What Caused the Early Church to Explode in Growth Against All Odds? (Matthew 28:19)

Christianity brought the first nonviolent revolution that changed the world from the inside out through conversion and discipleship. Far from causing violence, in its first 300 years, it was the brunt of periods of localized to widespread and systematic persecution and outright cruelty. This was experienced from the beginning. (see Acts 8;1-4) The majority of its adherents were mostly poor with little to no social status or influence. The Roman Empire consisted of 60 million people living over 2 million square miles (the continental United States is just over 3 million square miles), with over 30 nations and dozens of cultures which were connected by 250,000 miles of roads. The social and cultural barriers were vast, the conditions were often hostile and dangerous. Yet, in 300 years it went from a few hundred adherents to 35 million people (57% of the Roman Empire). Below are the projected conversion growth rates according to Rodney Stark¹:

7,500 Christians by the end of the first century (0.02% of sixty million people);
40,000 Christians by 150 AD (0.07%)
200,000 by 200 AD (0.35%)
2 million by 250 AD (2%)
6 million by 300 AD (10%)
34 million by 350 AD (57%)

Nothing like this type of revolution had ever occurred anywhere the world. To imagine that in its early days (anywhere before AD 250) that it would become the dominant religion in the whole Empire would be beyond the wildest imagination. The question before us is how did the liberating power of the Holy Spirit spread from Pentecost to reach and transform millions in just three centuries? The heart and core of the answer lies in the command Jesus gave to his first followers just after the resurrection:

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…”
Matthew 28:19

In this article, we will trace the early expansion of Christianity and then examine the core reasons which caused it to grow so dramatically. In this we will see that Christianity emerged as the first decentralized mass movement of people bringing new levels of personal freedom to millions while being linked to the same life and truth of the gospel. God further shaped humanity into the trinitarian image with increased liberty (diversity) with one gospel (unity).

Initial Messianic Movement

The Jesus’ movement started within Judaism. At Pentecost (AD 33) there were 3,000 who believed in Jesus as Messiah. (Acts 2:41) Many of these were visiting Jerusalem from sixteen different locations outside the sacred city, some as far as far as Rome, 2,500 miles away. (Acts 2:9-10) Among the thousands who embraced Jesus as Messiah, they would have taken their new found faith back to the places where they resided and start embryonic churches.² There was a Christian group in Damascus (about 140 miles north of Jerusalem) maybe as early as AD 34.³

It is largely believed that a church was started in Rome from those who returned back to that capital city from Pentecost. Many budding churches started as Jews returned to their places of residence after Pentecost. Nearly twenty-five year later (ca. AD 57), James and the elders at the Jerusalem church affirmed that many thousands of Jews believed:

You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. (Acts 21:20)

When it is stated that many thousands believed, the Greek term used is μυριάς (muriad), meaning ten thousand. Had there been ten thousand by this date, that would mean on the whole, the Jesus’ movement made very little impression upon the Jewish people. Emperor Claudius took a census of the Roman Empire (AD 48), and it revealed that there were 7 million Jews in the Roman Empire with 2.3 million in Israel.⁴ Perhaps around 400,000 were in Alexandria Egypt. If these numbers are accurate that would mean that 1/10th of 1% of the Jewish population embraced Jesus as the Messiah. That would hardly be a ripple in the ocean of the Jewish world at the time.

Paul and the Gentile Movement

With the conversion of Cornelius (Acts 10) the first gentile believer, to the Jesus’ movement, around AD 40, a pivotal shift began to occur. The Christian faith would become predominantly gentile in a short period of time, maybe as early as the mid first century. The apostle Paul, though not alone, was central to accelerating this shift. By AD 49, when Paul reached Thessalonica, his opponents proclaimed:

“These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here…” (Acts 17:6)

Paul was formidable in taking Christianity in a westward direction (as the map above shows Israel, Syria, Turkey, and Greece) on his three missionary journeys which occurred over 13 years. (Acts 13-14, 16-17, 18:23–20:38) Though Paul was a notable missionary of the Jesus’ movement, the spread of the faith took place through thousands of disciples, the vast majority unmentioned in the records of history.

300 Years Into 3 Continents

By AD 100 the Church had been largely established in all parts of the Roman empire. Rodney Stark points out that of the 17 cities which were 1000 miles from Jerusalem, 12 had a congregation by AD 100. All of the 17 cities had one congregation by AD 180. Of the 14 cities more than a 1000 mile from Jerusalem, 8 cities had one congregation by AD 180. By AD 250, all of them had a church.

Asia

Antioch: This became the second major home and hub of the Christian movement outside of Jerusalem. It was the third largest city in the Roman Empire boasting 500,000 residents by the end of the third century. It is here that the gentile identity of the Jesus’ movement was formed as they were the first to be called Christians. (Acts 11:26) The church was predominantly Greek speaking and spread throughout much of Syria. By the time of the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), the church had no less than 20 bishops from Syria present.⁵ This indicates the presence of the faith in many towns and cities in several different parts of the region.

Ephesus: We know little of the missionaries who labored here after Paul. One exception is the account of Gregory Thaumaturgos, known as the “Worker of Wonders.” This man, a son of prominent and wealthy parents, was a native of Pontus. In the course of his studies he became a Christian. In the year AD 240 he was made bishop. He set out to preach the gospel to the pagans of his region. It is said that when he ascended to leadership only seventeen Christians were there while thirty years later at his death only seventeen pagans remained.

