03. Chapter 2: The Church Grows Outwardly, 33-313

CHAPTER 2 The Church Grows Outwardly, 33-313 1. The Young Church Is Beautiful The newly born Church in Jeru­salem at once began to grow. A Church can grow in two respects. It can grow outwardly — in extent and in numbers. It can grow in­wardly — in knowledge of the truth and in spiritual strength.

Those who had become members of the Church continued steadfast­ly in the apostles’ doctrine and fel­lowship, and in the breaking of bread, and in prayer; and the Lord daily added to the Church such as should be saved. Here we see both inward and outward growth.

The new Church, small in num­bers as yet, did not have a church building of its own. The members met in the temple and in each other’s houses. Their form of wor­ship was simple. But the preach­ing was powerful, their prayers were fervent, and their praises were warm. They preached and prayed and sang not merely with their lips but from their hearts. That first Church was united by a wonderful love. All that believed were together, and had all things in common. They were of one heart and of one soul. Not one of them said that any of the things which he possessed was his own. There was none among them that lacked. As many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them. Then they brought the money they re­ceived for the things that were sold, and gave it to the apostles, and distribution was made to every man according to his need. (See Acts 4:32-37.) Religious News Service
ST. STEPHEN BEING STONED
After a drawing by Gustave Dore The life of the Jerusalem Church in the earliest stage of its history presents a picture of spiritual beauty.

2. Its Beauty Is Marred

How soon that beauty was marred! Two people, a man and his wife, named Ananias and Sapphira, joined the Church. They did not actually have the love that the other members had, but they pre­tended that they had. They sold their possessions and brought only part of the money to Peter claim­ing that this was the full amount they had received. You know the tragic result of their sin. (See Acts 5:1-11.) If Ananias and Sap­phira had repented under Peter’s stern rebuke, they would not have been punished so severely.

3. It Weathers a Crisis

These were days full of action and startling events. More sermons were preached. Miracles were per­formed almost every day. There were daily additions to the Church. These church members lived such happy and beautiful lives that the whole city talked about it. But opposition arose and con­tinued to increase. There were numerous arrests, court trials, at­tempts at browbeatings, threats, floggings, and jailings. But there were also reports of prison doors miraculously opened. In spite of the opposition the Church con­tinued to grow by leaps and bounds.

Stephen, the most prominent of the seven men holding the newly created office of deacon, was stoned to death by a frenzied mob. Having tasted the first Christian blood the enemy now thirsted for more, and a general persecution followed. The cause and kingdom of Christ were at stake. The faith­ful followers of Christ were as a small flock of helpless sheep set upon by a pack of hungry wolves. The church at Jerusalem was broken up; its members were scattered in every direction. It was an appalling crisis. The pros­pects were dark and gloomy.

GATE AT JERUSALEM
Philip Gendreau
This is one of the main gates in the wall around Jerusalem.

Suddenly there was a complete change in the picture. New churches sprang up here, there, and everywhere, all over Palestine. And the church at Jerusalem was preserved.

Let us see how this sudden change came about.

4. The First Turning Point in the History of the Church When Stephen was stoned he saw the heavens opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. We cannot see Jesus the way Stephen did, but we can see Christ in the history of the Church. The Church is the army which Christ has organized for establish­ing His kingdom. Just before leav­ing the earth, Christ had laid out for His disciples the plan for a world-wide campaign. He had com­missioned them to be His witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the ut­termost parts of the earth. The disciples immediately made a be­ginning with the campaign in Jeru­salem, but for a time they did not go beyond that city. How long they would have confined the cam­paign within the narrow walls of Jerusalem if nothing had happened to disturb them, we cannot tell. We do know that eaglets are in­clined to remain in the nest as long as the parent birds do not stir them up. Perhaps the same would have been true of the disciples.

