Christopher Chelpka

Norman Hubbard:

Put yourself in the shoes of a traveler to ancient Tyre, a city conveniently located where the modern city of Tyre is, in Lebanon. How would you find a church in the first century? There would be no signs. The mechanic at the local Tyre Shop probably couldn’t help. You couldn’t even ask for a “church.” The word “church” (ekklesia in Greek) was a common term that meant “civic gathering.”

You could also forget about asking where the “Christians” gathered. For a time, no one used this term at all. When it came onto the scene (see Acts 11:26), it was almost certainly a slur. In some cases, it could have been lodged as a criminal accusation (see 1 Peter 4:15-16). Asking someone at the Tyre Shop where to find a “Christian church” might have sounded like you were searching for a civic gathering of anti-imperial agitators.

So if you wanted to find a Christian church 2,000 years ago in places like Tyre, you could start by asking where the Jewish synagogue was…. But how would you know whether the synagogue assembly was a group of Christians? You could start by looking at the composition of the group and then listen to what they called each other.

If you have some downtime and would like to listen to an interesting podcast, in this one, Shane Rosenthal does man on the street interviews asking people what they think about Santa Claus, Rudolph, and Jesus—legend or history?

www.humbleskeptic.com/p/christm…

The responses are interesting to listen to, and he compares them to how early Christian apologists like Justin Martyr spoke about the Christian Faith. Whereas modern people tend talk about their upbringing or personal sense of truth as reasons for believing, Justin Martyr talked about history and prophesy.

Check out the episode. You might gain a helpful way to bring up Jesus with your friends. And there’s lots of great links attached as well.