Training in Ministry

Training In Ministry

A Panorama of
Christian History

Jonathan Nelson

A 12-lesson study of the Christian Church
from the 1st through the 20th century, and includes
practical applications for ministry today.

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or its Leader’s Guide, log on to:

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Locate the title, then click on:

About the Author: Jonathan Nelson has a Master of Arts degree in Theological Studies/Church History from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. For three years Jonathan taught history and historical theology at Seminario Evangelico Asociado in Maracay, Venezuela. Together with his wife Meta and their three children, they currently serve as missionary educators in Spain.

Table of
Contents

For TIM Study Leaders4

The TIM Curriculum5

Preface7

1The Young Church8

2Catholic Christianity and the Age of Council20

3Constantine and Augustine31

4The Church of the Barbarians41

5The Church at the Height of Its Power53

6Theologians and Reformers in the Middle Ages64

7The Renaissance and German Reformation76

8Swiss, Anabaptist and Roman Catholic Reforms89

9The English Reformation to 1689103

10Pietism and The Great Awakening116

11American Christianity Until The First World War130

12The Church in The Modern World143

For Study Leaders

Welcome to this significant opportunity to be involved in Jesus’ Great Commission to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:18-20). To help you move forward, you are encouraged to:

1. Download a free copy of “Design Your Equipping Ministry” from: TrainingInMinistry.com. Ch. titles in this key resource are:

What in the World is the Church Doing?
The Biblical Mandate to Equip
Lay Ministry in the Mirror of History
How to Implement Change
How Adults Learn Effectively
How to Lead Effective Discussions
How to Develop Your Equipping Ministry

2. Download the free Leader’s Guide for this course. (Note: this course does not currently have a Leader’s Guide. But for ideas on how to lead the weekly group session, you can down-load one from another TIM course. This guide will be of help to you as you lead each weekly group session.

Educational Philosophy of TIM Courses

Every TIM course incorporates a head, heart, and hands approach to learning. Head represents content to be learned, heart the application of this truth to one’s own life, and hands, involvement in ministry through using the course content.

Your Time Commitment

As the Group Study Leader, you should spend adequate time: 1) Preparing the workbook lesson—just as thoroughly as you expect your learners to prepare. 2) Reading the Leader’s Guide and marking those questions and other items you want to emphasize during the group session.

The Weekly Group Meeting

This 90 minute weekly meeting should feature a discussion of the lesson, focusing on integrative and application type questions found in the Leader’s Guide. It should consist of an hour of interaction with the lesson, as well as time for prayer and group fellowship.

Ministry Involvement

This ministry opportunity should be appropriate to the gifts and ministry experiences of each learner; result in their growth; and “build up” the Body of Christ.

Curriculum
of TIM Courses

Training In Ministry courses will enable you and your church to “equip the saints for the work of ministry and so build up the body of Christ.”

GroundingCourses

Christianity 101 is designed to disciple new Christians, either in small groups, or one-to-one. Application: Learners will lead another person through this course.

A Panorama of the Bible features easy-to-remember visuals for each of the 12 Bible periods. Learners will thrill to find that they can remember the major themes of Bible content and message. Application: With the aid of the Leader’s Guide, learners will lead another person, or a small group through this course.

Truth That Transforms will provide learners with a solid foundation in the major doctrines of Scripture, with an emphasis on practical applications. Application: Learners will, with the aid of the Leader’s Guide, lead another individual, or group of people through this course.

A Panorama of Christian History provides a “big picture” view of the Church from the 1st through the 20th century. It also emphasizes practical lessons we can apply to our own ministry. Application: Learners will teach this course to another person or group.

Growing Courses

Welcome to Your Ministry teaches the important truth that God has called and gifted all believers for ministry and challenges them to get involved in some basic ministries in the church. Application: Learners will commit to getting additional training for ministry, and getting involved in it.

How To Discover Your Spiritual Gifts will provide believers with a better understanding of which spiritual gifts they may have, and how to use their gifts in service for Christ. Application: A short-term assignment will be given, wherein learners use one of their gifts in an approved ministry.

Learning to Serve: Jesus As Role Model teaches the servant life-style of Jesus in many ministry related contexts, and helps learners put this into practice in their ministry. Application: Learners will be given a ministry role wherein they demonstrate the servant-leader style of Jesus.

Going Courses

Your Ministry of Prayer studies prayer in Scripture, and will help learners become involved in a significant ministry of prayer. Application: Participants will commit to a ministry of prayer as suggested in the course content.

Outreach as a Life-style will train lay people to develop friendships with people, leading to sharing Christ with them. Application: Learners will practice this personal evangelism approach in their lives of sharing their faith.