A PART OF THE HOLY LAND
Christ’s Army. Marches Out of Jerusalem

Christ himself forced His little army, the Church, to march forth from the walls of Jerusalem. He overruled the design of the enemy to destroy the Church, and used it for the advancement of His cause and kingdom. The enemy, by try­ing to put out the gospel fire, scat­tered it. The death of Stephen had been the signal for a general per­secution. Christ used that persecu­tion to force the Church to carry the gospel campaign into all Judea and Samaria. The scattered Christians did their work well. A church, the second in the world, was founded in Samaria, of all places! A very high Ethiopian of­ficial from far-away Africa, and a pagan Roman military officer were converted. When the Church issued forth from Jerusalem, it took the first turn down the long road of its history.

THE CHURCH IS EXTENDED BEYOND PALESTINE
Adapted from The Church Through the Ages,
Courtesy Concordia Publishing House

There have been many turn­ing points since in the history of the Church. But all the later turn­ing points have resulted from, and have been determined by this first turning point.

Ever since the Church marched forth from the gates of Jerusa­lem, it has been engaged in the great world-wide gospel campaign. At times there have been long halts. At times the Church has suffered defeats. Upon occasions it has lost territory it had conquered. But never has its Captain allowed the Church to beat a general re­treat. After every defeat He has rallied His army. Always it has gone forward again. Always it has resumed its march to final victory. It is still on the march with the blood-red banner of the cross going on before.

5. Saul Becomes an Apostle of Jesus Christ

Soon after Christ’s army marched out of the city of Jerusalem, it carried the campaign beyond Judea and Samaria. Certain un­named disciples, preaching as they traveled, established churches out­side the borders of Palestine in gen­tile lands as far from Jerusalem as the territory of Phenice, and the island of Cyprus, and the city of Antioch. The news that a church had been established in Antioch came to the ears of the mother church in Jeru­salem. That church then sent a man named Barnabas to look after the Antioch field. His labors there were abundantly blessed and the church grew rapidly. The work soon became too much for Barna­bas. So he went to Tarsus, and succeeded in persuading a certain young man by the name of Saul, who lived in that city, to come with him to Antioch as his assistant. (See Acts 11:25-26.) Who was Saul? Saul was a young Jew of a very good and well-to-do family, and a recent convert to Christianity. He was a native of Tarsus, a city in Asia Minor. Like Antioch, Tarsus also was a very beautiful city and a center of Greek culture. Saul’s father was a strict orthodox Jew, who had given his son a thorough education in the ancient Jewish Old Testament re­ligion. Growing up as he did in Tarsus, Saul had also become ac­quainted with the pagan Greek cul­ture. At an early age he had shown himself to be a very bright lad, and his father decided to give him a higher education. There were many very good schools in Tarsus, but they were pagan schools. So Saul’s father, who was a man of means, sent his very promising son to Jerusalem, where he studied the Old Testament and the traditions of the Jews under the greatest masters of the law.

While Saul was a student in Jerusalem, the stoning of Stephen took place. Saul was present at the event. He highly approved of the death of Stephen. Saul was an ex­ceedingly fine young man and had lived a very clean life. Like the rich young ruler he could say that he had kept all the commandments. But he hated Christianity! When the general persecution of the Christians broke out after the death of Stephen, Saul at once be­came one of the ringleaders — for he was a young man of a very ardent nature, strong convictions, and enormous energy. He went right into the houses of the Chris­tians, arrested them, and had them thrown into jail. It did not matter to him whether they were men or women, young or old. When the Christians fled from Jerusalem and scattered in every direction, he did not give up. The Church never had a fiercer and more dangerous enemy. He was satisfied with noth­ing short of the complete destruc­tion of the little Christian Church. and for a time it looked as if he might succeed. Saul went after the Christians wherever he could find them. Some Christians fled as far as Damascus in Syria, and he even pursued them there.

Yet all this time Saul had been "kicking against the goads," as the Bible puts it. This means that he was opposing the will of God. Saul had heard Stephen say that he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. That, he had thought, was Stephen’s imagination. He did not believe that Christ had risen. He believed that Christ was dead, and that His body lay moldering in the grave. But the words of Stephen’s eloquent defense, his white face stained with red, his brave mar­tyrdom, and his prayer for his enemies Saul could not get out of his mind.