Edessa: The church spread to Edessa (southeastern Turkey). At this point, in the first century, it lay just beyond the Roman Empire, yet it had close ties with Antioch. It was later claimed that the founder of the church there had been one of the 72 disciples of Jesus (Luke 10:1-3), a man named Addai. According to Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, a terrible illness had stumped the court physicians of King Abgar, ruler of Edessa. In his desperation, he prayed to Jesus, pleading with him to come to his capital of Edessa. Eusebius records that the apostle Thomas commissioned Thaddeus to go there. “When he came to these places he both healed Abgar by the word of Christ, and astonished all there with the extraordinary miracles he performed.” Serapion, bishop of Antioch in about AD 200, consecrated an Edessene Christian named Palut to be bishop of the capital. From here the gospel would spread to regions that are now Iraq, Armenia and India.

Armenia: According to tradition, the disciple Thaddeus (Matthew 10:3) arrived in Armenia in AD 43, where he was joined by Bartholomew (Mark 10:3) in AD 60. Both men are said to have died there as martyrs. We also know that Syriac missionaries from Edessa reached Armenia by the third century. The traditional account, however, honors Gregory the Illuminator (AD 257–331) as one who advanced Christianity in Armenia. Gregory was himself an Armenian, a prince who was educated as a Christian in Caesarea (present-day Turkey). Upon his return, he found himself, like Daniel in Babylon, imprisoned in a pit by the monarch Tiridates III (reigned AD 287–330) for refusing to participate in pagan sacrifices. Gregory was recalled from his pit after twelve years to cure Tiridates, who had descended into a mysterious state of madness.

India: There is a body of evidence which shows the apostle Thomas traveled East, through Syria and Iraq, and reached India. He is believed to have landed on the Malabar Coast (present-day Kerala) and established one of the world’s oldest Christian communities.⁶

Europe

Rome: Peter preached in Judea and Samaria, before traveling to Antioch, Asia Minor (Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia), and finally to Rome.⁷ Christianity appears to have a significant presence in the city of Rome by the late AD 40s. This rapid growth is partly to be attributed to the large number of Christians who converged on Rome from other parts of the Empire. Paul referencing all of the disciples who had moved there from different parts of the world as evidence of this in Romans 16.⁸There were some 30,000 Christians there by AD 250. Most were poorer and spoke Greek which was the language of the lower classes as opposed to Latin.

France: Christians from Rome went as missionaries to France, known at that time as Gaul. Irenaeus (AD 130-200), a prominent bishop in France, speaks of using both the Celtic and Latin languages, which would indicate that the church had gone beyond the Romanized people in France.⁹ By the end of the third century many churches had been established in Spain.

Africa

Egypt: North Africa became thick on the ground with churches. Mark (Acts 12:12, 25; 15:37), who was the writer of the biblical gospel that bears his name, and a traveling companion of Peter; was reported to have founded the Church of Alexandria around AD 49. There are further indications that he established the gospel presence in Libya which was his place of birth. Simon of Cyrene (Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21, and Luke 23:26), who carried the cross of Jesus, was also believed to be a strong influence in Libya. Alexandria was an especially strong center, producing such Christian thinkers as Clement (AD 150-c215) and Origen (AD 185-254).

Ethiopia: Christianity became the official religion of Ethiopia during the reign of King Ezana (AD 320-360). Irenaeus of Lyons (see above), writing in AD 180, reports that Simon Backos preached “the coming in the flesh of God” in his homeland of Ethiopia. And going back further still, Luke writes of the 1st century conversion of an Ethiopian official (Acts 8:26-40). Could this official have started the first church in Ethiopia? In that it became the official religion of the nation in the fourth century, it is reasonable to think that it underwent at least a few centuries of steady Christian development.

Tunis & Algeria: There was rapid growth further west in what is today known as Tunis and Algeria. The churches here were the first Latin speaking churches. And out of them flowed some of the great Latin Christian literature of Tertullian and Cyprian, to be followed later by the famous Augustine. Augustine resided in modern day Algeria.¹⁰

What Caused Christianity to Grow?

Root Cause # 1: A contagious move of the Spirit. The fire of the Holy Spirit, starting at Pentecost, would ignite a transforming and unstoppable blaze from person to person to person. As God’s Story of Grace spread, millions of people discovered a new identity and empowerment to live lives of purpose beyond anything their culture provided for them. This is what Jesus promised would happen through the power of the Holy Spirit:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

Root Cause # 2: The message of the gospel. The message of the gospel was seen as the only and ultimate Good News for all of humanity to bring righteousness before God:

¹⁶For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. ¹⁷For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:16-17)

It was this message that led to a rapid spread:

⁶You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. ⁷And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. ⁸The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. (1 Thessalonians 1:6-8)

Root Cause # 3: An exponential reproduction of discipleship among everyday believers. The movement of the Christian faith was a decentralized movement of everyday people who were equipped and trained to disciple more everyday people. As Paul writes:

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. (1 Corinthians 1:26)

One evidence of this is that in the first three hundred years, the church faced several waves of violence and cruelty. In some cases it was very severe and was meant to severely cripple and wipe out the faith. Yet, these persecutions never worked because the early church was faithfully engaged in training and maturing leaders and missionaries to continue the spread of the gospel. As Paul instructed Timothy:

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2:2)

For example, when severe persecution hit the Jerusalem church, they had to locally disband. Luke records that the persecution had a reverse effect:

¹On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. ²Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. ³But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.⁴Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. (Acts 8:1-4)

What is significant is that it was not the apostles who spread out. They stayed in Jerusalem. When Paul was jailed in Rome, he described the emboldening effect it was having on other believers:

¹²Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. ¹³As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. ¹⁴And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. (Philippians 1:12-14)

Because Christianity was so decentralized it led to an exponential spread of the faith. Like interest in an investment, it grew slowly at first but then rapidly gained exponential momentum. At the root of all of this is that the church, in the power of the Spirit, discipled everyday believers, in the gospel of Jesus.

