roman government for its own worship and organization. At the same time, Christians proclaimed radically new beliefs which transformed all those borrowed elements into a new world view:
(1) Jesus, the Christ, or anointed one, fully God and fully man, had
voluntarily suffered, died and risen to free men and women from the limitations
of their nature and the defects of the natural world and to give them eternal
life as unique persons;
(2) by his sacrificial life and death he had ushered in a new age, the
Coming Kingdom of Heaven, and established a radical new ethic affecting all of
life;
(3) the future as well as the past assumed new significance as mankind
awaited and joined in achieving the coming kingdom both in this world and the
next;
(4) empowered by their newfound freedom and worth as God's own, human beings
had a powerful ethical basis for living which infused all social relations and
human activities.
?
1. Put those statements above in your own words. Don't use
mine. Do they sound different in your own words?
2. Are the statements above or your own phrasing of them an accurate
version of what Christianity represented (represents)?
3. Fully God and fully man? What does that mean? Does that
statement alone define Christianity?
It is perhaps even more difficult to be objective about Christianity than
Judaism, since it has had a greater, more direct influence on the values and
ideals of
Frame of Reference:
Christianity from Judaic Beginnings to 200 A.D.
Christianity sprouted from the soil of Judaism. The central figure of the
new faith and cult was a Jew, as were the leading figures and earliest
adherents who saw Jesus of Nazareth as the fulfillment of their faith rather
than the founder of a new one. So we must look briefly to Judaism of the mid-sixth to
the first centuries B.C., if we are to understand the beginnings of
Christianity. As Jews after the Restoration (540 B.C.) spread to all the cities
of the eastern
?
1. Are you shocked by the statement that Jesus was a Jew? Or that
the first Christians were Jews?
2. Given those facts, can you explain why some Christians have been
anti-Semitic?
Despite domination by
Another new belief in Judaism was the ideal of individual and communitarian withdrawal from society. Perhaps because of the experience of the Exile, some Jews concluded that those who truly wished to receive the promise of God had to live separate lives, either spiritually or literally in separate communities. Typical of this tendency was the sect of Essenes whose beliefs and practices foreshadowed many of those of early Christianity. They believed in God's Final Judgment and the necessity of living expectantly for that day in communal fashion. They practiced a ritual cleansing as initiation into the community, and observed a special communal meal as a token of spiritual unity.
A third new belief in Judaism was the hope of an afterlife. From the Mosaic period down to the second century B.C. Jews had almost nothing to say about the afterlife. Although they proclaimed that God, a transcendent deity who was himself eternal, had created man in his own image, they did not follow this thought into a pronouncement of the eternal quality of man himself, leaving the afterlife to God.(1) Suddenly about 175 B.C., Daniel 12:2 asserted that some would survive death in a new turn in Judaic thought about the afterlife. The Pharisees were the most fervent believers in the immortality of the soul and an afterlife in which God punished the wicked and rewarded the righteous. Sadducees continued to reject the idea whether by resurrection or through immortality. Thus Jews were debating the afterlife by the time of Jesus even if they were not in agreement about it.
Thus the vision of Messianism, the movement towards withdrawal and a belief in an afterlife influenced the beginning of Christianity. In this sense the early Christian believers were correct when they said that the Messiah or Christ had come in the "fullness of time." In a time of tension created by Roman rule and of expectancy in Judaism, the central figure of the new faith was born.
Early Christians who preserved Jesus' teachings did not pay much attention
to details of his life (including
his physical appearance), focusing rather on his message and his death and
resurrection. However, some details are apparent in, and other things may be
inferred from, the accounts of the early believers which survive in the gospels
of the New Testament. Jesus (or
Jeshua, "savior") was born around 4 B.C. Until adulthood his life was
unremarkable. His father was a village artisan in
Jesus' teachings defy quick summary. There is a strong streak of the radical as well as the traditional in what he taught. He claimed to fulfill Jewish law in his message and actions and yet he also dissented from all legalism. The complexities and paradoxes of his message meant that there was always in Christianity a tension between what Jesus actually taught and what Christians at any time believed about him. For example, his teachings were later used by reformers and religious revolutionaries to challenge traditions and authority. And yet traditional authorities would cite him in defense of the status quo. These paradoxes and incongruities were to prevent Christianity from hardening into any system which could not renew itself. Christians who felt that the faith was straying from its true source and dissented from the accepted version could appeal to Jesus' teachings as the true well of faith and justify their beliefs. The result was that Christianity maintained a dynamic spirit which, despite all the failures to achieve its aims, prolonged its influence into modern times.