One day as Saul approached Damascus, a dazzling light, bright­er than the blazing Syrian sun at noon, suddenly shone around him. There came a voice saying, "I am Jesus." What ! Then it was true after all that Jesus was not dead, but that He was living! Stephen had said that he saw Jesus. Saul now heard Him, and was converted. (See Acts 9:1-22.) From now on Saul became as zealous a proclaimer of the Gospel as he had been its persecutor. At once he preached Christ in the syn­agogue in Damascus. The perse­cutor now became the persecuted. His former friends sought to kill him. But during the night his new friends let him down in a basket over the wall of the city, and he escaped. He hurried to Jerusalem, the birthplace of the Church, ex­pecting as a new convert a warm welcome from the Christians at that place. But the members of the church at Jerusalem were all afraid of him. They did not trust him and gave him the cold shoul­der.

There was, however, one church member who was convinced of Saul’s sincerity and the genuine­ness of his conversion. That was Barnabas. We do not know when and where Barnabas first met Saul, but he now sponsored him as a true disciple.

Saul did not remain long in Jeru­salem. He learned that a plot was being formed to kill him, and he went home to Tarsus. He had gone from Tarsus to Jerusalem a haughty young Pharisee and a merciless enemy of the Church; he returned to Tarsus a humble Chris­tian and a devoted servant of Jesus Christ. At about the same time that Saul left Jerusalem for Tar­sus, Barnabas was sent from Jeru­salem to look after the church at Antioch. Now Barnabas brought Saul from Tarsus to Antioch to help him in his work. Is it any wonder that Barnabas wanted Saul for his assistant? Here was a man who was young and courageous, of fine character and spotless life, with a brilliant mind and inexhaustible energy. He had a thorough knowledge of the Old Testament as well as a wide acquaintance with pagan life. His conversion had been a tremen­dous experience, and he was now on fire with love for Christ and His Church.

Barnabas felt that Saul was just the man to help him in Antioch. Saul’s home town of Tarsus was a city very similar to Antioch. Both were splendid, highly cultured pagan cities with large Jewish colonies. Being used to life in Tar­sus, Saul would not be overawed by the fashionable life in glamorous Antioch, and he would know how to preach to both Jews and Gen­tiles.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE THE WORLD HAD BEEN PREPARED BY GOD FOR THE GROWTH OF THE CHURCH.
Adapted from The Church Through the Ages,
Courtesy Concordia Publishing House 6. The Second Turning Point in the History of the Church The Church had now come to an exceedingly important milestone in its history. It stood at the begin­ning of the second decisive turn in the long road that lay ahead. Palestine was a very small country and Israel was a very small nation. For centuries, since the time of Moses, the knowledge of the only true God had been confined almost entirely to that small nation in that small country. Palestine was, as it were, a small island in the vast ocean of paganism. All the people in all the countries in the great world outside of Palestine were pagans. In all the pagan cities there were large and beau­tiful temples for the great host of pagan gods. In every temple, in the city squares, along the country roads, and in every home were images of the pagan gods. When the Church went forth to carry the knowledge of the only true God out of little Jewish Palestine into the great pagan world, it took the sec­ond turn on the road of its eventful history. The Church now stood on the threshold of its great and rapid expansion, and God had prepared the way.

PAUL’S ESCAPE FROM DAMASCUS
Schoenfeld Collection from Three Lions 7. The Way Is Prepared Before­hand for the Outward Growth of the Church God had prepared the world, the men, and the place.

God had prepared the world for the expansion of the Church. The whole civilized world of that time was under the one government of Rome. That government had se­cured world-wide peace and order. Excellent military roads leading from every corner of the Empire to the city of Rome, and the count­less ships that plied the great Mediterranean Sea in every direc­tion provided the means of travel. There was at that time one world language. Into that universal lan­guage, the Greek, the Old Testa-meat had been translated. All these conditions were such as to aid the rapid spread of the Gospel.