Your Ministry at Home provides practical principles in how to establish and maintain a truly Christian home. Application: Applying the principles week by week within the learner’s family, including being consistent in reading the weekly schedule of verses and journaling based on these verses.

Touching Tomorrow By Teaching Children is a superb tool to train more workers to serve in the exciting ministry of teaching children. Application: Teaming up with an experienced teacher as an assistant for one quarter or more.

Christianity in the Workplace relates faith to practical and ethical issues on the job. Its focus is how to be like Christ in the work world. Application: Learners will apply these biblical principles to their areas of work.

Contending For The Faith is a course on Christian apologetics, which will equip learners to defend and share their faith, especially among intellectual unbelievers. Application: Learners will engage in an effective ministry of defending and sharing their faith.

A Survey of the New Testamentis a 12-lesson survey of the New Testament. It includes outlines of each book, background information, and questions for individual study. Application: Learners will be able to lead Bible studies in any New Testament book.

How to Study the Biblewill give students an in-depth exposure to the inductive method of Bible study and help them develop their own outlines for leading Bible studies. Application: Based on their study, learners will lead 10 Bible studies in the book of Ephesians.

Your Ministry of Leadership will encourage, equip, and train Christian men and women for increased effectiveness in leadership. Application: Learners will demonstrate the skills taught in this course in an assigned ministry position.

Preface:

Jesus Christ and
the Church of History

Christians know that Jesus Christ is “the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16) who chose them from every nation (Eph. 1:4, Rev. 5:9) to be his church (I Peter 2:4-10). He is their Savior, King, and the giver of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33,38). Their Faith is more than an ethical system; it is “the power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16).

But this is not the whole story. If it were, we could write a Christian theology but not a Christian history. Jesus is not only a supernatural being “out there.” He was a Jewish rabbi (Mark 10:51) with perfect understanding of the Scriptures who taught in the Temple and synagogues of Palestine. He lived, died, and rose again “down here.” On this unshakable rock countless Christians have built their faith.

Jesus, the eternal Son of God, accomplished God’s salvation plan in history. His life gave life to the church. So the church, while belonging to heaven, lives out God’s plan for it in history. This is how we know that Christian history has meaning and value. This is why we can study it and learn from it with confidence.

Chapter 1

The
Young Church

The Church and the Jews

A citizen of modern Israel may proclaim belief in any Messiah he or she chooses except one—Jesus. Most Jews today do not see anything Jewish about Jesus and his church. Instead, they recall centuries of Jewish-Christian conflict, with Jews usually the losers.

But Jesus was a Jew. So were the first Christians. They saw Jesus die as a sacrifice for sins at Jerusalem, the place where Jewish sacrifices had been offered since the time of King David. They saw him come to life again as the Jewish Scriptures said he would (Psalm 16). They proclaimed him as Lord and Messiah (Christ) to their own people first.

The first Christians handed down many Jewish practices, especially the ones they learned in the synagogue. Even today, when we attend a church service, read the Old Testament, pray before a meal, or teach the Ten Commandments to our children, we are living a part of this heritage.

THE SYNAGOGUE. Temples were the religious centers of the ancient world. The Jews also had a Temple but, unlike the pagans, they had only one. It was in Jerusalem. The Jews, though, were scattered throughout the world. Most could not visit Jerusalem often. So they worshiped God right where they were. The local congregations, and the buildings where they met, were called synagogues.

Synagogue worship spread throughout the Jewish communities during the period after the Old Testament was written and before the birth of Christ. Acts 15:21 tells how the Scriptures had been taught “from ancient generations in every city… in the synagogues every Sabbath [Saturday].”

In the synagogues, Jews worshipped without priests or Temple rituals. They read Scripture, heard sermons, prayed, sang, and gave offerings. The meeting-houses were plainly furnished with a platform and/or podium, seats, a special place for the Scriptures, and collection boxes.

Earthly life Council ClementPoplycarp
of Christat Jerusalem of Rome Justin Martyr

0 50 100 150

Persecutions PersecutionsGnosticism

Gentiles and the Synagogue. God-fearing Gentiles attended synagogue services too (Acts 13:43). In a world of pagan superstition and immorality, Jewish faith and life was attractive. The Jews welcomed Gentile listeners but they were still aliens, outsiders. They could be fully accepted only if they submitted to certain rituals like circumcision. Many Gentiles preferred a half-way status, believing in the true God without practicing all of Judaism.

