Lesson 4: The Big Bang

Day 1

The Bible says that Jesus continued to appear to some of his disciples for some forty days after his resurrection. In the book of the Acts of the Apostles we are told that some disciples actually saw Jesus ascend into heaven. Stop here and read Acts chapter 1

The Ascension, by the Dutch painter, Rembrandt (1606-69)

Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension convinced the early believers in Jesus that in Christ, God had come to earth in a new way. In Jesus the Messiah God had demonstrated that He loved the world more deeply and more permanently than believers had ever thought possible before.

Most of the early followers of Jesus, like the Lord himself, were Jews. They continued to worship God as Jews had for centuries, by meeting together in the synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath (sundown Friday to sundown Saturday) to read the Scriptures, listen to an expert explain the Bible lesson, to sing hymns and to offer prayers. The Jewish followers of Jesus continued this pattern with a couple of changes.

First, since the Lord was raised on the first day of the week, Jesus' followers moved their day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. They also added a second part to the worship service, the Lord's Supper. This holy meal is also sometimes called Holy Communion, or Holy Eucharist (the word "Eucharist‚" means "thanksgiving," and is pronounced YOO-ker-ist.) They did this because on the night before he was crucified, Jesus had a last supper with his disciples, and commanded them to remember him in such a holy meal. As the early believers in Jesus met for this weekly worship service of prayer, scripture and communion they strangely sensed that the risen Christ himself, though invisible, was spiritually with them. Indeed, they came to believe that Christ, though invisible, was really present with them in the breaking of the bread. Stop here and read the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, found in Luke 24:13-35.

This invisible presence of the risen Christ was so powerful with the early church that they believed that God was actually present with them. They knew that Jesus was in heaven with God the Father, the Creator. Still it seemed that God Himself was with them. They called this presence they felt "the Holy Spirit,"‚ the "Holy Ghost." It came upon the disciples in an unusually powerful way on the Day of Pentecost, a day sometimes described as the birthday of the Church. While sensing this power they were able to preach convincingly to the crowds gathered at Jerusalem, to heal and perform miracles, and to convert thousands of Jews to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Read Acts chapters 2 through 4 and see how this power was shown on the Day of Pentecost and the period immediately following. This passage also shows the jealousy and suspicion the early Christians evoked in the Jewish leaders. This new form of Judaism had an explosive beginning, a sort of Big Bang there in Jerusalem.

Day 2

Opposition among the Jewish leaders continued, even though the earliest Christians still thought of themselves as Jews. The Pharisees and the Sadducees continued to arrest the followers of Jesus, to imprison them, and in some cases to kill them. Acts chapter 7 tells us that Stephen was the first follower of Jesus to be killed by the Jews for his faith. While this opposition was not pleasant for the early Christians, it resulted in a benefit for the new religion. Believers were forced out from Jerusalem, and wherever they went they took their new faith with them. It was not long before faith in Jesus as God's risen Messiah could be found as far north as Syria, and as far south as Ethiopia. This new form of Judaism spread rapidly. Increasingly believers in Jesus, although they still saw themselves as Jews, indeed the true Jews, they were increasingly forced out of the Jewish synagogues. It was in Antioch in Syria that the believers were first called Christians.

  German artist Albrecht Durer's
Painting of St. Paul, 16^th cent.

One of the most important persons in the spreading of early Christianity was Paul. Originally he was a Jew known as Saul from the town of Tarsus in the Roman province of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). The Temple authorities in Jerusalem authorized him to hunt down, arrest, imprison, and even kill those who followed Jesus. A program by the political or religious authorities to stamp out a new religion is called a persecution. Saul had a part in the martyrdom of Stephen, the first Christian to die for his faith (see Acts chapter 7). As Saul was traveling to Damascus to arrest Christians, he saw an appearance of the risen Christ. Saul was converted and began to spread the Christian faith more actively than anyone else in the world.

Paul's practice was to take the Christian faith into areas it had been previously known. He would usually start in the synagogue, where people already knew the Hebrew Scriptures, and would attempt to convince his hearers that Jesus was the one who fulfilled all the ancient prophecies. Sometimes Paul was arrested, beaten, or thrown into jail, along with some of his associates such as Silas, Barnabas or Timothy. Where he was successful, he would organize churches. After he got them started, he would leave to found other new churches. The churches he started would write letters (epistles) asking Paul's advice about problems that arose. Paul would answer, and these letters were copied and passed around to other new churches facing the same problems. These letters make up the major part of the book we have come to call the New Testament. Paul started from Palestine on three different occasions on extended trips that have come to be called his " Three Missionary Journeys."

