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On This Rock the Beginning of the Church Donald E On This Rock The Beginning of the Church Donald E. Knebel April 22, 2018 Slide 1 1. Today we will talk about the beginning of the Christian church and how it grew from a few people in Jerusalem in about 30 A.D. to a movement that spread all the way to Rome within about 25 years. 2. We will see that the earliest followers of Jesus had different beliefs from what many of us imagine. 3. We will also see that the leader of those earliest followers was a person essentially unknown by most Protestants. 4. Finally, we will see how by about 55 A.D., the followers of Jesus had already divided into two groups in the first of the “points of departure” this series will examine. Slide 2 1. Before his final trip to Jerusalem, Jesus took his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, on the northern edge of what is now Israel. 2. This is how that area looks today. 3. First century Greeks and Romans thought the cave was the opening to Hades, the realm of the gods of the underworld. Slide 3 1. This shows what Caesarea Philippi may have looked like at the time of Jesus. 2. It included temples to pagan gods. 3. The temple on the left is in front of the opening to Hades. 4. This rock cliff represented everything that first century Jews hoped their expected Messiah would overcome – the Romans and their pagan practices. Slide 4 1. In front of this cliff, signifying the power and religion of Rome, Jesus asked his disciples who people thought he was. 2. They gave various answers. Matthew 16:13-14. 1 3. Jesus then asked his disciples the same question: “‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’” Matthew 16:15-16. 4. In other words, Jesus was the one who, as the promised Jewish Messiah, would overcome everything first century Jews despised about this site. Slide 5 1. Based on Peter’s response, Jesus singled him out for a special blessing, giving him the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 16:19. 2. Jesus also spoke these famous words: “And I will tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18. 3. Based largely on this statement, with no consideration of its context, Peter is typically regarded in the west as the leader of the early church, especially by Roman Catholics. Slide 6 1. Upon leaving Caesarea Philippi, Jesus told his disciples he would go to Jerusalem, where he would be killed and would rise again on the third day. Matthew 16:21. 2. Of course, Jesus was killed in Jerusalem. 3. “After Jesus’ execution, his followers scattered, shaken with grief and terrified for their own lives.” Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels at 7. 4. As Karen Armstrong writes: “That should have been the end of the matter.” Armstrong, Jerusalem at 144. 5. As the Bible itself reports, two other recent Messianic Jewish movements had failed when their leader was killed. Acts 5:34-40. Slide 7 1. As we all know, the Jesus movement did not die. 2. The tomb of Jesus was found empty on Sunday morning. Slide 8 1. Jesus then appeared to his disciples near the Sea of Galilee. Matthew 28:16-17. 2. “[T]he resurrection awoke the dejected disciples to the truth that Jesus was in fact the Messiah.” Wright, The Challenge of Jesus at 108. 2 3. Peter and Jesus’ other disciples then began preaching that “God has raised Jesus to life.” Acts 2:5, 32. Slide 9 1. It is common today to say that the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah. 2. There was a time, which we will discuss next week, when Christianity separated from Judaism and virtually all Jews today reject Christian beliefs about Jesus. 3. And many, perhaps most, Jews in the first century did not accept Jesus as the promised Messiah. 4. But Acts reports that the message of Jesus was first taken “only to Jews.” Acts 11:19. 5. This statement was made by Peter, just after Pentecost: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. * * * Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.” Acts 2:14, 41. 6. According to Acts, although not everyone who heard the message believed, the number of those who did soon “grew to about five thousand.” Acts 4:4. Slide 10 1. Josephus wrote a history of the Jews in about 94 A.D., containing the earliest known statements about Jesus outside the New Testament. 2. Josephus said: “He [Jesus] drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles.” Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18:3:2. Slide 11 1. This site along the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem is a first century cemetery. 2. The ossuaries were used only by Jews and contained the bones that remained after the body had decomposed while lying in the tomb. Slide 12 1. This is a picture of a fragment from an ossuary found in this cemetery. 2. You can see the reference to the Mount of Olives. 3. On the right, you can see the chi rho symbol, the first two letters of the Greek word “Christos,” which means “Anointed” and from which the English word “Christ” is derived. 3 4. The Greek “Christos” had the same meaning as “Messiah,” derived from Hebrew. Slide 13 1. As Bart Ehrman writes in his most recent book: “The original followers of Jesus . were all Jews, through and through, in every way.” Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity at 46. 2. As a result, “[w]e need to visualize them as having long hair and wearing the prayer shawl – the tallit – as they prayed. They stopped working at sundown on Friday evening. They welcomed and observed the Sabbath, sharing in its festive meal, likely all together, singing, rejoicing, and resting from labor.” Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian at 97. Slide 14 1. In addition to attending the regular Jewish services, these early followers also met in their homes to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. 2. “They broke bread together in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts 2:46-47. Slide 15 1. Although Peter was initially active in baptizing followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, he was not their leader, at least after these followers became organized in something we might today call a church. 2. As the church historian Eusebius wrote in about 325 A.D.: “Peter, James, and John, after the Ascension of the Saviour, did not claim pre-eminence because the Saviour had specially honoured them, but chose James the Righteous as Bishop of Jerusalem.” Eusebius, The History of the Church at 36. Slide 16 1. One recent author, a Lutheran pastor, writes: “For thirty years after Jesus’ death, James [the Righteous] was the leading figure in the early church. It can be rightly claimed that if anyone rightly deserves the titles of first ‘bishop’ of the church, or even first ‘pope,’ it is James who justly deserves them.” Id. at 177. 2. A recent biography of Peter agrees that James the Righteous, show in this painting by El Greco, “supplanted Peter as the leader of the Christians after the Crucifixion of Jesus.” Grant, St. Peter at 139. 4 Slide 17 1. When most Protestants think of a Biblical James, they think of the son of Zebedee, an early disciple of Jesus. Mark 1:19. 2. But Mark also identifies another James as one of Jesus’ brothers. Mark 6:3. 3. All early sources identify that brother as the leader of the early church. 4. Paul, describing a trip to Jerusalem in which he visited Peter, says that he “saw none of the other apostles – only James, the Lord’s brother.” Galatians 1:19. 5. Josephus describes “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James.” Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20:9:1. 6. Eusebius says: “Then there was James, who was known as the brother of the Lord.” Eusebius, The History of the Church at 35. 7. In summary, as a recent author writes: “The community of believers [Jesus] left behind became the earliest church, headquartered in Jerusalem under the leadership of his brother James.” Klinghoffer, Why Jews Rejected Jesus at 90. Slide 18 1. Eusebius describes James this way: “[H]e drank no wine or intoxicating liquor and ate no animal food; no razor came near his head; he did not smear himself with oil, and took no baths. He alone was permitted to enter the Holy Place, for his garments were not of wool but of linen.” Eusebius, The History of the Church at 35. 2. During Jesus’ life, James did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. John 7:5. 3. Paul reports that Jesus appeared to James after his resurrection, when he apparently became a believer. 1 Corinthians 15:7. Slide 19 1. A Lutheran pastor recently wrote: “James is a vital key to the beliefs and teachings of Jesus.” Butz, The Brother of Jesus at 17. 2. That statement begs the question of what James believed.
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