?
1. Are you offended by the statement that Jesus taught radical
beliefs? Or that his teachings were paradoxical? (Meaning
that they contained seeming contradictions.)
2. Does this explain to your satisfaction why Jesus’ teachings could be
used both to conserve tradition and to reject it?
3. What do you make of the recorded statement that Jesus spoke Aramaic to Paul
in the famous encounter on the
Central in Jesus' teaching was the concept of the Coming Kingdom (Mark
Although a summary of Jesus' teachings implies that they were delivered in an organized formal manner, this was not the case. He taught not in lectures or philosophic dialogues with the disciples, but in imperative declarations and in remarkable stories or parables which had the effect of seizing the attention, instantly illuminating the deeper truth at stake, and reaching his hearers at a deeper emotional level than a formal statement of definitions and philosophic reasoning. These parables continue to fascinate even modern readers who do not share the faith behind them. In Jesus' day the effect, combined with his personality, was undoubtedly powerful.
After approximately three years of teaching and performing miracles (mainly
for the benefit of others rather than his own advantage), Jesus ran afoul of
both Jewish and Roman authorities who thought his teaching about the Kingdom
was seditious and crucified him
with other criminals about 30 A.D. Early Christians believed, however, that he
rose from the dead and appeared to many of his
disciples in a recognizable, solid body with real wounds. Thereafter, they
believed, he ascended to heaven where he continued to commune with and sustain
them until his return to reign over God's new kingdom. This was the center of
the faith of his disciples: that Jesus had been raised by God as a sign of
the
The stories of his resurrection and appearances convinced his followers that
the end of history and the beginning of God's Kingdom were imminent and
inspired them to spread the new faith beyond
In his own person, Paul symbolized the tension between Jewish and Hellenistic Roman influences which Christianity faced. Born a Jew (c. 10 A.D.), he also was a Roman citizen through his father; he spoke Greek, knew Hebrew and possessed a thorough acquaintance with both traditions. He was easily the most educated and cosmopolitan of the early leaders of the faith. He first appeared about five years after the crucifixion as a fanatic defender of Judaism against the new believers. While engaged in this mission, he had a blinding vision, as he explained it, in which Jesus identified himself as the Son of God and Messiah whose followers Paul was persecuting. Shortly thereafter Paul became as indefatigable in spreading the new faith as he had once been in stamping it out.
Paul's influence on Christianity was profound: by creating a broader
theology than envisioned by Jewish Christians and by organizing numerous groups
of Gentile believers, he cut free the new faith from its Jewish moorings and
enabled it to push off by itself in the empire. His theology developed out of
his attempt to explain his own experience and that of non-Jews with the Christ.
For whom did the Messiah die? Jews alone? Was it
necessary that Christians become Jews and keep the laws and rituals? What was
required to please God? As Paul answered these questions, he veered ever more
sharply away from Judaism and the leadership of Jewish Christians and toward a
new understanding of God and a more nearly universal faith. The leaders of the
Paul's theology and sense of urgency about the end of time impelled him to
spread and organize the new faith. As he traveled on his grueling and dangerous
missionary
trips, he formed his converts into a new group or added them to an existing
congregation (ekklesia, from assembly or gathering), which usually met
in a home. In letters which became part of the sacred writings of the new
faith, he watched the development of these churches and exhorted them when they
had problems or needed encouragement. His permanent affect on Christianity was
that, by the authority of his teachings and letters, he led the churches he
founded away from Jewish Christianity. Paul's followers did not abandon their
Jewish brethren; they sent money to
After Paul's death the church continued to gain new converts in the cities
of the empire, the very centers through which Eternal Rome was thought by
imperial apologists to express itself. The organization varied here and there
according to local circumstances, but a formal structure did not hold believers
together yet. The binding element was still the faith in Jesus the Christ and
certain common practices. However, perhaps as early as 100 and certainly by 150
many Christians no longer believed in the imminence of the
Eventually, the simple formula of faith in God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost developed into an unequivocal, detailed creed or confession of faith. God is the maker of heaven and earth; matter is not evil. God the Son was incarnated in human flesh; the body is not evil. Jesus did suffer and die; the figure on the cross was not an apparition. Salvation is not liberation from the physical body; the resurrected receive a new body. Salvation comes through forgiveness of sins and the work of God in the holy catholic church, not through secret knowledge (from Greek gnosis, knowledge) or punishment of the body. This statement was made in public confession similar to that found in the Apostles' Creed (traditionally dated from the first century) or the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.).(2) By thus proclaiming their beliefs Christians committed themselves to the true faith, avoided the defiling effects of the mystery cults, and resisted the worst tendencies of the classical philosophies and Christian heresies.
