PERSECUTION’S INFLUENCE
OF EARLY CHURCH
An Essay
Submitted to Dr. Gregory Tomlin
Of the
Liberty University Seminary Program
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Course
CHHI 520: History of the Christian Church I
October 6, 2012
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
OVERVIEW 1
REMOVING THE WEEDS FROM THE GARDEN 4
SPREADING THE WORD AMONGST THE NATIONS 5
CENTRALIZATION OF THE WORD 6
CONCLUSION 7
REFERENCES 8
INTRODUCTION
The persecution of the early church was carried out by the acts of evil men and an evil generation. The Christian church was new, naïve and frail in ever extent of the word, but God will not allow His message and resolve to go unheeded. The Roman emperors believed that by ‘bringing ultimate pain’ upon this belief system would destroy its resolve much like Rome conquering much of the world. God did not allow His people to be tossed aside in waste. He turned the persecution into one of the major events of the Christian church to date. God allowed the largest empire to ultimately do His work of spreading the ends of the Earth. The persecution of the early church allowed the message and congregation to centralize its message and resolve against oppression. The Word was fully generated, grown and spread during the period of almost complete torment. God is always the one to turn the worse possible situation and turn it toward His glory. The persecution of the early church, although horrific in imagery, stood to be not only the defining moment of the Early Church in its resolve, but foundation for Christianity as we know it today.
OVERVIEW
Through the inspiration of God and by the direction of Christ, the early Christian church was destined to begin and spread from the walls of Jerusalem. Jesus gave the warning to His Apostles that there would be those that would persecute the followers of his Word.
Jesus never portrayed the path to follow Him would ever be easy. He made perfectly...