20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part II

Coming to Terms With Jesus
Intro | Part I

How do you explain the rapid spread of Christianity? Within the world of academia, litres of ink are spent trying to explain, understand and justify this phenomenon. In articulating the enormity of what took place, Tom Wright writes:

“The single most striking thing about early Christianity is the speed of its growth. In A.D. 25 there is no such thing as Christianity; merely a young hermit in the Judean wilderness, and his somewhat younger cousin who dreams dreams and sees visions. By A.D. 125 the Roman emperor has established an official policy in relation to the punishment of Christians…”

Christianity exploded into the Greco-Roman world. What had started in Jerusalem had, within 100 years spread as far as southern France, Ethiopia and possibly even India. This is quite remarkable, given what we said about Jesus in the previous post. Jesus saw himself as the pinnacle of God and Israel’s story, limiting his ministry almost exclusively to Israel. What he offered, and what he embodied, was a new way forward for Israel. So how did we end up with the church? Although the church’s praxis in 125AD bore some continuity with Israel, the church’s shape and life was also looked quite different from Israel.

Various reasons have been suggested to explain this. For instance, was this the work of the Apostle Paul, distilling Jesus’ call to Israel into a more palatable message for non-Jews? Or perhaps the fourth century ‘pagan’ Roman Emperor Julian was right when he argued the church grew because of their love and hospitality:

“These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agape, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes.”

There’s some truth in this, and we’ll explore Julian’s raison d’être for the growth of the church more in a future post. However, I want to suggest that the answer lies in a major shift in the worldview of the Apostles and the early church. They came from a Jewish background, and held a worldview consistent with first century Judaism. Yet for some reason their worldview had totally changed. I want to suggest that the resurrection of Jesus was a complete shift in the first century Jewish worldview.

That the early Christians believed in the resurrection is unsurprising – it was part of the standard Jewish worldview. However, what stood at the periphery of the Jewish worldview was now front and centre of the Christian hope. The conviction of the early church was that the resurrection had happened, not at the end of history as the Jewish worldview believed, but now in the middle of history. The resurrection of Jesus changed everything. We can trace what this meant for the early church in Paul’s letter to the Roman church (see Romans 1.1-6). The resurrection of Jesus declared that he was the Son of God, the Messiah; the true descendant of David and hence Israel’s true King.

The resurrection showed that Jesus was Israel-in-person, Israel’s representative, the one in whom Israel’s destiny had reached its climax. He was Israel’s King – raised from the dead. And if he was Israel’s King, then the Psalms and the prophets insisted he was also the world’s true Lord:

“Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.” Romans 1.5-6

This is why Christianity developed new practices and symbols apart from Judaism. The early Christians understood that Israel’s story had come to fruition in Jesus. The old symbols of God’s people would have to find new meaning in him. So the church started meeting on Sunday’s to celebrate his resurrection. They broke bread and drank wine together to commemorate his death and remind each other that they belonged together in him. The prayed and sang to him, because the story of Israel and the world was now focused around Jesus. And they were now on a mission. Jesus had fulfilled Israel’s vocation to be a light to the nations; now the nations must be brought into allegiance to him. It was time for the nations to join in God’s promises Abraham.

“For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.” Romans 15.8-9

This raised questions about the continuing connection between the church and Israel, and the place of the law and Israel’s symbols in the life of the church. The early Christians only started to answer this question as they came to terms with who Jesus is and what that means for the world. The church grew first and fore mostly because they understood themselves to be on mission. Jesus has been raised, and he is the King, of both Jews and Gentiles.

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I feel that it’s all too easy for us to underestimate how big an issue this was for the early church. Yet this was the major issue in the first century church, that the gentiles could be “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus”. We do ourselves a disservice when we screen this issue out of our reading of the New Testament.

My other reflection on this post is that mission and theology need to be more closely held together than is often case today. From what I’ve seen, the two ‘disciplines’ are often at arm’s length of each other. Yet, in one sense, it was because of theological reflection that the early church launched into mission. I wonder what would happen if our missionaries, church planters, evangelists etc. spent more time talking to theologians, and vice versa because the theological reflection in Acts often happened after the Holy Spirit took the initiative to bring gentiles to Christ.

For Further Reading:

• NT Wright: The Resurrection of the Son of God, 2003. RSG is a tour de force. Read this if you want to understand more fully how the resurrection of Jesus changed the worldview of the Apostles and the early church. If 800+ pages isn't your cup of tea, try Wright's Surprised by Hope, 2008.
  
• James Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 2003 and Beginning from Jerusalem, 2008. I've only just managed to look through these. Massive and magnificent!
• Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 1997. Stark isn't a historian by training, and is a little bit sketchy when he moves away from history. Nevertheless, this is a important book. Helpful to have a sociologist's perspective.
  