Conclusion

Christianity unleashed a decentralized movement which snowballed from thousands to millions of converts in 300 years. It brought a new movement of compassion and care, equality and dignity, freedom and purpose to everyday people. It expanded the realization of personal freedom in unparalleled ways. The world advanced in the shape of the Trinity coming to greater personal freedom. To make this sustainable, it would need to find a unity within all of the new diversity which was created on three continents and in dozens of countries and cultures. This diversity could lead to schisms and break in the church. God would have a solution to this. So the Story of Grace continues…

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Stark would be the first to admit that those figures are anything but precise, but they provide plausible limits.
Small groups of people with with a loose affiliation who were following Jesus through simple practices of discipleship which were modelled for them. (see Acts 2:42-47)
Because Paul went to arrest and detain Christians there, this is evidence of a church formed very early on. Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priestand asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. (Acts 9:1-2)
This number is not agreed upon by scholar. Yet, it is safe to sat that this number is in no way unreasonable.
Church organization consisted of a bishop (higher ranking leader) overseeing several churches in an area.
Sean McDowell writes: Early church writings consistently link Thomas to India and Parthia. Three points stand out regarding their witness to Thomas. First, the testimony that he went to India is unanimous, consistent, and reasonably early. Second, we have no contradictory evidence stating Thomas did not go to India or Parthia or that he went elsewhere. Third, fathers both in the East and in the West confirm the tradition. Since the beginning of the third century it has become an almost undisputable tradition that Thomas ministered in India. In addition to the traditions about Thomas in India, there is additional evidence that Christianity made it to India by at least the second century, if not earlier.
While the Bible doesn’t explicitly state his presence in Rome, many early Church Fathers, like Irenaeus and Clement of Rome, wrote about Peter’s ministry and leadership in the Roman church.
France was divided into Romanized and non-Romanized areas.
Marg Mowczko writes, “Of the twenty-nine people, ten are women, and seven of the ten women are described in terms of their ministry (Phoebe, Prisca, Mary, Junia, Tryphena, Tryphosa, Persis, and perhaps Rufus’s mother also). By comparison, only three men are described in terms of their ministry (Aquila, Andronicus, Urbanus), and two of these men are ministering alongside a female partner (Aquila with Prisca, Andronicus with Junia). These are numbers worth remembering.”
The theologian Thomas Oden has pointed out that the Christianity in Africa influenced the Christians in Europe well before European Christian would influence Africa.

How the Christian Ethic Of Marriage Improved the Lives Of Women and Children (Matthew 19:1-9)

The original sexual revolution began at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-3) when the Holy Spirit started a movement of restoring men and women to an exclusive sexual union of marriage. This is one man married to one woman in a sacred physical and spiritual connection which brings maturity in love and grows families. This marriage, intended from creation, reflects the mutual and self-giving love which is reflected in the Trinity, where God said:

²⁶“Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness… ²⁷So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them… (Genesis 1:26-27)

This brought a complete overturning of the sexual morality of the first century world, as we will soon see. The epicenter of this revolution is described in Jesus’ teaching on the sacredness of marriage. This would be used by the Holy Spirit to radically expand liberation and freedom in the world on a whole new level, especially for women and children. Perhaps few developments would prove to be more important in the ongoing movement of God’s Story of Grace.

In this article we will look at the moral condition of the Roman world when it came to sexual practices, and how the ethic of Jesus would bring a transforming liberation to millions through the ongoing impact of the Holy Spirit increasing a mutual and self-giving love in the world

Sexual Inequity In the Roman Empire

Marriage Inequity

Sexual relations were a major source of inequity between men and women. In the pagan world in which Christianity developed, girls were commonly married off at very young ages to much older men. In some cases girls were married before puberty. This was, of course, without their consent. Many famous Roman women had been child brides:

Octavia, daughter of Emperor Claudius, married at eleven.
Nero’s mother Agrippina married at twelve.
Quintilian, the famed rhetorician must have married a twelve-year-old girl who bore him a son at the age of thirteen.
The historian Tacitus married a thirteen-year-old.

Plutarch (AD 46–120) reported that Romans “gave their girls in marriage when they were twelve years old, or even younger.” The historian Dio Cassius (AD 155–229) agreed: “Girls are considered to have reached marriageable age on completion of their twelfth year.” This was considered normal, and the practice had very few objectors.

One reason Roman men married young girls was because there was a shortage of women. This was caused by high levels of infanticide (killing of infants) of girls, often times by abandoning them to nature. Even in large families more than one daughter was hardly ever reared. According to historian Rodney Stark, “a study based on inscriptions was able to reconstruct six hundred families and found that of these, only six had raised more than one daughter.” This meant there always was a considerable surplus of marriageable men. The best estimate is that there were 131 males per 100 females in Rome. The surplus was even higher in other areas of the Roman Empire. Because of this acute shortage, it was common for women to marry again and again, not only following the death of a husband, but also after a divorce. In fact, state policy penalized women under fifty who did not remarry, so second and third marriages became common, especially since most women married men far older than themselves. For example, Cicero’s daughter, Tullia, was not untypical. She married at 16 ,widowed at 22, remarried at 23, divorced at 28; married again at 29, divorced at 33. She died soon after childbirth at 34. Another woman was said to have married eight times within five years.

Class Inequity

In the ancient world sexual agency was solely in the hands of powerful men. Sexual offenses, including rape, could carry a death penalty. Prostitutes, however, were not given this legal protection and the rape of a slave would only be considered a crime if it was deemed to cause property damage against the slave’s owner. Women who married weren’t expected to attain any pleasure or enjoyment, they simply wedded in order to abide by the legal code and procreate. Moreover, the subservient wife was expected to turn a blind eye to her husband’s sexual infidelity. Males were allowed to sleep around as much as they liked so long as their mistress was unmarried.

