Church History: Evangelism in the Early Church - Part 2

<p>For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ <a href="https://www.douglasjacoby.com/ev2mp3/" target="_blank"><strong>website.</strong></a></p><p>EVANGELISM IN THE SECOND CENTURY</p><ul><li>Challenges to evangelism<ul><li>Apostles now gone – tendency to get more and more involved in disputes</li><li>Persecution: from Jewish to Roman</li><li>False teachers (Marcionites, Gnostics, Montanists)</li><li>Evolving priesthood (spectator shift)</li></ul></li><li>Success!<ul><li>Other nations, but little work outside the bounds of the Roman Empire.</li><li>Church of the East (per comments in previous podcast)</li><li>Continued to reach all strata of society (women, slaves – who even served in leadership, and intellectuals – like Justin Martyr)</li><li>The martyrs greatly inspired others.</li><li>By 200, up to 1-3% (my guess). By 300, perhaps 10% of Empire.</li><li>Learn more about this from the main <a href="http://www.store.douglasjacoby.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=65&category_id=14&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1">AIM Church History series</a> (2000 years in under 10 hours) and the <a href="http://www.store.douglasjacoby.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=49&category_id=12&keyword=early&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1">Early Church History</a> set (about 7 hours).</li></ul></li></ul><p>Conclusion</p><ul><li>We can't always imitate their methods, or recreate the culture of the first 2 centuries, but we can imitate their faith.<ul><li>As in 1 Corinthians 11:1, imitation relates to following Christ, not necessarily methods…</li><li>As Tertullian put it, around 200 AD, “The blood of the martyrs is seed.”</li><li>They spoke out, because they believed they had something worth sharing.</li></ul></li></ul>