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part I

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part I: The Genesis of Church History

Church history matters because the Church matters. It was with such a grandiose statement that I launched the ambitious 20 centuries in 20 posts project. History has always played an important role in the Christian story. From the writers of the Gospel narratives and Acts, through Eusebius and Bede down to today, reflecting on and understanding the past has played an important role in Christianity. And this is because of a distinctly Christian understanding of the past. Church history matters because history itself matters. Central to the Christian worldview is not a timeless, sapiential philosophy; what is central is the conviction that God acts and has made himself known in our space/time universe. And God has ultimately does this in Jesus Christ.

The Christian story begins starts with the in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. This is where most church histories will start their narrative. Yet there is something wrong about this, both historically and theologically. Jesus did not just walk in out of nowhere and start proclaiming the Kingdom of God (Mark 1.1-15); he had a context, and saw himself as part of the long story of God’s dealings with Israel. I think that liberal theologian Marcus Borg is on to something when he says:

“We commonly think of Jesus as the founder of Christianity. But strictly speaking, this is not historically true. Instead, his concern was the renewal of Israel.” - Marcus Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, p. 125

To do church history well, I suggest that we need to integrate Israel into our narrative, as some historians have started to do. When we do this, it helps us as Christians to read the Old Testament and what the New Testament says about God’s covenant. It helps you understand the first 200 years of Christianity – which was largely a Jewish movement for the first two centuries of its existence – and in particular the context and issues the apostles write about in the New Testament. But most importantly, grounding Christian history in Israel’s history helps we make sense of Jesus, and what he was doing. He saw himself as the climax of a story that involved Adam and Eve, Abraham and the patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, David/Solomon and the kings down to Zedekiah, and the aftermath of exile. It’s by understanding God’s history with Israel and by plotting Jesus on the map of his own particular context – Second Temple Judaism – that we can understand how Jesus interpreted his mission. Briefly, this is what his mission looked like:

1. Jesus focused exclusively on Israel: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” Matt 15.24, and “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" Matt 10.5. Except for three exceptions, Jesus ministered only to Israelites, because his mission was to restore the lost in Israel and renew the nation.


2. Jesus announced the nearness of the kingdom: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the gospel!” Mark 1.15. The Kingdom of God is where God's climatic authority is known and done on earth as in heaven (see Isaiah 40).


3. Jesus performed acts of power: "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you" Matt 12.28. Jesus enforced the Kingdom through his miracles. He taught that the Roman occupiers weren't Israel’s real enemy, but the spiritual forces that had enslaved the nation in darkness and sin (see Mark 3.23-28).


4. Jesus called and sent twelve: “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that we may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel" Luke 22.28-30. Jesus gathers twelve Apostles, a parallel of the twelve tribes of Israel. These twelve are connected to Jesus, and through him the renewal of Israel that they longed for would happen.


5. Jesus ate with sinners and outcasts: "And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, 'Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?' And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.'" (Mark 2.16-17). Jesus welcomed the lost of Israel, those generally despised and referred to as "sinners", whilst exposing the hypocrisy of Israel’s leaders.


6. Jesus announced God's grace (especially for the destitute): “Blessed are we who are poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God." (Luke 6.20).


7. Jesus taught a new way of living as God's people: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” Luke 6.35-36).
   

Jesus saw himself as the pinnacle of God and Israel’s story. So what he offered, and what he embodied, was a new way forward for Israel; a profound movement of renewal of Israel in the light of the coming climax of God's dealing with his people. We need to understand this to understand Jesus. Without Israel there is no Jesus.


Church history matters only because history matters. At the heart of Christianity is history: that God promised a Middle Eastern shepherd that through him his family and indeed the whole world would be blessed. At the heart of Christianity is an event that is interpreted as fulfilling that promise: that Jesus, the Jewish King, was killed for the sins the people; that he was raised from the dead, and now reigns as the Lord over all, the first-born of the new creation. This is church history; this is the gospel.


For Further Reading:

• Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, 2009. MacCulloch is an eminent church historian, and his epic book/BBC series helpfully locates the church's history in Israel's history.
  
• NT Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 1996. Wright offers rigorous scholarship, reconstructing the worldview of Second Temple Judaism, making sense of Jesus' aims and self-understanding within that world. A great piece of historical scholarship. Simply put, this book changed my life.
  

Saul shall save my people from the hand of the Palestinians

My CMS Reflections

We've been reading 1 Samuel in bible study recently. I love this book, not least for the twists and nuances of the narrative (it is one of the oldest highly developed narratives around). There's plot development, and really complex characters. It's beautiful.

However, I've have a lurking nervousness in the back of mind as we've read further into the story. It's not 1 Samuel itself that makes me uneasy. Instead, it's knowing just how similar things are now as they were in Saul's time. What we know call the Gaza Strip has been a source of conflict in 1 Samuel as much as it has been in our time. Israelites are still fighting with the Philistines, although we call the Palestinians (you do know that Palestine comes from the word Philistine?).

Talking to a couple yesterday who've been ministering to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, there has been a real issue for Palestinian Christians. Still, in Arabic today Palestinians are called Philistines. It is a real issue for them, especially as they read the Old Testament.

Palestinian Christians have often been caught in the middle of Arab-Israeli conflict. Please pray for them.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." - Galatians 3.28-29