Tom Holland has summarized the prevailing outlook:

Sex was nothing if not an exercise of power. As captured cities were to the swords of the legions, so the bodies of those used sexually were to the Roman man. To be penetrated, male or female, was to be branded as inferior: to be marked as womanish, barbarian, servile … In Rome, men no more hesitated to use slaves and prostitutes to relieve themselves of their sexual needs than they did to use the side of a road as a toilet.

Divorce and Remarriage

The teaching of Jesus on the sacredness of marriage and sexuality stood in the sharpest contrast from the picture just painted. In distinction from the rampant adultery and divorce of pagan society¹, Jesus words came as a devastating rebuke:

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery. (Matthew 19:9).

The early church was unswerving in its commitment to the standard set by Jesus. This standard of Jesus caused the early Christians to reject the double standard that gave men sexual license. In consequence, Paul taught the equality of union between a husband and a wife:

²But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. ³The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. ⁴The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:2-4)

No one in the culture of the day would have struggled with the first part of v.4:

The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband.

The second declaration was completely new and shocking to those not sufficiently adapted to the new faith.

In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.

With this new ethic, Rodney Stark makes this interesting assessment:

In fact, devout Christian married couples may have had sex more often than did the average pagan couple, because brides were more mature when they married and because husbands were less likely to take up with other women.

Focused Look at Matthew 19

The chapter begins with the Pharisees coming to test Jesus on divorce and remarriage.

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” (Matthew 19:3)

Jesus responds:

⁴“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ ⁵and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? ⁶So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

When Jesus references the beginning, he is taking his hearers back to the Bible’s first chapters of Genesis when God created the original man and woman:

²²Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

²³The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

²⁴That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Here, the phrase one flesh is descriptive of the union of bodies sexually which ties together the life-long marriage. From God’s eyes, sex is marital and marriage is sexual. But Jesus adds a sacred dimension with the phrase: what God has joined together. So, our human partnerships are not merely human; they are orchestrated by God. This means that before God there is no casual sex, and there is no easy divorce. With this stricter standard, Jesus’ questioners press him by appealing to the law of Moses:

⁷“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” ⁸Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ⁹I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:7-9)

According to Jesus, not everything in the Old Testament represents the original intention of the Creator. Some Old Testament legislation was a concession to human stubbornness—because your hearts were hard. Jesus’ intention is the restoration of the original pattern as taught in Genesis. Since marriage is for life, divorce is allowed only for exceptions. This means that the Savior is taking all of the sexual energy between men and women and focusing it in on one sacred union. Only in this union does sex become life-giving, bringing the married couple into mature oneness and creating children. This would have major implications in the way men were to treat their wives:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)

The ethic of Christianity was a radical overturning of the power dynamic men had over women. Men are now to be servants of their wives. Glenn Scrivener descriptively writes: “Into this world came the Christian revolution, where sex is painted on the canvas of divine romance and where two equals unite in a sacred and unbreakable bond.”

The Changes It Brought to Society

Over time the ethic of Jesus brought incredible improvements to society. Here are three:

The lives of girls and women improved. Unsurprisingly the Jesus movement captured the heart of large numbers of women who had been disregarded or abused. In the 2nd century, Celsus (a critic of Christianity) wrote disparagingly that Christians “are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable, and stupid, only slaves, women, and little children.” This sneering remark was a boast for the early church. They were honored to give a voice to the voiceless. There was a considerable improvement in the quality of life for many women. A pioneering study based on Roman funerary inscriptions demonstrated that 20 percent of the pagan women were twelve or younger when they married. Four percent were only ten. In contrast, only 7 percent of Christians were under thirteen. Half of pagan women were married before age fifteen, compared with 20 percent of Christians—and nearly half of Christian women (48 percent) had not married until they were eighteen or older. As the power of the Spirit transformed hearts with the ethic of Jesus, most Christian girls married when they were physically and emotionally mature. Most had a say in whom they married which made for more secure marriages.

The Christian population increased. The average fertility of pagan women was so low as to have resulted in a declining population, thus necessitating the admission of “barbarians” as settlers of empty estates in the empire and especially to fill the army. In contrast, the growing Christian communities did not have their sex ratios distorted by female infanticide.

Pedophilia became outlawed. In the ancient world sex with boys and girls was celebrated by writers like Juvenal, Petronius, Horace, Strato, Lucian, and Philostratus. The word they used was pederasty: love of children. Christians were uniformly disgusted by the practice. What the classical world called love, Christians called abuse. In the reign of the Christian emperor Justinian (527–565), pederasty was outlawed and could be prosecuted well after the abuse took place. Here the church influenced the state to legislate against the sexualization of children.

Conclusion

As God’s Spirit empowered men and women to live in the marriage ethic of Jesus, humanity continued to advance in God’s Story of Grace to reflect the mutual and self-giving love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

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A survey of marriage contracts, conducted by Semitic scholar Markham J. Geller, going all the way back to ancient Babylon found that they always contained a divorce clause specifying payments and divisions of property with the cause of divorce needing to be nothing more than a husband’s whim.

How Pentecost Led to Gender Equality (Acts 2:17-18)

As God poured out his Spirit on humanity to advance his Story of Grace, he increased mutual and self-giving love by elevating the status of women. In fact, had Jesus and the movement he started not appeared, the world would be an immeasurably darker place for women. Yet, this promise of true female empowerment was prophesied by the prophet 800 years before Christ.. Peter references this at Pentecost:

¹⁷“‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
¹⁸Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18)

In this article we’ll see that Jesus’ example, treatment and teaching provided the way for women to discover and grow up in full dignity which was unprecedented. In God’s Story of Grace this has had an extremely important impact through the centuries for gender rights, freedom, dignity in shaping the world to more closely reflect the mutual and self-giving love that exists between the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Culture of Jesus’ Day

During the days of Jesus, the status of women was considerably low. Consider how women were treated from a Roman, Greek and even Jewish perspective. Roman law placed a wife under the absolute control of her husband. He had ownership of her and all her possessions. This involved the power of life and death over his wife. Divorce was an easy legal formality that could be taken advantage of as often as desired. Women were not allowed to speak in public. In Greek society the woman’s situation was even worse. Because concubines were common, a wife’s role was simply to bear legitimate children and to keep house. Demosthenes wrote:

We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure, we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation, and we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and being faithful guardians for our household affairs.

