Image by Taffy Davies from Michael Green, Evangelism Now and Then
‘Evangelism is not the same as mission’,
Michael Green wrote over thirty years ago in Evangelism Now and Then (original edn 1979; repr. 1992). ‘Mission
is a much broader term than evangelism... It is the
calling of the whole Church to reach out, in whatever ways seems most natural
and appropriate, with the good news of Jesus.’ It is Green’s firm conviction that
we do indeed have a number of very important things to learn from the first
Christians.
At no other time in the history of Christianity did love so
characterize the entire church as it did in the first three centuries. And
Roman society took note. Tertullian of Carthage (c. 160 –
c. 225 AD) reported that the Romans would exclaim, ‘See how they love
one another!’ (Apology
[39.7]) – ‘for they themselves (i.e. the Romans) hate one another’, he added. The Christians were also ‘ready
to die for each other’. It’s no wonder that Christianity spread rapidly
throughout the ancient world, even though there were few organized missionary
or evangelism programmes. The love they practised drew the attention of the world, just as Jesus said it would.
Another
early Christian, Justin Martyr (AD
100–ca.165) sketched out Christian love this way: ‘We who used to value
the acquisition of wealth and possessions more than anything else now bring
what we have into a common fund and share it with anyone who needs it. We used
to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another
race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and
pray for our enemies.’ Jesus had said, ‘Love your
enemies ... and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you’ (Matthew 5:44). The early Christians accepted this statement as a command from their
Lord, rather than as an ideal that couldn’t be actually practised in real life.
Lactantius
(ca. 240 – ca. 320) asserts the unity of the human family, Christian and
non-Christian: ‘if we all derive our origin from one man, whom
God created, we are plainly all of one family. Therefore it must be considered
an abomination to hate another human, no matter how guilty he may be. For this
reason, God has decreed that we should hate no one, but that we should
eliminate hatred. So we can comfort our enemies by reminding them of our mutual
relationship. For if we have all been given life from the same God, what else
are we but brothers? ... Because we are all brothers, God teaches us to never
do evil to one another, but only good – giving aid to those who are oppressed and
experiencing hardship, and giving food to the hungry.’ ‘A person who does not do
what God has commanded shows he really does not believe God,’ Clement of
Alexandria (c.150 – c. 215) declares. To the early
Christians, to claim to trust God while refusing to obey Him was a
contradiction (1 John 2:4). Their Christianity was more than verbal. As another early Christian expressed it, ‘We don’t speak great things – we live them!’
When the inevitable persecution of the early Christians
came, there was no panic. On the contrary, there was a sense that ‘things had to be like this’ (Norbert Brox, A history of the early church, 44).
Jesus ideal of a discipleship which shared his fate in suffering violent death
on the way to new life, his forecasts of persecution in the gospels (Mark
13:9-13; Matthew 10: 16–25), the conscious expectation of the woes marking the
end of the world, and joyful expectation of his Second Coming, all these things
provided an explanation for the early Church community for their suffering. The
fact that Christians were willing to suffer unspeakable horrors and to die
rather than disown their God was, next to their lifestyle, their single most
effective evangelistic tool. There had to be some substance to Christianity if
it meant so much to those who practised it. In fact, the Greek word for ‘witness’
is the same as for ‘martyr’. In many places where our New Testament translations use the word
‘witness’, the early Christians would have understood the term as ‘martyr’. For
example, where Revelation 2:13 refers in some translations to ‘Antipas, my
faithful witness, who was put to death in your city’ the early Christians would
have understood the passage as ‘Antipas, my faithful martyr.’
Origen
of Alexandria (184/185 – 253/254), who
lost his father to persecution while a teenager, told the Romans: ‘When God
gives the Tempter permission to persecute us, we suffer persecution. And when
God wishes us to be free from suffering, even though surrounded by a world that
hates us, we enjoy a wonderful peace. We trust in the protection of the One who
said, “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” And truly He has
overcome the world. Therefore, the world prevails only as long as it is
permitted to by Him who received power from the Father to overcome the world.
From His victory we take courage. Even if He should again wish us to suffer and
contend for our faith, let the enemy come against us. We will say to them, “I can do all things through Christ Jesus our Lord who strengthens me.”’
Commenting on the endurance of the early Christians, Michael
Green writes: ‘think of Paul and Silas lying in prison with their feet in the
stocks and their backs lacerated from a gratuitous whipping. And what were they
doing? Singing praises to God at midnight [Acts 16:25], if you please! That to me
is a greater miracle than the timing of the earthquake which released them from
jail and led to the conversion of the jailer… The ancient world knew all about
stoicism, keeping a stiff upper lip in hard times. But it did not begin to
understand a man who could suffer and die with radiant joy and exultation…
Where it shown, the church grows. As ever, the blood of the martyrs is the
seed.’
In our own society, we
talk rather feebly about the need to rebuild Christian leadership and Christian
confidence. There is no doubt that materialism is deeply corrosive of faith and
that a ‘new evangelization’, as the Roman Catholic Church calls it, is
required for those have experienced a serious crisis
of faith due to secularization. The new Pope Francis I used the term evangelization in his brief address following his election. St Paul tells us that ‘necessity is laid
upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!’ (1 Corinthians 9:16). But what about the three
things that we learn most rapidly about the early Christians: their love for
each other, their love for their neighbour and the willingness to suffer for
their faith, even unto death, with joy and jubilation? Origen
eventually died from torture and imprisonment at the hands of the Romans. Yet,
with unshakable confidence he told them: ‘eventually, every form of worship
will be destroyed except the religion of Christ, which alone will stand. In
fact, it will one day triumph, for its teachings take hold of men’s minds more and more each day.’ We need not only more
endurance and enthusiasm but more love for another if we are to succeed today
in the way that Origen envisaged, for the teachings of our faith to ‘take
hold of men’s minds more and more each day’.