Paul's understanding of the gospel contrasted with the teaching of Peter and the other apostles still in Jerusalem. They had taught that before one could become a believer in Jesus, he or she had to become a Jew first. This meant keeping the Jewish food customs (kosher), and if you were a male, you had to be circumcised like all other Jewish males. Paul taught that to come to Christ, one need not be circumcised or keep the Jewish law. All one needed to do was believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Paul taught that both Jews and non-Jews (Gentiles) could all come to God through Jesus Christ. This difference in emphasis caused many arguments among the early Christians who followed Paul, and those who followed Peter and some of the other apostles.

On his last journey Paul was arrested, and because he was a Roman citizen, appealed to have a hearing in Rome. While waiting for his trial there he was placed under house arrest for over a year, when he was still allowed visits from his Christian friends from all over the world. Around the year AD 65 the Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for starting a huge fire in Rome that burned much of the city, even though many Romans believed that the Emperor himself had ordered the fires. He had long wanted to carry out a program of new construction. Even so, Christians were rounded up and imprisoned. It is likely that Paul was one of those arrested. He was imprisoned and beheaded. Probably Peter, one of Jesus' disciples was also imprisoned and crucified in Rome during this same persecution. According to tradition, when Peter was told he was to be crucified, as Jesus had been, Peter said that he did not deserve to be crucified in the same way his Lord had been executed, and he asked to be crucified upside down. To do this the soldiers had to modify the shape of the cross they used for Peter, and ever since then a cross in the shape of the capital letter X has been known as the cross of St. Peter. By the time of Pauls death, Christianity had been spread to all of the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea.

ALGARDI, Alessandro
Beheading of St Paul, c. 1650

Something to do: find a Bible that has a map of the three missionary journeys of St. Paul.

Study Questions

Print out this section, write your answers on your paper copy, and bring your completed questions to class. You may get help from your parents or another member of the class.

1.      Who was the foremost person in the spreading of early Christianity? Give both his Jewish and his later name.

2.      A program of a government or a church to stamp out a religion is called a _______________.

3.      Paul would go into a new town and usually begin preaching in the Jewish _________________.

4.      A long letter written from one person to another is known as an ______________.

5.      Three of the associates of Paul were ________, _____________, and ___________.

6.      Go to the New Testament and find the section containing Pauls epistles (you may ask your parents to help you.) List the names of four of them here. Use a name only once if there are two of the same name. For example for First Corinthians and Second Corinthians, list only Corinthians.  a.____________; b.________________ c. __________________ and d. _____________

7.      Can you figure out the name of the towns in which these four churches of question 7 stood? Let this list of some ancient towns help you: Rome, Athens,
Corinth, Sparta, Ephesus, Alexandria, Thessalonika, Pergamos, Philippi, Utica, Troy, Damascus.

8.      Describe the difference between Paul's teaching and that of Peter and the Jerusalem Christians.

9.      The Roman Emperor Nero began the first major persecution of Christians in Rome by blaming them for starting a large ________________that destroyed much of the city.

10.  Paul and Peter were both killed for being Christians, probably in the year _____.

Day 3

The Church of the Second Century

  Toward the close of the first century more and more Christian converts wanted to know about the meaning of the life of Jesus. The stories that had circulated by word of mouth for several decades were written down. We call these written accounts gospels. Four of these gospels were later judged to be worthy of inclusion in the collection of Christian Scriptures. Do you know the names of these four gospels? The last book of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation, was written sometime around the year 100 A.D. when persecution of Christians became much more intense. The Apostle John died at just about the same time. One of his disciples was a young man named Polycarp. At the end of a long life, he was killed by the Romans because he was a Christian. Read more about him at this link http://www.polycarp.net. Another young man named Justin was killed for being a Christian, and afterwards was known as Justin Martyr. Christian preachers like Polycarp and Justin won many converts to Christianity, not only because they preached well, but also because they were willing to die for what they believed. Citizens of Rome were required to take an oath affirming that "Caesar is Lord." large number of believers were not willing to make this assertion, believing that Jesus is Lord. Because they did not believe in the many Roman gods and goddesses, Romans accused Christians of being atheists. Christians were rounded up by the thousands and were arrested, beaten, imprisoned or killed. Many were forced to face wild animals in the Roman Colosseum. One Roman emperor even tied bundles of live Christians together, hoisted them upon tall telephone poles and set fire to them to illuminate the nighttime games in the Colosseum. A person who died for his Christian faith was known as a martyr (pronounced MAR-ter). The word "martyr" itself means "witness,"and was therefore applied to one who had borne witness to Christ by dying for him. The Book of Revelation was written by an unknown Christian to depict God's saints as victorious even over powerful Rome. How little did anyone know that within two hundred years, the Roman Empire itself would become officially Christian!

