Monday, January 28, 2019
Romans 1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
THE VIBRANCY OF THE EARLY CHURCH IN OUTREACH
From historian Michael Green:
"Mission, they saw, was grounded in the very nature of a God who gave: it must be no less evident in those who claimed to have a relationship with such a God. Paul was not alone in taking very seriously his position as a servant of God, an ambassador for Christ, a fellow-workman with God, like a trusted steward in a great household" (Green 240, Eph. 3:1, II Cor. 5:20, I Cor. 3:9, 4:1, II Tim. 2:2).
"The enthusiasm to evangelize which marked the early Christians is one of the most remarkable things in the history of religions. Here were men and women of every rank and station in life, of every country in the known world, so convinced that they had discovered the riddle of the universe, so sure of the one true God whom they had come to know, that nothing must stand in the way of their passing on this good news to others. As we have seen, they did it by preaching and personal conversation, by formal discourse and informal testimony, by arguing in the synagogue and by chattering in the laundry. They might be slighted, laughed at, disenfranchised, robbed of their possessions, their homes, even their families, but this would not stop them. They might be reported to the authorities as dangerous atheists, and required to sacrifice to the imperial gods; but they refused to comply. In Christianity they had found something utterly new, authentic and satisfying. They were not prepared to deny Christ even in order to preserve their own lives; and in the manner of their dying they made converts to their faith" (Green 236).
What was the secret of such zeal? What motivated the Christians to such tireless and unselfish evangelism?" Nothing less than the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the tremendous blessing of the forgiveness of their sins and peace with God!
