1 Thessalonians 1:7-8
By Rev. David Vance
“From you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything.” (1 Thess. 1:7-8)
Paul and his fellow missionaries rejoiced that the Thessalonian church had already made their labors unnecessary in that region! This is how Christianity became a major world religion in the first three centuries, though it was illegal and persecuted for most of that time.
Church historian Philip Schaff gives this wonderful summary: “It is a remarkable fact that after the days of the Apostles no names of great missionaries are mentioned till the opening of the middle ages, when the conversion of nations was effected or introduced by a few individuals as St. Patrick in Ireland…. There were no missionary societies, no missionary institutions, no organized efforts in the ante-Nicene age; and yet in less than 300 years from the death of St. John the whole population of the Roman empire which then represented the civilized world was nominally Christianized. To understand this astonishing fact, we must remember that … while there were no professional missionaries devoting their whole life to this specific work, every congregation was a missionary society, and every Christian believer a missionary, inflamed by the love of Christ to convert his fellow-men. The example had been set by Jerusalem and Antioch, and by those brethren who, after the martyrdom of Stephen, ‘were scattered abroad and went about preaching the Word." 1
Celsus, the second-century pagan critic of Christianity, scorns the gospel as a message spread abroad by women at the laundry, weavers, and cobblers. Origen, in the early third century, describes how the city churches sent their members to herald the gospel in surrounding villages. May the church today regain this joyful ambition to become a great and glorious gospel army advancing under the banner of their gracious King, every congregation a missionary society, and every member a missionary.
1 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976) 2:1:6.
By Rev. David Vance
“From you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything.” (1 Thess. 1:7-8)
Paul and his fellow missionaries rejoiced that the Thessalonian church had already made their labors unnecessary in that region! This is how Christianity became a major world religion in the first three centuries, though it was illegal and persecuted for most of that time.
Church historian Philip Schaff gives this wonderful summary: “It is a remarkable fact that after the days of the Apostles no names of great missionaries are mentioned till the opening of the middle ages, when the conversion of nations was effected or introduced by a few individuals as St. Patrick in Ireland…. There were no missionary societies, no missionary institutions, no organized efforts in the ante-Nicene age; and yet in less than 300 years from the death of St. John the whole population of the Roman empire which then represented the civilized world was nominally Christianized. To understand this astonishing fact, we must remember that … while there were no professional missionaries devoting their whole life to this specific work, every congregation was a missionary society, and every Christian believer a missionary, inflamed by the love of Christ to convert his fellow-men. The example had been set by Jerusalem and Antioch, and by those brethren who, after the martyrdom of Stephen, ‘were scattered abroad and went about preaching the Word." 1
Celsus, the second-century pagan critic of Christianity, scorns the gospel as a message spread abroad by women at the laundry, weavers, and cobblers. Origen, in the early third century, describes how the city churches sent their members to herald the gospel in surrounding villages. May the church today regain this joyful ambition to become a great and glorious gospel army advancing under the banner of their gracious King, every congregation a missionary society, and every member a missionary.
1 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976) 2:1:6.
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