The Roman Colosseum

 

Although many new converts came into the church, these terrors of persecution caused many of these to renounce the faith into which they had been baptized. Because they lapsed back into paganism, they became known as the Arguments arose in the church over whether those who had lapsed after their baptism could later be readmitted to the church as Christians. Some local churches readmitted the lapsi, others did not. There were also disagreements about whether a Christian could serve in the Roman army, and about whether those who left and later returned to the Church should be re-baptized (the Donatist controversy).

Another problem came into the church when certain teachers published new doctrines considerably different from those taught by Jesus and the apostles who knew him. It was important to the second century church that Polycarp had known John, and that John had been a companion of Jesus. Churches whose teaching was like that of John and the other original apostles were called apostolic churches. However, many teachers represented themselves as Christians but taught false doctrines. For example one false teacher called Marcion taught that the God of the Old Testament was actually a demon, and that Jesus brought knowledge of the true God. Other false teachers were known as the Gnostics (pronounced NOS-tiks). Although Gnosticism took several different forms, in general it taught that Jesus had brought a very special secret knowledge available only to a few persons. It was possession of this secret knowledge that saved a person from hell. In contrast to this false teaching, the true apostles taught that anyone who repents of sin and believes in Jesus Christ will be saved. Other false teachers taught that Jesus was not really a human being, but was some sort of apparition who only appeared to be human, or that Jesus did not really die on the cross. The church insisted that Jesus was a real human being, born of a real human mother, who died an actual death.

To combat false teaching the church responded with " the three C s: clergy, creed, and canon. We'll take a look at these tomorrow.

Day 4

Clergy

We have already suggested that preachers who had known Jesus or his companions were accepted by the church as "right-teachers" or orthodox. As time passed the apostles and those who had known them died. Still their students, and their students' students, were regarded as orthodox. Other preachers whose doctrine was similar to that of the apostles were also considered to be orthodox. If a preacher passed this test he was ordained, or given authority to teach and preach in the name of Christ and his apostles. With the passage of time men and women who had passed this test and were so authorized became known collectively as the clergy. Some members of the clergy were responsible for overseeing the health of the congregations of a whole city or even a province. The Greek word for "overseer" is "episkopos," the Greek word from which we get our English word "bishop." Some of these preachers, such as Ignatius, Tertullian, Irenaeus became important leaders of the early church and became known as Church Fathers.

Check out this web site and read briefly a couple of the short biographies of some of the Church Fathers. http://www.catholic-defense.com/bios.htm

Creed

The word "creed"comes from the Latin word "credo," which means "I believe."  All of the creeds begin with these two words and are intended to offer a brief statement of the orthodox teaching of the church. In the second century Gnosticism (pronounced NOS-ti-sis-um) and many other heresies (false teachings) arose. To distinguish the church's true teaching from false teachings, the church summarized its central beliefs in a creed. One of the oldest creeds was known as the Old Roman Symbol. We know it as the Apostles' Creed. It was the examination given to a person about to be baptized to be sure that they believed the true faith. We still use it that way today. The words are on page 7 of your hymnal and are printed below. By the time you finish confirmation class, you will be expected to memorize this creed, either in the traditional wording (p. 881 of the Hymnal) or in the modern wording. Our church often recites the traditional wording, though most churches today use the modern wording. The difference between the two versions is very slight.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

 who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

 born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven,

is seated at the right hand of the Father,

and will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy *catholic church,

the communion of saints

the forgiveness of sins

the resurrection of the body

and the life everlasting. Amen

*catholic here means "universal"