Having confessed the faith, how were new converts to be instructed in it? At first they learned by hearing and memorizing the sayings of Jesus which were remembered by the disciples and passed with variations in detail from believer to believer. Paul composed the first written instructions (45-62 A.D.) for Christians in letters to specific churches which were circulated among other congregations. Between 65 and 150 other documents were written which were believed to be authoritative and authentic, i.e., written under the inspiration of the Spirit. These were letters, ascribed either to Paul or another of the Apostles, Acts, a history of the early church, Revelation, an apocalyptic vision of the triumph of Christ, and accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus called gospels (from Greek evangelion, good news). Three of these gospels--ascribed to Mark, Matthew and Luke,-- were remarkably similar although originating at different times and in different Christian communities from 70-90 A.D. A fourth, the gospel of John, appeared slightly later and differed from the others in that it focused explicitly on the incarnation--the Word of God made flesh--and presented Jesus forthrightly as the Christ, the Son of God. By 200 A.D. Christians essentially agreed that these documents constituted a "New" Testament , which along with the Judaic writings or Old Testament were believed to be authoritative. The first list of the New Testament canon of twenty-seven writings appeared in 367.
Christians also came to agree that two rites--baptism and the Lord's Supper--had a special place in their faith and worship. Called sacraments (from Latin sacramentum, a military recruit's oath), they were considered to be special signs of God's grace conferred upon believers. Baptism cleansed the believer prior to full church membership. Mystery cults practiced this rite; so did the Jewish sect, the Essenes. Jesus himself had been baptized and Christians believed that they should be too as a sign of their death to sin and their resurrection to new life in the faith. Early Christians could not agree whether baptism should be performed on infants, undertaken at conversion, or at the point of death after sinning was finished and practiced all three forms. A second sacrament uniting Christians was the Lord's Supper or Eucharist, which Jesus, it was believed, had instituted. Therefore, when Christians met, after they had sung hymns, read the Scriptures, and heard an explanation of the reading or a sermon, they shared a common meal, or agape (from agape, love), at the conclusion of which they blessed and partook of bread and wine together, sharing the spirit of Christ, remembering his sacrifice for their sins, and showing their unity as believers. Neither the rite of baptism nor communion was for the casual hanger-on. Only the committed participated. What these rites actually meant to early believers is not clear. By the time the church pronounced the sacraments as dogma, they were thought to have special efficacy and not just commemorations of Jesus' practices.
The leaders and structures of the church varied from congregation to
congregation, In some churches leaders were called
elders (from presbyteros, elder; in English, priest); in others, bishops
(from episkopos, overseer; in English, bishop). By 100 A.D. bishops were
preeminent among the elders because of special gifts as teachers or spiritual
leaders. It was also argued that bishops had been designated as successors to
the Apostles and thus deserved greater authority. As they designated their
successors and ordained others to serve as leaders in the churches, bishops
gained enormous power. It was they, for example, who controlled the worship of
the church by possessing alone the authority to administer the rite of baptism
and by ordaining those who administered the sacrament of communion. By 150 the
Roman bishop was regarded as foremost over the others because
The next chapter will take up the development of Christianity after 200 and
its relations with the empire and classical culture. Before that we need to
consider the major elements of the Christian faith before 200. This discussion
may seem to assume that these beliefs and values were static in the first two
centuries. Such was not the case; we may infer from certain activities of the
Church undeclared but unmistakable change by 200. Yet there was an abiding core
to the Christian faith which the following pages state. With this caution in
mind, what were the major tenets of early Christianity?