In the case of a respectable Greek woman, she was not allowed to leave the house unless accompanied by a trustworthy male escort. A wife was not permitted to eat or interact with male guests in her husband’s home; she had to retire to her woman’s quarters. Girls were not allowed to go to school, and when they grew up, they were not allowed to speak in public. Jewish women, as well, were barred from public speaking. The oral law prohibited women from reading the scriptures out loud. Many Jewish men prayed each morning, “God, I thank you that I am not a Gentile, slave, or a woman.” More will be said of the Jewish attitude toward women as we look at the sharp contrast of Jesus’ attitude and treatment of them.

The Countercultural Ways of Jesus

The low status that Greek, Roman, and Jewish women was categorically challenged with the appearance of Jesus Christ. His actions and teachings raised the status of women to new heights, even to the dismay of his friends and enemies. Nancy Hardesty and Leah Scanzoni, authors of All We’re Meant To Be, make the profound point: “Jesus came to earth not primarily as a male but as a person. He treated women not primarily as females but as human beings.” Females were seen by Jesus, alongside of males, as genuine persons. James Hurly writes: “He did not perceive them primarily in terms of their sex, age, or marital status; he seems to have considered them in terms of their relation (or lack of one) to God.”

Let’s look at three countercultural ways Jesus elevated the dignity of women.

# 1: Jesus Taught Women

Jesus regularly addressed women directly while in public. This may seem like NO BIG DEAL. But in that culture (as described above) this was unusual for a man to do, especially one of prominence. The rabbinic oral law was quite explicit: “He who talks with a woman in public brings evil upon himself.” Another rabbinic teaching prominent in Jesus’ day taught, “One is not so much as to greet a woman.” For instance, the disciples were amazed to see Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar. (John 4:7-26)

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman.
John 4:27

To interact with her required that he ignore the Jewish anti-Samaritan prejudices along with prevailing view that saw women as inferior. This did not stop him from starting a conversation with her in public. We can understand why his disciples were amazed to find him talking to a woman in public. Imagine how it must have stunned this woman for the Messiah to reach out to her and offer to quench the very thirst of her soul.

This example does not stand alone. Jesus also spoke freely with the woman taken in adultery (John 8:10–11); the widow of Nain (Luke 7:12–13); the woman with the bleeding disorder (Luke 8:48, Matt. 9:22, Mark 5:34); a woman who called to him from a crowd (Luke 11:27–28); the woman bent over for eighteen years (Luke 13:10-17), and a group of women on the route to the cross (Luke 23:27-31). When Lazarus died, Jesus comforted Martha with this promise containing the heart of the Christian gospel:

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?“
John 11:25-26

To teach a woman was unusual enough, but Jesus did more. He called for a verbal response from Martha.

Another important example is taken from a scene, again, while Jesus was with Mary, Martha and Lazarus, who entertained him at their home. (Luke 10:38-42) Martha assumed the traditional female role of preparing a meal for Jesus, her guest, while her sister Mary did what only men would do, namely, learn from Jesus’ teachings. Mary sits at the feet of Jesus and engages in theological study, much to her sister’s chagrin. The clear implication is that Mary is worthy of a rabbi’s theological instruction. This again shows the countercultural contrast for the time as Jesus made a practice of revealing great theological truths to women. By doing this he violated another rabbinic law: “Let the words of the Law be burned rather than taught to women.”

# 2: Jesus Had Female Disciples

Besides these open discussions, he has female disciples. In a culture where the idea of women travelling around with a group of men or having the status of disciple was seriously questionable, Jesus has a number of women who are included in his circle.

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him,and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
Luke 8:1-3

It is notable that the first evangelist to lead others to Jesus was the woman at Sychar. (John 4:39-42) In addition, the final words of Jesus on the cross were heard by women who were standing there with Jesus before his death. (Matthew 27:55-56) The first people Jesus chose to appear to after his resurrection were women; not only that, but he instructed them to tell his disciples that he was alive. (John 20:17) In a culture where a woman’s testimony was considered of little value, Jesus elevated the value of women to the highest level.

Further, Jesus did not gloss over sin in the lives of the women he met. He held women personally responsible for their own sin as seen in his challenge to the woman at the well (John 4:16–18), the woman taken in adultery (John 8:10–11), and the sinful woman who anointed his feet. (Luke 7:44–50) Their sin was not condoned but confronted. They were called to responsibility because they were called to discipleship.

# 3: Jesus Dignified Women

The full intrinsic value of women is seen in how he spoke to the women he addressed. Jesus addressed the woman with the bleeding disorder tenderly as daughter and referring to the bent woman as a daughter of Abraham (Luke 13:16). Theologian Donald Bloesch explains that when “Jesus called the Jewish women ‘daughters of Abraham,’ thereby according them a spiritual status equal to that of men.” He further showed the value and dignity of women in his teachings by including female imagery. The parable of mending the garment, an everyday image from the female sphere, is coupled with the parable of making the wine, an everyday image from the male sphere (Luke 5.36-39).

Author Dorothy Sayers, a friend of C.S. Lewis, gives a helpful summary:

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there had never been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, who never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made…jokes about them, never treated them either as ‘The women, God help us!’ or ‘The ladies, God bless them!’; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously, who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no ax to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious.