Early Christians and the Synagogue. The Synagogues’ congregations were a natural first audience for the apostles and their message that Jesus is Lord. Jesus himself had set the example of teaching there (Mark 1:21). The Apostle Paul found especially eager hearers among the God-fearing Gentiles. He showed them how Jesus fulfilled the Jewish Scriptures while putting an end to Jewish ritual. They no longer had to be aliens; they could be full members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:14-19).

The Synagogue and Christian Worship The Christians patterned their worship services after the synagogue. This was natural. Most of the earliest converts—Jews and Gentiles—came from the synagogue. It was their only “church” experience.

The synagogue proved to be an excellent model. From the beginning, the Christian church was built on many local congregations rather than one temple and centered on Scripture-teaching rather than priestly rituals. In this way, God gave the new Faith the means to put down strong roots in each place it was planted.

Here is a description of Christian worship from the middle of the second century:

On the day called the Sun’s Day [Sunday] there is a meeting…and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read…When the reader has finished, the president gives a discourse, urging us to imitate these noble examples.

Then we all rise together and offer prayers, and…[then] bread and wine and water are brought; and the president similarly offers up prayers and thanksgivings to the best of his power, and the people assent with “amen.” Then the things over which thanks have been offered are distributed and partaken of by all…

[Finally, a] collection is deposited with the president, who gives aid to

Tertullian Cyprian
Irenaeus Origen

200 250 300

PersicutionPersecutionPersecutionChristianity

Tolerated

the orphans and widows and all who are in want…” (Justin [100-165] First Apology, 67).

When Justin wrote this, a hundred years after the church began, the synagogue’s influence was still clearly seen in the reading of Scripture, the sermon (president’s discourse), prayers and “amen,” and the collection for the poor. We still practice these things today.

What features of the synagogue were adopted by the church?

______

What aspect of early Christian worship was different from the synagogue?

______

THE SCRIPTURES. Notice how important the Scriptures were in the church service described by Justin. The first part of the meeting was dedicated to reading and expounding them.

Jewish Scriptures in the Church. The first Bible of the Christians was the Jewish Scripture (the Old Testament). This is what Justin calls “the writings of the prophets.” The Old Testament was the Bible of Jesus and his apostles. They believed and taught that it was inspired by God (II Peter 1:21). It prophesied about Jesus (Luke 24:27). For these reasons, there was never any serious doubt that the Old Testament should be accepted as inspired Scripture for the church.

Christian Scriptures. Justin also reports that Christians read “the memoirs of the apostles” in church along with the prophets. That is how he refers to the writings of the New Testament. The phrase “Prophets and Apostles” was a common way of referring to the Bible as a whole.

The Greek Bible. Because Greek was the common language of the Empire, the apostles wrote in Greek and their writings circulated widely. Churches in most places could understand them regardless of the nationalities of the congregations.

Most of the Old Testament was first written in Hebrew. However, most early Christians used a Greek translation of it called the Septuagint. Tradition said it was translated at Alexandria, Egypt, in the third century before Christ.

God-inspired writings. Christians did not invent the idea of God-inspired writings. They inherited it from the Jews and then carried it further. The Christians saw that, if the prophets’ writings (Old Testament) were the Word of God, then the apostles’ writings (New Testament) must be his Word, too. For the prophets only dimly saw Jesus (I Peter 1:10-12) but the apostles were eyewitnesses of this glory (John 1:14).

Christians understood that the apostles had authority from Christ to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:18-20). The apostles’ writings contained the word of salvation that they preached. The writings, like the preaching, had the authority of Christ himself.

For the early church, then, the important question was, “What did the apostles write?” Many authors in the early years wrote about Jesus. Should they be included in Scripture? Only if they are apostolic, said the early church.

Four groups of writings were known to be apostolic: those of Matthew and James, directed to Jewish communities; those of Peter and his companion, Mark: those of Paul and his companion, Luke; and those of John. These were read in the churches form the earliest times. A few shorter writings (such as 2 and 3 John) and personal letters (such as Philemon) did not circulate at first to all the churches, so they took longer to be accepted by all. But, from the beginning, there was agreement on most of the apostles’ writings.

Early Lists Probably no one thought at first to make a list of all the apostolic books. But then false teachers came along. Under the influence of Greek philosophy, they wanted to throw out some of the apostolic books, especially the more “Jewish” ones. The church had to start making a list of the books that had always been “publicly read to the Church people.”[1] This list was called a canon (meaning “ruler” or “standard”).

The oldest New Testament canon that we know about is from the second century. It is called the “Muratorian Canon.” It lists most of the books of the New Testament. On the other hand, it mentions a book – not in the New Testament – which “was written very recently in our time,” not by an apostle. We are told it may be read for personal edification, but not in church; it does not belong with the Prophets and Apostles. This list also rejects books known to be fakes.