Sean
The Christian Church was born after The Pentecost. Then, like a famous rock band post-album release, it was time for the Good News to go on a global tour. In the first 300 years, there were vast incursions of the Gospel in Greece and Rome, which, at the time, spanned the Iberian Peninsula to the coast of India. Christianity had become popular all over Northern Europe by the 5th century to the 7th century. Christians in Syria started missions in China and by the 10th century, Christianity had reached Russia via Constantinople.
The early church’s expansion was greatly facilitated by the conversion of Bible writer, Paul, a Jew who has persecuted Christians until he was blinded by a ray of God’s power as he traveled (Acts 13:9). He was baptized, became Christian, and his sight was restored, and traveled the Mediterranean lands, preaching Christianity. His lifelong mission finally brought him to Rome, where he taught the Good News at Jewish communities and Synagogues. He also spoke to those who were not Jews – Gentiles, because he believed that Christianity was for all humankind.
Another event of crucial significance in early Christianity was Paul’s debate with Peter (Gal 2:11-13). At the time, Christianity was becoming sharply dissimilar from its Judaic origins. Peter posited that Gentiles needed to be circumcised first, convert to Judaism, and then Christianity. On the other hand, Paul believed that non-Jewish converts could become Christians without converting to Judaism.
In Paul’s favor, the council of Jerusalem ruled that Gentiles could be baptized into Christianity without becoming Jews. This heralded a new wave of Christian communalists. Eventually, Paul’s letters to the newly created churches of the Hellenistic world became a sizable section of the New Testament.
