The Christian church did not begin in a place of cultural ease or political safety. It began in Jerusalem, the city where Jesus had been crucified, buried, raised, and from which he ascended into heaven. In the earliest days after the ascension, Jerusalem was the central gathering place for the first believers. There, the apostles preached, the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, and the church began to grow.
But Jerusalem was also a complex and contested place. The early church emerged in a world shaped by religious tension, political discord, and deep division. In those first decades, especially before Jerusalem’s fall in A.D. 70, three groups formed the immediate backdrop to the church’s earliest life.
The first group was the earliest Christians. These believers were largely Jews who had come to see Jesus as the promised Messiah. They did not believe they were abandoning the story of Israel. They believed that the story had reached its fulfillment in Jesus, the crucified and risen Christ.
The second group consisted of Jews who did not regard Jesus as the Messiah. Judaism in the time of Jesus was not monolithic. Under the umbrella of Jews who rejected Jesus were distinct Jewish groups that shaped the religious landscape. The first group was the Pharisees, who were deeply concerned with obedience to the law and the holiness of God’s people. The second group was the scribes, who served as guardians of religious learning and regarded themselves as the true interpreters of Scripture. The third group was the Sadducees, the privileged priestly class closely connected to the temple system in Jerusalem. The fourth group was the Essenes, radical separatists associated with Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls who awaited the eschatological end of the age. The fifth group was the Zealots, political enthusiasts who longed for liberation from Roman rule.
Outside of Judaism, the Roman authorities formed a third major group. Rome regarded public order as essential, and anyone perceived as a threat to imperial stability could quickly become a target. Jesus had been crucified on the charge of kingship, a charge Rome could interpret as insurrection. Because of this, it is not hard to see why Christ’s followers might also be viewed with suspicion.
This background reminds us that the church has never required ideal conditions to be faithful. Our own day has its tensions, suspicions, divisions, and competing loyalties. Yet the early church teaches us that Christ builds his church not by removing every obstacle but by sustaining his people through them.
This was the world into which the church was born: Jewish believers confessing Jesus as Messiah, Jewish opponents rejecting that claim, and Roman rulers watching for unrest. Yet despite these obstacles, the church began to grow. By the time of the great fire in Rome in A.D. 64, Christianity was, generally speaking, beginning to come into its own.
But more on that fire next time.
By Pastor Chad Burrow
