This Holy Week, as an outflow of our CrossRoad sermon series, I am sharing some stories of early martyrs who took up their own cross and bore the ultimate witness to the cross-shaped Kingdom. One of the great treasures of church history is the collection of writings called The Apostolic Fathers. These are the earliest writings outside the … More The Martyrdom of Ignatius (c.107AD)
The original vision for MainStreet was centered around the “house to house” fellowship described in the Book of Acts. The more formal nature of a Sunday service in a church building was to be viewed as secondary. We dreamed of a number of house groups popping up all over the town, with gracious hosts reaching … More ‘House Church’ Revisited
How did the first Christians gather and worship? We don’t need to guess, or piece a picture together from the sparse comments in the New Testament. We have descriptions from historical sources outside the Bible such as Pliny the Younger, Justin Martyr, Tacitus and Seutonius. Before we read their firsthand accounts, John Gooch gives some … More Early Christian Worship & Persecution
Isn’t it interesting the early church never developed into anything resembling the rabbinic model of education and organization? Paul was a Pharisee who studied under the great Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem, and yet the style of his teaching and apostolic ministry never resulted in training up Christian rabbis to pass on Jesus’ interpretation of Torah to eager students. Just read Acts and the Epistles and you find nothing rabbinic in shape about early Christian education. … More Jesus, Sages & the Mishnah
Once every few years, I’ll wander back to the upstairs of the Bethel University library and retrace my steps back to that holy ground where the light of historical curiosity once split the sky and blinded my time-bound vision long enough to glimpse Eternity through ancient eyes. … More Longings, Libraries & Ancient Portals
A repost from a few years back. -JB What if our faith was as real and powerful as the faith of the Apostle Paul, Peter, James and John, Mary and Lydia, Priscilla and Aquilla? What if our experience of church today was as exciting as those in the upper room at Pentecost, as action-packed as … More Cultivating an Apostolic Imagination
Jeremy L. Berg 