Revelation and Jesus Christ: A New View of God
The Christian view of God began with the Judaic affirmations. God is
transcendent, essentially other than man or the world, and yet at the same time
he is a personality who freely chose to reveal himself.
He disclosed himself not as a remote abstraction, but as an ethical personality
who acted in historical events to bring about his purpose for man and the
world. God who was unlimited by anything outside himself had inexplicably
decided to limit himself by choosing the children of
These tenets were also much of the substance of the Christian view of God, but there was more to it for them. Christians declared that the fullest revelation of God had occurred in the person of Jesus Christ; indeed, that Jesus was God. They were not taught this directly by Jesus. Indeed, he usually referred to himself as the Son of Man, not the Son of God or the Christ, and often seemed to want to play down his identity. When his disciple, Peter, made the ringing declaration "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God", Jesus acknowledged the significance of Peter's intuition, but charged him and the others that "they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ."(3) Christians believed in Jesus' divinity because they believed the stories of his resurrection and appearance to the disciples. Thereafter, they were emphatic that he was the Son of God who had become fully human being while remaining fully God.
This belief set Christians immediately at odds with Judaism. The idea that
Jesus could be the Messiah was not anathema in itself to Jews, but the claim
that Jesus the Messiah was God himself was the height of blasphemy. The Messiah
would be a great leader sent by God to deliver
The sonship of Jesus also led to another new understanding of God: he is a Father. This image was not unknown in the Old Testament (Hosea 11:1). Jesus, however, emphasized it by frequently using the term Father (Aramaic, Abba) to refer to God and by teaching the disciples to pray using the phrase "Our Father" (Luke 11:2). In the well-known conversation with Nicodemus, the Pharisee leader, Jesus summed up the father imagery best when he said that God had "so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."(5) Paul used the term often to convey the unique relationship which God had with those who believed in him: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, 'Abba, Father!' it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ...."(6)
In the life and sacrifice of Jesus, Christians saw another facet of God: the all-powerful maker of heaven and earth was also humble and lowly. He assumed human form as a simple craftsman. He lived an ordinary life, enjoying the company of outcasts and sinners rather than the respectable and powerful. He died the most ignominious death on humanity's behalf. His resurrection by God was a sure sign that all men who believed in him, regardless of status or wealth, would also enjoy eternal life.
Christianity thus posited a view of God which was at once old and new. It was Judaic in origin and yet radically different. It was also a mysterious combination of contradictory elements: transcendence and lowliness; miraculous power and humility; divinity and humanity. How did one grasp the meaning of the mystery of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ? By accepting it on faith (acknowledging it, believing in it), not by thinking it through in logical terms. Paul summed it up as a logical contradiction: "...the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God... For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."(7)
?
1. To believe in the Christian affirmations about God one has to reject
at least one of the Jewish affirmations: God is one.
Agreed? What are the implications? Is the Old Testament
passage "Hear Oh
2. The ancient world's gods did not die for human beings. That was
irrational, nonsensical. Where did Christians get the idea?
3. Do you remember
David Koresh (1993,
Revelation and the Uniqueness and Worth of Man
The revelation of God in Christ issued in a vision of the worth and potentiality of mankind which again borrowed much from Judaism but contained new elements as well. Christians believed in the same paradoxical quality of man: created last as the finest of God's creation, man was only a little lower than God himself, and yet sinful as well. On the one hand, man enjoyed special status as the ultimate reason for creation. On the other, he sinned and alienated himself from God by freely choosing his own goals rather than God's. Thus, sin occurred because of the essential quality of man himself, his freedom of will. Man was not a pure spirit contaminated by the material or physical world which imprisoned the spirit and drew it downward into sin. God had created both man and the world; both were good in themselves.