THE MISSIONARY JOURNEYS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL
Copyright 1998, Matthew McGee.

God had also provided the men: Peter, Stephen, Barnabas, and Saul.

It was through the preaching of Peter that on the day of Pentecost the Christian Church was born in the city of Jerusalem and that in the city of Caesarea the first church among the gentiles came into existence in the house of the Roman centurion.

Considering the fact that Ste­phen’s ministry was so very brief, his contribution to the development of the Church was in certain re­spects even more striking than Peter’s. It was his murder which became the signal for the persecu­tion that pushed the Church out of its cradle in Jerusalem into all Judea and Samaria and beyond the boundaries of Palestine as far as Antioch; and, no less impor­tant, it was his testimony and death which had prepared the way for the conversion of Saul. In the Bible record Saul is called Paul during most of the period of his Christian ministry. Paul was the greatest thinker and mission­ary the Church has ever known. God had endowed him with marvel­ous gifts, and had so ordered his entire background, experience, and training that, as God’s chosen ves­sel, he would be able to bear the name of Jesus before the gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. Through his agency the Church was now about to make a beginning with the new and larger task of preaching the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Barnabas was possibly a man of not much more than ordinary abil­ity. But Christ put it into his heart to go to Tarsus, secure Paul for the Christian ministry, and bring him to Antioch. In the church in that place the youthful Saul labored for a whole year as assistant to Barna­bas, the older man. Neither one of these two men had at that time the slightest idea of the stupendous task to which Christ was about to call them. But this year of joint labor among Jews and gentiles in one of the great pagan cities was for them a period of valuable training for that task. When their training was completed, the Holy Spirit, whom Christ had sent down into the Church, gave them the order to begin the task. (See Acts 13:2.)

God had also selected the place from which the Church was to make its great advance. The chosen place was Antioch. It was admira­bly situated for this purpose. It was located in Syria on the river Orontes, not far from the Mediter­ranean. That made the church in Antioch the farthermost outpost of Christ’s army. It was three hun­dred miles closer than Jerusalem to the lands which that army was now about to invade. Three hun­dred miles, when land travel was done on foot, meant a great deal. Those lands could best be reached by sea, and Antioch had a seaport. From this advanced base of Anti­och, Christ’s army, under the guid­ance of the great Captain of its faith, launched its all-out offensive against the great pagan world.

CHURCHES FOUNDED AND VISITED BY THE APOSTLE PAUL
Adapted from Tke Church Through the Ages,
Courtesy Concordia Publishing House 8. The Church Experiences Unpar­alleled Growth

Barnabas and Paul set out from Antioch upon their first missionary journey. We shall not follow them step by step. (You will find an ac­count of this journey in the book of Acts, chapters 13 and 14. See, too, the map showing where Paul traveled to carry the Gospel.) By about the year 58, through Paul’s missionary activity of only some twenty years, churches had been founded in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece. In some way not known to us, a church had also been founded in Rome. That church was destined to play an important and unique role in the history of the Church and the world. You will hear much about the church at Rome.

After the death of the apostle Paul, which occurred probably in the year 64, God raised up other leaders, and Christ’s army went marching on victoriously. Only two hundred fifty years later, by the year 313, there were Christian churches throughout the entire world of that day. That was a mar­velous growth! In the whole his­tory of the Church there is no other period of equal length which can show such extensive and rapid growth. Even in our day, one thousand six hundred years later, the Church has not yet reached to the uttermost parts of the earth.

How did that remarkable growth come to pass ? We cannot under­stand it. As Jesus said, a man planted a seed and it grew he knew not how. In general we can say that this growth took place through the believers, a few famous but most of them unknown — through their fearless preaching and testimony, their Christian life, and martyred death. But more particularly, it was God’s work. And God’s ways are always beyond our comprehen­sion.