November 19, 2012

HOW FIRST CENTURY CHRISTIANS CHANGED THE WORLD
(Part 2)    - SIMPLY FOLLOW

First century Christians did not set out to transform their communities, be Missional or to change their world.    The fact is that they were simply followers of Jesus. They had come to know Him as the Saviour and King of their lives.    They believed, experienced and lived out the resurrection and it transformed them in spite of the opposition and persecution they faced. In the process, over time, it transformed the world around them.

In the last blog post I talked about how believers in the first part of the 21^st Century are being increasingly marginalised and how Christianity is no longer at the centre of our culture.    We find ourselves in a very similar situation as the 1^st century Christians.    I asked the question: "When the world misunderstands us, misrepresents us, resents us, wants to exclude us from the public form, and eventually even persecutes us, how are we to respond?    And even more, in such a climate how can we possibly make a difference?    How can we possibly transform our culture when our culture increasingly writes us off as odd balls, superstitious and unworthy of serious consideration."

The early followers of Jesus turned their world upside down.¹    They changed the world and are our examples of how to live and transform our so called post-Christian world in a way that makes the world stand up and take notice.    Modern Christian theories tell us our goal must be to transform ou neghbourhoods and communities through our social action.

It may surprise you that the early Christians did not set out to change the world.    Rather, the world was impacted as a by-product to their transformed lives.    They rejected the pagan gods and refused the immoral lifestyle of the Greco-Roman world.    They were followers of Jesus and they knew that He made no promise of an easy and pain free life.   In fact, He had told them that they would be hated and despised because of Him. ²    Yet they changed their world.    How?

They did it by living a new kind of life in light of their unmovable conviction in the risen Christ.    They themselves were transformed by Him.    They believed in Him.   They were ready to live for Him and they were ready to die for Him.    They were not afraid.    It didn’t matter what the unbelieving world around them thought or did.    They followed Jesus and lived in a way that made the world around them take notice.

A few examples may help us understand how they changed their world simply by living out their lives in obedience to Jesus.

• Sanctity Of Life

The Greco-Roman world had a low view of life and fostered a culture of death.    Infanticide was common.    Children were abandonment, aborted, and offered as human sacrifices.    It was uncommon for a family to have two daughters.    Unwanted female infants, the deformed and the unwanted were left in the streets to die.    The followers of Jesus, filled with the compassion of Christ went out into the streets, picked up the unwanted and rejected and cared for them and saved their lives.

• Moral Purity

The early followers of Jesus stood against the prevalent immorality and sexual perversity of the Roman world.    Committed to the risen Lord they took His words seriously when He said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments."³ T   hey lived out the will of God when they were told, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality." ⁴

Standing against the common practices of the day such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, and child molestation, followers of Jesus elevated the world’s sexual morality.    Perhaps one of the reasons we don’t impact our world in the same way today is that instead of pulling the world to a higher sexual standard, we have scummed to the world’s standard.

• Compassion

It was not common in the Greco-Roman world to show care for the poor, the ailing and the dying.    Dionysius, a Christian bishop of the third century said of the pagans of his day, they ‘thrust aside anyone who began to be sick, and kept aloof even from their dearest friends, and cast the sufferers out upon the public roads half dead, and left them unburied, and treated them with utter contempt when they died.’⁵

Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me," ⁶ and His followers lived it out regardless of what the world around them thought or did.    They didn’t say, "We need to be Missional", they just followed Jesus and lived out the resurrected life.

Following the compassion of Jesus early followers reached out to help those in need and modelled compassion.    Wherever they went they practised charity and the world took notice.    It was from these first faithful followers of Jesus that the first hospitals arose along with other charitable endeavours.

The point I am making is that the early followers of Jesus changed their world not by setting out to change the world or to be missional.    They simply followed the Risen Lord.    They lived Jesus in the world.    It was radical.    It was counter culture.    And where ever they went it was transforming.    They turned the world upside down.

"Early Christians knew little else but that they were followers.    There were no electric guitars or dazzling experiences.    Their Christian journey was just following – following that often cost them family, career, and even their lives.    Yet their impact was incredible, and it wasn’t because they were persons of power and influence.    In the early generations of the church, as it is today, most of the followers of Christ were just common folk, not the well-connected elite with access to the power brokers and shakers and movers.    Their power and influence would be wielded in a far more strategic venue: the hearts and minds of a watching world.  

As persecution mounted against them from the political and religious establishments, they were unintimidated and unmoved as followers of Christ. Some died in the arena as fodder for hungry lions; others were covered with pitch and were set on fire as human torches to light the streets of Rome.    The reality of a Christ worth living for – dying for if necessary – stirred the curiosity of the world.

The lifestyle of these followers was dramatically and productively different from the people around them.    They loved and cared for one another.    They cared for their enemies, even the worst of them.    They were selfless, sharing with each other and those in need.    Politically and economically disenfranchised, they had hope and trust in a transcendent reality that left them strong in the face of poverty and persecution."⁷

We 21^st century followers of Jesus would do well to learn the lessons from those 1^st century followers who changed their world through the simplicity of radically following and living for Jesus.


^{1   Acts 17:6}Luke 6:22 Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!
^{3   John 14:15
4   1 Thessalonians 4:3
 5}    Works of Dionysus, Epistle 12.5
^{6   Matthew 25:45 7  Following Christ - Joseph Stowell - Zondervan - 1996  - Pg 20}