Christianity gave sharper focus to the unique moral worth of the individual. In his ethical teachings, Jesus emphasized that God who knew and cared about even the least of his creatures cared even more for the individual human being: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."(8) He seemed to have a special feeling for the lowly and powerless, for those he called "the poor in spirit", the "meek" and "those who mourn."(9) In his choice of companions Jesus seemed to prefer ordinary workers and tradesmen, the poor and the outcasts, valuing those who had no stake in society more highly than the leaders and the intelligentsia. He gave a new dignity to the lowly when he said that anyone who wanted to be first in the Kingdom must be last, and servant of all. The Kingdom, he said, belonged to those who had the faith of little children; the wealthy and the privileged would find it almost impossible to attain the kingdom. Paul also asserted the essential equality and worth of all since Christ had died to redeem all: "For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."(10) (See also 1 Corinthians 11: 11-12 for another Pauline statement of male-female equality before God.) Here is the germ of the concept of the universal brotherhood of human beings. If God is the Father of all who believe, then all are brothers, regardless of nationality, sex or class.
?
1. Do you agree with the assertion that Christianity gave sharper focus
to the unique worth of the individual? Why? Why not?
2. What about the idea of the universal brotherhood of human
beings? If this comes from Christianity and Judaism, can an atheist
believe in this concept?
While teaching the spiritual worth of all, however, Christians hurriedly went on to say that men still needed regeneration. Jesus and Paul preached that the coming of the kingdom would see the transformation of human beings into new personalities living by new values. Human nature would be perfected and its potentiality fully realized by the power of love--God's love for man as Father and man's love for fellow man as brother. Thus man would be made new by God's help, not by political action or by taking thought, but by moral regeneration, and would be free to live as God had intended.
?
1. Here we are again at the two programs for the betterment of man:
the ancient Greco-Roman belief that political life or social influence shapes man
for the better; and the Judaic-Christian belief that man is elevated only by
inner moral transformation, coming from a higher religious power into the human
personality and remaking it in the image of God. Which is correct?
2. When we were talking about the Hebrews and Greeks, I asked you to compare their ideals of the Good Life. The Hebrew ideal might be summarized as living by the Covenant. The Greek, by imitating the Hero (such as Achilles) or giving oneself (literally) to the Polis. The Christian ideal might be summarized as imitating Christ. Agree?
God's action was necessary to bring about man's regeneration because man could not do it freely himself: free to choose, he always chose the wrong. Paul's frustration was typical of Christians. No matter how much he wanted to please God, he could not. He could not help himself; it was in his nature to sin. "...I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do."(11) Was there any hope? Yes, God through the presence of his Spirit was transforming him and all believers. For "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new."(12) As God perfected mankind he made them like himself. "All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.... We are the children of God; and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."(13) A host of other passages clearly affirm that the new “redeemed” man would have extraordinary, astonishing powers: (1) to move mountains (Matthew 17:20; 21: 21; Mark 11: 23); (2) to tread on snakes and scorpions without harm (Luke 10:19); to do the works of Jesus and indeed to outdo him (John 14:12); to possess all things –world, life, present, and future (1 Corinthians 3: 21-22).
This transformation from natural to redeemed man was not quick and simple. The individual slipped backwards as often as he moved ahead. He had to worry about his motivation as much as his behavior. He struggled with his inner self like a runner training himself for the race, a daily struggle. Trying to explain the unique situation of man as one loved by God, perversely rebelling against his love, Christians probed deeply into the personality and human motivation.
?
1. The paragraph above and the earlier section on the Judaic view of man seem
to be saying that Jews and Christians were the first psychologists in trying to
understand the complexity of human behavior. Do you agree?
2. What about the powers of redeemed man? Do you read those above passages differently?
3. Is it a fact that man, far from being basically good, is instead inclined to evil? If so, Christianity is indeed a realistic portrayal of human nature, is it not? What contrary evidence is there about the basic goodness of man?
In the figures of Jesus, Paul and other leaders early Christianity defined personalities which were historical, rather than mythological; human, rather than single-dimensioned heroes. Jesus was a Galilean artisan who felt the same emotions and pains all humans felt.(14) He suffered a mixture of hope and inner agony during his last days. The sense of abandonment he expressed in his last hours on the cross was real, not a noble pose. Paul also appears in his letters as a whole personality, the best and the worst sides equally displayed by his own pen. Veering from elation to depression, boastful of his accomplishments and yet aware of his shortcomings, warm to his friends and implacable to his enemies, Paul reveals all facets of human nature, actual and potential. Only Christianity, and Judaism before it, has had such a clear-headed view of human beings, both as they are and as they can be, if freed to become what they were intended to be.
