Here are the completed notes from the evening service August 2, 2015
A Brief Survey of Church History
Why Study Church History?
- Our God is a God of history
- We can understand and know God better by seeing how He has worked in the past
- Church history covers doctrines and issues central to the faith
- To honor those who have faithfully gone before us
A. God’s Historical Record of the Early Church – Book of Acts (33AD – 64AD)
Luke was an early church historian
Acts 1:8 serves as an outline for the book of Acts
Events that occurred during this period:
- The Coming of the Holy Spirit and birth of the Church – Acts 2:1-5
- Persecution from the Jews (AD33-AD64)
- First Christian martyr – Stephen – Acts 6:1 thru 8:2 (AD35)
- Gospel taken to the Gentiles – Acts 10
- Apostle Paul’s First Missionary Journey – Acts 13 (Between AD46 and AD50)
- The Jerusalem Council – Acts 15 (AD49 or AD50)
B. From Acts to the 6th Century (AD64 – AD605)
Events that occurred during this period:
- Persecution from Rome (AD64-AD300)
- The fire in Rome (AD64) – Nero blamed Christians
- Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (AD70)
- Gnosticism (AD90-AD150)
- Gnosticism: The belief that the physical world is evil and that only secret, spiritual knowledge can free persons from the physical world.
- The Development of the New Testament Canon (Prior to AD190)
- Canon: measuring stick
- The word refers to the books that God inspired to form the church’s faith
- The Old Testament Canon was finalized around 300BC
- Persecution and Martyrdom
- The Council of Nicaea (AD325)
- The creed of Nicaea confessed the church’s belief in the Trinity and in the full deity of Jesus
- Rule of Faith – Creeds: a series of statements that tested a new believer’s understanding of essential Christian doctrines
- Emperor Constantine
- After conquering Rome, Emperor Constantine issues the Edict of Milan in 313 and Christianity became fully legal and equal with all religions
- The night before the battle with Rome, Constantine received a vision of a flaming cross, combined with the message “in this sign conquer”
- Freedom and Peace Results in Compromise
- Between AD400 and AD400, Christians gained earthly peace and power
- Churches grew rapidly (not all growth is good)
- Many joined the church to gain the good will of one more deity, other joined for social status
- Church members began to identify themselves with earthly institutions and the institutional aspects of the church became overly important
- The Gospel became diluted
- Some resisted the church’s new status and spent their lives in exile or fled to communities in the desert
Names to be familiar with from this period:
- Nero – AD37-AD68
- Roman emperor, persecuted Christians after the fire in Rome, had the Apostle Paul beheaded
- Ignatius – AD35-AD107
- Disciple of the Apostle John
- Apostolic church father
- Apostolic Fathers: Important First-Century Christians
- Thrown to the lions and eaten alive
- Polycarp – AD69-AD155
- Disciple of the Apostle John
- Apostolic church father
- Burned to death at the stake
- The last survivor of those who had talked with the eyewitnesses of Jesus
- Justin Martyr – AD100-AD165
- Christian philosopher and apologist
- Tertullian – AD160-AD220
- North African church planter
- Jerome – AD345-AD420
- Monk and scholar who translated the Bible into the Latin language of the day
*Some contents adapted from Dr. Harold Willmington’s notes on the church