discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 36 3 CHRISTIAN MISSION A BRIEF HISTORY Objectives Your study of this chapter should help you: • See the key events in the history of mission from the time of Paul to the beginning of the 20th century • Recognize how conditions at the beginning of the New Testament period aided the formation of Christian mission • Define Diaspora and explain its significance for mission • Evaluate the importance of early Christian missionaries (e.g., Patrick, Augustine, and Boniface) • Identify important moments in the rise of Islam • Understand the roles of the Pietists and of William Carey in the development of the modern era of mission Diaspora monotheism Qur’an (Koran) Pax Romana Patrick Augustine Alopen Muhammad ethnocentrism Pietists Nicholas von Zinzendorf Key Words to Understand 36 Moravians John Wesley William Carey Robert Morrison Robert Moffat Samuel Mills Haystack Prayer Meeting Adoniram Judson J. Hudson Taylor Student Volunteer Movement
245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 37 Getting from where Christianity was on the day of Jesus’ ascension to where it is today has made for an interesting journey. Along the way the faith has been battered by internal and external persecution. It has found itself outlawed by government decrees in some places and embraced as the state religion in others. Through the rise and fall of nations and empires and the emergence and collapse of cultural systems, the Christian faith has done more than survive; it has thrived, spreading across every continent and to the islands of the seven seas. No other religious faith has taken root and become indigenized in as many places as has Christianity. Believers in Jesus Christ can now be found within every one of the world’s 238 politically organized nations. Michael Jaffarian, former missionary to India and Singapore, has asserted that Christians can communicate in more than 90 percent of the world’s spoken languages and dialects. 1 What began 2,000 years ago as a small movement within Judaism has clearly blossomed into a global religion. Laying the Groundwork: Between the Testaments Christian Mission 37 Synagogue Worship After the Babylonians destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 586/7 B.C., the Jews went for the better part of a century without a Temple. Forced to come up with new patterns of worship, they developed the infinitely reproducible local synagogue. Synagogues, which did not use animal sacrifices, could be organized anywhere there were at least 10 male Jews. This new style of worship involved significant lay participation with male Jews in good standing allowed to publicly read and comment on Scripture. During the first half century of Christianity, these synagogue meetings served as centers for spreading the Good News. In addition, synagogue services became a pattern for Christian worship events. Diaspora In the aftermath of Jerusalem’s destruction, the Babylonians forced large numbers of Jews to move to Babylon. To escape that forced deportation, a significant number of Jews fled southward to Egypt. Over the next five centuries, Jews from these two population centers—Egypt and Babylon—spread far and wide. This dispersion, or Diaspora, of Jews created a network through which first-century Christian mission could flow. After all, Jesus was the Messiah whose advent had been prophesied by the Hebrew Scriptures. Having people sprinkled all around the Mediterranean who were versed in those Scriptures gave the Holy Spirit a perfect foundation on which to work! That the Jews of the Diaspora became skilled in cross-cultural communication was also a plus for the spread of the gospel. Living as a minority among
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discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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