?
Do you agree with the sentence at the end of the preceding paragraph?
Christians also believed that the unique personality which man had been in
this life would survive death. One story Jesus told suggested that after death
the individual would remember life as he had lived it: the poor man was
comforted in heaven while the rich man suffered the torments of hell and
agonized over his misspent life (Luke 16:19-31). Just before he raised
Lazarus, the brother of Martha and
At the same time, there was more than just life after death. Christianity
affirmed a new life of transcendent meaning for the individual before, as well
as after, death. Jesus spoke often of eternal life, a life of
everlasting meaning, which constituted "a treasure in the heavens that
does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys."(18)
Although Jesus met the physical needs of human beings, as in the feeding of the
five thousand (Mark
?
Think about it for a minute: the assertion that the individual will live
beyond this life. How does the first person think such a thought?
Not later persons, but the first one?
Revelation and the World
Early Christians did not spend a lot of time attempting to understand or explain the physical world. They had neither the time nor the inclination. They believed that the Kingdom of God was imminent and they were more concerned with understanding the truth of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ than in understanding God's creation which was about to be transformed in any case. However, they did possess an essential outlook on the world which served as a foundation for later attempts to explain the natural world more fully as worthwhile in itself and worth exploring. That outlook began with the Judaic view of the relationship between God and his creation. In the creation accounts in Genesis the world created by God was good, like all the rest of his creation, because he had created it and established the order by which it was governed. The world displayed God's glory and showed his handiwork, but it was not God and, therefore, not holy. At the same time, man had been given mastery of all creation. So a basic attitude toward the physical world was already set in Judaism. This view did not lead to any scientific or philosophic attempt to explain the world as in Greek culture. There was no science and philosophy in pre-Christian Judaism, because Jews focused on the revelation of God in history and time, not in the physical world. Their attitude might be characterized as one devaluing the natural world as inferior to God, the knowledge of whom was of greater value than knowledge of the natural world.
Christians took this attitude one step further. Because nothing for them was more important than the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, they insisted that all knowledge about man and the world was valid and useful only to the extent that it appertained to the mystery of God in Christ. Since traditional wisdom and learning alone had not brought men to him, God chose the illogical and the unthinkable to accomplish his end. "For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe."(20) God deliberately chose foolishness to reveal true wisdom: "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong."(21) Thus Paul declared, "...I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."(22) To understand the meaning of all things, including the purpose of creation, one had to accept by faith the mystery of God's revelation in Christ. Faith alone, not science or reason, was the beginning of true knowledge.
?
This is the first expression of the important idea that the mystery of Christ
(Fully God and fully human) is central to everything else. Faith in the
mystery of Christ is the key to understanding all things. Is this true
today, or passé because of modern science?
Christian interest in the natural world grew as their sense of expectancy
about the imminence of the kingdom waned. As they encountered learned
opposition in the second century, they began to try to explain the faith in
terms which classical thinkers used and to defend it against the charge that it
was irrational and absurd. As they did so, they developed an approach to
relating traditional knowledge about the world to the order and purpose of God
as revealed in Jesus Christ.
The
Time in the European sense began with the Judaic concept that God revealed
himself in history. That is, God showed his character in the dimension of time,
in unrepeatable historical events which, given the transcendence of God, were
leading to a triumphal end. Time was the interval until the purpose should be
achieved; history was the events occurring in time and leading to God's
purpose. Christians added to this point of view a sense of urgency and
immediacy about what was happening in history. They believed that with the
appearance of Jesus Christ God was bringing time and history to an
end swiftly in the
?
1. Have Christians lost the sense of urgency about the
2. How long can one live with the idea that all things are about to pass
away and all things become new? Weeks, months? Not years and
years. Why?
3. Do early Christians seem to have the same apocalyptic fervor the
Branch Davidians had in
4. Was Jesus wrong when he said the
The
Christians came late to a view of institutions and practical rules for
ethical living. They were so swayed during the first two centuries by the
vision of the
?
1. What do you think about the idea of an "interim ethic"?
2. Do you agree with the reason given for Christians not developing early
a view of institutions and practical rules for ethical living?