She continues:

There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words of Jesus that there was anything ‘funny’ about woman’s nature.

It is because of the counterrevolutionary person and work of Jesus Christ; Paul would make this declaration which stands alone in the ancient world:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28

This is the golden declaration of gender equality: “YOU ARE ALL ONE IN CHRIST JESUS.” It is a momentous and authoritative assertion of gender worth and co-equality which would go on to bring large political and social sea change as the transforming power of the Spirit would sweep through the world.

Thus in the church the role of women held an unparalleled prominence over such diverse roles and wide swaths of society:

Phoebe was mentioned by Paul in Romans 16:1 to be a servant or “deacon” who taught in the Cenchreae church, which was in Greece.
Junia, who was in Rome, was considered by Paul outstanding among the apostles. (Romans 16:7)
Four women, Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis are described as servants who “worked very hard in the Lord,” among those in Rome. (Romans 16:6, 12)
Priscilla is a co-worker, who along with her husband Aquilla, were planting a church in Rome. (Romans 16:3) They travelled with Paul to Ephesus (Acts 18:18-19) and while there encountered Apollos who “they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.” (Acts 18:26)
Chloe (1 Corinthians 1:11), Nympha (Colossians 4:15) opened their homes where the church met. They were in Greece and Asia Minor (modern Turkey).
Tabitha led a benevolence ministry in Joppa, Israel. (Acts 9:36)
Philip’s four daughters were all identified as prophets. (Acts 21:8,9) They were in Israel.
Women prophesied in the Greek city of Corinth. (1 Corinthians 11:5)

To have this many women listed so prominently in the letters of the New Testament writers displays a sharp counter cultural revolution in the role of women in the church.

Effects of Christianity on Culture

Women continued to be elevated to places of influence. Here is a list of notable examples:

In 112, Pliny the Younger noted in a letter to Emperor Trajan that he had tortured two young Christian women “who were called deaconesses.”
Clement of Alexandria (150–216) wrote of “women deacons.”
Origen (185–254) wrote this commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans: “This text teaches with the authority of the Apostle that… there are, as we have already said, women deacons in the Church, and that women… ought to be accepted in the diaconate.”

Historians now agree that women held positions of honor and authority in early Christianity that was very distinct from the world around them.

Men and women were equally honored in the early church. A study of Christian burials in Rome, based on 3,733 cases, found that Christian women were nearly as likely as Christian men to be commemorated with lengthy inscriptions. This “near equality in the commemoration of males and females is something that is peculiar to Christians, and sets them apart from the non-Christian populations of the city,” according to Brent Shaw, a scholar of Roman history. This was true not only of adults, but also of children, as Christians lamented the loss of a daughter as much as that of a son, which was especially unusual compared with groups of the time.

Conclusion

As Christianity spread throughout the world, its redemptive effects elevated women and set them free in many ways. With the advance of God’s Story of Grace, the Christian ethic through the power of the Holy Spirit declared equal worth and value for both men and women. Husbands were commanded to love their wives and not be harsh with their children. These principles were in direct conflict with the social and legal norms which gave absolute power of life and death to the husband/father over his family.

To this topic our next article turns…

How Mercy and Compassion Became Universal Virtues (Acts 4:32-35)

God brought within the world a revolution of mercy and compassion where the dignity and value of each human being became recognized and responded to in a way that was largely foreign in the world.¹ When the Holy Spirit entered into humanity at Pentecost the worth and dignity of people would be understood and embraced in much greater ways leading to a revolution of compassion and mercy. What this article will explore is looking at the suffering and life of the ancient world and how the advance of God’s Story of Grace brought an understanding of the alleviation of suffering through compassion at a greater level. Christianity developed a social network of communities of support and care that allowed mercy to spread and further shape the world to reflect the image of the Trinity–a world that would come closer to being able to express mutual and self-giving love.

Here is how it began.

The Holy Spirit Rebirths Compassion

After the Holy Spirit entered the 120 in the Upper Room (Acts 2:1-3), his power began to spread into communities where the new believers had a oneness, love and unity that reflected the mutual and self-giving love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For those in their community (the church) who were suffering, the natural goal was to elevate their lives through material and practical support. This reality is first seen with measurable clarity soon after Pentecost:

³²All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. ³³With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all ³⁴that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales ³⁵and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. (Acts 4:32-35)

This is the first spark which would over time blaze into a spontaneous movement of compassion and relief leading to ongoing ministries of mercy around the world. This was desperately needed in the world the early Christians inhabited.

Life In the Ancient World

Overpopulation

The importance of mercy and compassion for the spread of God’s Story of Grace in the ancient world cannot be overstated. The Christian movement emerged mainly in urban areas which were densely populated. Having its start in Jerusalem it would later have central hubs in Antioch and then Rome. Jerusalem may have had 25,000 people. Antioch (the third largest city of the Roman Empire) had around 200,000. Rome, the largest city in the world, boasted around 450,000 inhabitants. Though cities then were less populated than today, they were significantly more dense. Cities of the first century had a population of 200 to 300 people per acre. That is tightly packed, especially when considering that overly populated cities like Calcutta have 100 to a 120 people per acre.

Housing and Sanitation

Because the cities in the Roman Empire were desirable places for many to live compared to rural areas, immigration mushroomed their size. As population density swelled, houses were tightly built together and not well constructed in many instances. Private houses were rare as people lived in the equivalent of apartments. The collapse of buildings was a regular fear. The only source of heat was wood or charcoal braziers.² This made homes smoky, especially in the winter. To avoid asphyxiation homes were kept drafty. To make matters worse, to dispose of sewage waste most people used chamber pots and pit latrines. When pots were used they were emptied in nearby ditches which served as sewers. Not uncommonly people would dump their waste into the street. This meant that housing was often smoky, damp and smelly. With these types of conditions, people lived much of their lives in public places away from their homes.

