I must agree with Philip Schaff, that the “chief positive
cause of the rapid spread and ultimate triumph of Christianity is to be found
in its own absolute intrinsic worth, as the universal religion of salvation,
and in the perfect teaching and example of its divine-human Founder.”[1] Either Christ and his life and doctrine are
final truth and reality or they are not.
These are the only two options.
Because the former is the veritable truth, the utter supremacy and
sublimity of the Christian faith is its strongest draw card. Regarding methodology, the Father has given
an elect people to be his Son’s own; the Son accomplished their redemption and
promised that “[he] will build [his] church” (Matt. 16:18), and this begins by
the Holy Spirit descending on the “little flock,” to whom it is the Father’s
“good pleasure to give…the kingdom” (Lk. 12:32). The expansion of the early (or latter) church
is ultimately the result of the infinite wisdom, plan, and power of its Author,
the triune God. Ultimately, therefore,
the essential value and altogether worthiness of its Object of devotion, Jesus
Christ, was, is, and always will be its final, ultimate means of growth.
Of course, the synagogues, which scattered the Hebraic
religion and worldview through the Roman Empire like seeds, and Roman highways,
the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek (i.e., the Septuagint or LXX), the pax
Romana or Peace of Rome, the degradation of the heathen moral and religious
world, as well as the despaired condition Judaism after the destruction of
Jerusalem and the temple all served, in the providence of God, as preparatory
antecedents for the arrival of the kingdom in the Son of God, who came in the
“fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4). However, persecution
appears to have been (and continues to be in many societies the Church finds
herself in) the primary means of expansion.
The weighty and oft quoted words of early Church Father Tertullian are
of a truth. Speaking to the Roman
rulers, “Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you; it is rather a
temptation to us. The oftener we are
mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.”[2] It was unflinching faith in the supremely
worthy Christ that watered the seed of blood spilt by the martyrs. “As war brings out the heroic qualities of
men, so did the persecutions develop the patience, the gentleness, the
endurance of Christians, and prove the
world-conquering power of faith.”[3]
One of the most faith-invigorating experiences I had in my earlier walk was
reading through Foxe’s Book of
Martyrs. Learning of the legacy of
suffering by grace through faith, upon which the Christian faith was built,
really helped to put into perspective the minor resistances I had experienced
in my own faith and evangelism. That season was one of great personal growth in
faith. Reading the early Church Fathers
continues that growth today.
The Lord Jesus himself both prescribed and predicted this means
in Matthew’s Gospel. He prescribed to
the disciple that when they were persecuted in one town or city to “flee to the
next” and take with them the gospel there (Matt. 10:23). Later, when pronouncing the seven woes on the
Sanhedrin, Jesus predicted their persecution of the fledgling church would be
“from town to town” (Matt. 23:34). This
is precisely the plan we see unfolding in the book of Acts, as the persecution
which arose about Stephen “scattered” Christians throughout the surrounding
regions, thus fulfilling the divine purpose for reaching the concentric mission
fields laid out in Acts 1:8; “they that were scattered abroad went everywhere
preaching the word” (Acts 8:4; cf. 8:1; 11:19).
Again, from Schaff, “History reports no mightier, longer and deadlier
conflict that this war of extermination waged by the heather Rome against
defenseless Christianity…Thus this bloody baptism of the church resulted in the
birth of a Christian world.”[4] In less than 300 years, by pouring out their
own blood rather than the blood of others, the early church conquered the known
world. Are these means of missionary
growth still in effect today? Of course
they are. First, God’s glory, beauty,
and infinite value cannot be diminished one iota. And since Christ Jesus is the same yesterday,
today, and forever, the intrinsic worth of the faith will continue to grow the
Church. Second, in most Two-Thirds
countries, the Global South, persecution is the norm, and is one of the primary
means of evangelism. A visit to Voice of
the Martyrs (www.persecution.com) or a
reading of the outstanding biography of Sergei Kourdakov The Persecutor suffice to demonstrate this point.
[1]
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian
Church, vol. 2: Ante-Nicene Christianity A.D. 100—325, (Peabody, Mass.:
Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2006), 16.
[2]
Tertullian, “The Apology,” pp. 17—55 in Ante-Nicene
Fathers: Tertullian (I, II, III), vol. 3, (Peabody, Mass. Hendrickson
Publishers, Inc., 1994), 55, italics original.
[3]
Schaff, History, 33, italics added.
[4]
Ibid., 33, 32 respectively.
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