Jesus said that the
Paul also spoke in radical terms about how those who believed were to live. They were to live, he said, as a new society or covenant bound together by God's grace and mercy rather than laws and rituals. They were to live joyously as new people, free from the law and free from the penalty of sin which was death. They were being remade by God into new human beings with a "... new nature which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful."(28)
This perspective governed Paul's advice to early believers. The end is at hand; live accordingly. Do not let anyone question you about what you eat or drink, or whether you keep Jewish holidays and feasts. Do not marry, if you are unmarried. Be content as a slave, if you are a slave; you are still God's. If you are a master, treat your slaves justly and fairly; God is your master as well as theirs. If you are an outspoken woman, be subject to your husband and keep quiet during worship; God is not pleased by turmoil. If you owe taxes, pay them. Obey the political authorities; they serve God's purpose by keeping order. Above all, be guided by the spirit of Christ and live in love for one another. (Compare Paul's advice with the author of 1 Peter 2: 11, who described Christians as "aliens and exiles." Verse 13 of the same chapter urged believers to "accept the authority of every human institution,... as sent by him [God] to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right.")
?
1. Does it change your view of Paul's teachings if you think that he gave
advice about how to live only for the short haul?
2. What about his supposed anti-feminism?
Did early Christians follow these principles? Evidence suggests that they
did, at least sufficiently to set
them apart from others in imperial society. (But there were some with less
admirable natures: see Acts
5: 1-11 for Ananias and Sapphira.) In an age which was brutal and heartless
where human life and values were concerned, they offered love instead. They
were the only group in the empire which condemned the barbarity and waste of
the gladiatorial games and which attacked the common practices of abortion,
infanticide, and the abandonment of unwanted children. In a society which was
becoming ever more stratified, they offered spiritual equality and community.
Living in tightly-knit groups, they welcomed all who had professed Christ as
brothers and sisters, including slaves whom other groups in Roman society
excluded. In an age lacking moral certainty, they offered conviction and
assurance. For example, they attacked with intensity sexual practices tolerated
by other groups, condemning in strongly moral tones incest (such as the
brother-sister marriages tolerated in
?
1. Many others have weighed in about why Christianity did not condemn
slavery. What is your view? For the record, neither did Judaism or
Islam.
2. On Christianity and abortion, for instance, see Paul’s statement in Galatians 1:15: “… God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace…” Also see the Didache, a handbook for newly converted Christians (circa 50 AD): “Neither murder a child by abortion, nor will you destroy what is born.”
To return to a comment made earlier in this chapter, Christian beliefs were
not static up to 200. By then the sense of expectancy about the
Despite indications of the diminution of one of its central concepts, Christianity still constituted a counter-culture within the empire, not in the sense that it actively opposed the classical point of view, but because it was radically different from that outlook. It spurned reason and logic, as well as traditional classical sources, in understanding and explaining the order of things and the purpose of man. Instead, it trusted exclusively in faith--a will to believe in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ and the centrality of that revelation for all life. It affirmed the transcendent meaning and intrinsic worth of man as a consequence of the revelation of Christ. Although it did not seek to reform the evils of the ancient world, it contained significant and powerful concepts from which change which would later develop. The modern perspective tends to see Christianity as destined to triumph over the classical outlook, and yet that triumph was not assured when viewed from the vantage of 200 A.D. Christians then accounted for only a very small percentage of the population of the empire. After 200 A.D., however, disaster overtook the empire and caused such radical changes that there was less and less will to maintain the enormous burdens of the empire. In this declining phase of Rome Christianity appeared ever more clearly as the only outlook with sufficient vitality to survive and to save the best of what classical man had been able to achieve. We turn now to the period of transition in which Christianity triumphed and then prepared for a new beginning by saving what it thought best of the ancient world.
?
Christianity was a counter-culture in the ancient world. Is it
today? Why? Why not?
1. . Isaiah 25:8. All quotations from the Bible are from the Revised Standard Version.
2. Augustine, Confessions, VIII, 5: those who were
ready to receive baptism in
13. . Romans 8: 14-17. Paul never uses kleos, the
Greek word for personal renown or glory as pursued by Achilles and other
Homeric heroes. Except for 1 Peter