Canon

The word "canon"originally referred to a straight reed that grew in swamps. It looked something like a cattail. The Greeks used them for measuring sticks as we use a yardstick. Something that "measured up," to a standard was said to meet the canon. To fight the false teachers, Christians not only developed a clergy and a creed, they also developed a canon (please note, this is not a cannon, which is a large military field gun.) This canon was a collection of books that the early church believed contained the true teaching of the apostles--these books "measured up." Many of them were thought to be written by apostles, or close associates of the original apostles. Probably the first of the books to be collected were the writings of the Apostle Paul. Soon afterwards came the four gospels, and then the rest of what became known as the New Testament. It seems strange to us that Paul's epistles were written before the gospels because in our Bibles the gospels come first. The ancient church put the gospels first because they believed them to be more important. Churches would get copies of these ancient documents and would make their own copies by hand. Copies were then made of these copies, and the process repeated itself until hundreds of local congregations had copies. Scribes were very careful to copy them exactly, although occasionally a slight change in spelling or word order appears. None of these changes makes a big difference in what the Bible teaches as a whole, however, so you really don't have to worry that your version of the Bible is not reliable. Some churches had all of the books we have today; other churches had only a few. A few churches used some books that we no longer have in our Bibles today such as "The Shepherd of Hermas," "The Letter of Barnabas," or "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." These books are called apocryphal books, or simply "the apocrypha." This word means that we do not believe that they were written by the apostles, and we really do not know where they came from. Most of them were never accepted by a large majority of Christian congregations. Even though they were left out of the Bible, your pastor has copies of them in his study, which he will be happy to show you. By the first quarter of the fourth century (around the year 325 A.D.) most Christian churches all over the world had the same twenty-seven books we have in our New Testament.

A handwritten copy of a book of the Bible is called a manuscript. As an example, let's consider one of the oldest New Testament manuscripts we have. It is called Codex Sinaiticus. A codex, unlike a scroll, is a book like a modern book, with the pages sewn together on the left-hand side. It may very well be that Christians invented the codex. "Sinaiticus" means that this copy of the New Testament was found in a monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt. This link will take you to a lovely photograph of one page of the Codex Sinaitcus. http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/tc_codexs.html Clergy, creed, and canon - these were the tools the early church used to resist heresy and to keep its teaching pure.

Some Study Questions

Print out this section, write your answers on your paper copy, and bring your completed questions to class. You may get help from your parents or another member of the class.

1.   Churches whose teaching agreed with that of the apostles were described as apo____________.

2.  The word which means "right teaching"or "teaching what is right" is ortho__________.

3.A false teaching is known as a h_________.

4.   The church sought to oppose heresy with the "3 C's. They were c_______, c________, and c__________.

5.  The creed known as the Old Roman Symbol is now called the A_________ Creed.

6. This creed was used at the b___________ of a new Christian.

7.   A book that consists of individual leaves or pages, bound together on the left-hand side is a c_____x.

8.    Our New Testament is comprised of how many books?

9.  Start memorizing the Apostles' Creed.

For a review of the life and teachings of Paul, click on this link and follow its hyperlinks:

http://www.apostlepaulthefilm.com/paul/

Day 5

Some thought questions

Think about these questions, and jot down ideas in your notebook that will help you discuss these with your classmates on Sunday morning.

1.      Why do you think the Jews wanted to stamp out the new Christian faith?

2.      Would the Roman government and the Jewish temple authorities want to arrest and kill Christians for the same reason or for different reasons?

3.      How do you account for the radical change in Paul, who went from being a persecutor of Christianity to becoming its strongest supporter?

4.      Arresting and imprisoning Christians did not work. The church did not die out, but continued to grow. Why do you think this was so?

5.      Do you find the life of Paul exciting or threatening? Would you like to carry a new religion into an area that had never heard of it?

6.      What skills must Paul have had to win converts to the Christian faith?

7.      Does God expect us to win others to Christianity? Why or why not?

8.      Paul's relationship to God was very important to him. On a scale of 1 to 10 how important is your relationship to God in your daily life?

9.      How is the work of a missionary today different from that of Paul? How is it similar?

Looking Ahead

With all of the persecution and false teaching that hampered the early church, it is a wonder that it survived at all. Yet it did survive. Indeed, it prospered and grew so much that a Roman Emperor became a Christian and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. It spread throughout Europe and became the framework for religion, culture, education, law and art after the collapse of the Western Empire.