Sickness and Disease

With the type of housing and sanitation conditions mentioned above, disease and sickness was not uncommon. According to Rodney Stark’s, The Triumph of Christianity, a recent analysis of decayed human fecal remains in ancient Jerusalem found an abundance of tapeworm and whipworm eggs signaling this to be a prevalent problem. Infectious diseases like malaria, dysentery, typhoid, and various intestinal ailments were rampant. This suffering was intensified by malnutrition and food shortages. Even Luke records this occurring during the days of Emperor Claudius:

One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) (Acts 11:28)

Only the Strong Survive

There was not a lot of motivation to address the suffering on a large scale because in the pagan cultures, they possessed no basis for the concept of the dignity of human persons. Without such a belief, the right to live was granted or withheld by family or society almost at a whim. It was natural for some to hold that the strong were naturally to be dominant and the weak were rightly trampled. From this mindset, mercy was seen as a character defect and compassion a misguided emotion. Tom Holland in his book, Dominion, states that many in the ancient world made a positive virtue of discarding and abandoning the weak. Referring to the practice of casting aside unwanted babies, he writes:

Across the Roman world, wailing at the sides of roads or on rubbish tips, babies abandoned by their parents were a common sight. Others might be dropped down drains, there to perish in the hundreds. The odd eccentric philosopher aside, few had ever queried this practice. Indeed, there were cities who by ancient law had made a positive virtue of it: condemning to death deformed infants for the good of the state. Sparta, one of the most celebrated cities in Greece, had been the epitome of this policy, and Aristotle himself had lent it the full weight of his prestige. Girls in particular were liable to be winnowed ruthlessly. Those who were rescued from the wayside would invariably be raised as slaves. Brothels were full of women who, as infants, had been abandoned by their parents—

Describing the plight of the poor and suffering in the Roman world, Gary B. Ferngren, states in his article, A New Era in Roman Healthcare:

The sick and elderly were routinely left to waste away.
Unwanted children were often left to die of exposure.
If a father determined that the family could not afford to feed another child, that child would be abandoned on the steps of a temple or in the public square.
Defective newborns were routinely left to die of exposure.
Female infants were exposed more often than males, because girls could not really support the family.
The chronically ill were often seen everywhere in the streets, baths and forums of the Roman cities.

A Revolution In Care and Compassion

In the midst of all of this illness and squalor, the power of the Holy Spirit in the church began a revolution of compassion and mercy. The early church voluntarily pulled their resources and distributed them to those in need. (Acts 4:32-35) This was indeed revolutionary, but it was a revolution with good reason. Jesus spent much of his ministry alleviating the suffering of the sick and discipling others to do the same. (Luke 10:9, 25-37) He told his followers that in the day of judgement they would hear these words:

³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me….⁴⁰“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Mathew 25;35-36, 40)

The apostle James declares:

¹⁵Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15-16)

The apostle John writes in a similar manner:

¹⁷If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ¹⁸Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:17-18)

Another way the New Testament church practiced compassion and mercy was their love (agape) feasts. (1 Corinthians 11: 17-22, Jude 1:12) It was a weekly meal of the church, surrounding the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, which afforded outcasts an opportunity to fellowship with more well off members of society as equals. This was a setting where social barriers were removed bringing dignity to people deprived of it. For many it supplied needed nourishment from hunger. This movement of compassion developed into extended networks of care for those hurting and in troubling situations. (1 Corinthians 16:1-3) This approach would evolve into an organized system of care for widows. (1 Timothy 5:3-16)

This spark led to a flame that over time turned into a blaze.

From A Flame to a Blaze

The church began a revolution of mercy and compassion which exists today. This work continued on in movement and growth. Here are a few examples:

Within a couple of centuries the church in Rome ministered to 1,500 widows and others in need. It has been estimated that the Roman church spent annually 1,000,000 sesterces—an equivalent of several millions of dollars in today’s currency—on benevolent work. This is an astounding amount.
Starting with the ministry of deacons³ (Acts 6:1-6, 1 Timothy 3:8-13), Christians had been developing infrastructure in their own churches to help the sick. This would grow into a deacon-led care in which churches offered care for the sick. Most who served in this way did not have professional training.

This revolution would grow to an ethic of universal care. The churches’ program of benevolent care expanded to even those who were not part of the church. An epidemic of possibly smallpox or measles began in AD 250 in Ethiopia and spread to Rome. It lasted 15 to 20 years, and at many points killing thousands a day. Public officials did nothing to prevent its spread or care for the sick. By AD 251 the plague swept into Carthage. Cyprian, a Christian leader in Carthage, called the city’s Christians to care for the diseased and suffering. He urged the rich to donate funds and the poor to volunteer their service for relief efforts. Cyprian made no distinction between believers and pagans. This marked a new chapter. For the first time, Christians extended their medical care to pagans as well as Christians.

In the first two centuries, the church is the only organization to systematically care for the poor and sick of society. This brought the expansion of God’s Story of Grace in that it further advanced an understanding of the world where even the least among society was offered greater dignity and care. This began a revolution that is still in operation today. That story continued to expand, and it will be told in later articles.
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Israel was commanded toward compassion toward the poor and suffering. But this compassion was more civil than a cultural movement. Sometimes rulers would exercise relief toward their subjects, but this was never ongoing or widespread. In other cases there were grain laws to subsidize the poor with grain to stop social unrest.
A pan or stand for holding lighted coals.
Deacon is derived from the Greek word diakonos which means servant.

The Big Bang of All Lasting World Revolutions (Acts 2:1-13)

We come to the event in God’s Story of Grace which will cause the transforming purposes of God fashioning all of creation into the mutual and life-giving unity of the Trinity to speed up with intensity–Pentecost. This event is unrepeatable, but its effects will be reproducible in time and space throughout all of history. God will come closer into the world and bring the legacy of his work through the ages (Israel, Greece, Persia, Babylon) and spread it throughout the earth with revolutionary impact and power. This is because God has come closer to humanity, not only changing political structures, scientific knowledge and philosophical ideas but transforming lives.

This article will explore the origins of where this began as it establishes the original energy and movement to to heal and reshape a broken world.

What is Pentecost?

Pentecost is the beginning of the church–where God dwells in people–and through these people enters into a transforming mission in the world. Luke, writing in the Acts, describes the event as follows:

Reaping

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. (Acts 2:1)

In the Jewish calendar there are three major feasts where the Jews were required to go to Jerusalem: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Passover was a week long event.¹ In the last days of Jesus on earth, the Passover week started with Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and lasted until the Saturday before his resurrection. Pentecost (which is the Greek word for 50), celebrated the first fruits of the wheat harvest² and occurred 50 days after Passover. So, what was originally celebrated as an agricultural harvest now is celebrated as a harvest of lives. On this day 3000 people will come to be followers of Jesus from fifteen different nations and people groups. (see Acts 2:41) These are the first fruits of the spiritual harvest that comes to Christ from His death and resurrection.

Regeneration

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. (Acts 2:2)

What is described is what sounds like a violent wind. This is, of course, an appearance of the Holy Spirit, who comes with decisive and unmistakable gale force intensity to inaugurate God’s accelerated transformation of the world. This is the equivalent of a spiritual big bang which would bring a new order into the world. The Holy Spirit filled the whole house, but he does not stop there. The wind of the Holy Spirit will enter into the gathered 120 to become the transforming power to send them on mission to reshape the world into God’s mutual and self-giving unity. On a person-by-person basis he will uplift humanity above the the gravitational pull of self-centeredness and social disorder with his regenerating (born again) power. In the development of God’s Story of Grace, the Holy Spirit will now democratize (more widely distribute to everyday people) the power of his influence. History will now be centered with greater scale upon the larger movements of everyday people rather than on powerful kings and elites.

Resources

³They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:3-4)

As we see the tongues of fire descend on each person, God will change his address where he dwells from the Temple in Jerusalem to the church (people who follow God). His very presence will not be in stones but people; it will not be stationary but mobile. His presence will be spreading throughout the localities and the world as God’s people are in movement. Originally God came to dwell closely in the earth by inhabiting Solomon’s Temple.³ Now he comes as close as he possibly can by inhabiting people.

Result

⁵Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?

Imagine a group of people who are not formally educated, from an area that is far away from a city, comes to a city and, all of a sudden, has this capacity to speak in another language with perfect pronunciation: no mistakes and clear articulation. This would be startling. But then it is even more astounding that those people are speaking multiple languages altogether: fifteen to be exact. This is seen by the fifteen countries listed below:

⁹Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹(both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2:9-11)

If you looked at a modern-day map, you see they are coming from Northern Africa, the Middle East and Southern Europe. The clear message is that there is no language or culture that has priority over each other because of the outpouring of the Spirit.

What does this mean?

God’s Story will more intensely encompass all nations and every culture. The key means of widespread cultural transformation in the past (before Pentecost) was war and conquest. Now, through the work of the Holy Spirit, change will be centered on transformed lives through the gospel. This will turn the nature and order of the world upside down. This will lead to such social and political developments as: ordered democracy, large scale care for the poor, the overturning of slavery, human dignity and rights as a basis for governmental authority, elevation of the status of women, among others.⁴

God’s Story will honor and renew every culture. What was built through God’s work in all of the nations, Christianity would go on to accelerate the understanding and application of these gifts and transform much of paganism. From established legal codes of the Code of Hammurabi to the practice of astronomy in Babylon to the birth of understanding universal human rights in Persia, to the idea and practice of democracy, or the artistic expression of theater, to the theological conception of logos in Greece to the foundations of representative law from Rome. This would foreshadow what Haggai 2:7 calls the desired of all nations. The core longing of every nation and culture points to and has its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. If all of the world could gather up all of her right desires and consolidate their truest wishes into one request, it would find its fulfillment in Jesus. If all of the world’s philosophers could extract wisdom from all of their theories and condense them into wisdom, it would come down to heart cry of needing a God-made man–Jesus. And in Jesus Christ this is what was given. It is the Holy Spirit who makes his presence and reality known and lived.

And at Pentecost begins the amazing Story of Grace of how the world will be further turned toward the purposes for which it was created: to reflect the mutual and self-giving trinitarian life of God.

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1. ⁴“‘These are the Lord’s appointed festivals, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times: ⁵The Lord’s Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. ⁶On the fifteenth day of that month the Lord’s Festival of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. ⁷On the first day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. ⁸For seven days present a food offering to the Lord. And on the seventh day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work.’” (Leviticus 23:4-8) In the days of Jesus, the fourteenth day (v.5) would have been Good Friday. On the fifteenth day, Saturday, would have been the Feast of Unleavened Bread as Jesus lays buried in the tomb.

2. ¹⁵“‘From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. ¹⁶Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord. (Leviticus 23:14-15)

3. Notice the similarity of fire entering the Temple at its dedication with the fire that descended into the 120 at Pentecost: ¹Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. 2 The priests could not enter into the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house. 3 All the sons of Israel, seeing the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon the house, bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave praise to the Lord, saying, “Truly He is good, truly His lovingkindness is everlasting.” (2 Chronicles 7:1-3)

4. This is testified in such books as Tom Holland’s, Dominion: How The Christian Revolution Remade the World; Rodney Stark’s, The Rise of Christianity; Glen Scrivener, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality.