Look at Christian mission work through the centuries
Justinian Von Welz, a Protestant missiologist before all but a few Protestants even thought much about Christian Missions, wrote a treatise in 1664. The English translation of the title is "Christian and Sincere Admonition to All Orthodox Christians of the Augsburg Confession Concerning a Special Society through which with the Help of God Our Evangelical …
Continue reading Guidelines for Protestant Missionaries, from 1664
I am not an expert on Cyril and Methodius, so I feel like whatever I say here would be based on knowledge too thin to be of value. However, I chose 862 since that was the year that the brothers Cyril (ca 826-869AD) and Methodius (ca 815--885AD) were asked to evangelize the Slavs. The brothers …
Continue reading 862AD 1st Millennium Missions History. Holy Language
Patriarch Timothy I lived from around 740AD to 823AD. For a little over half of his life he served as Patriarch of the Church of the East (780 - 823). Supposedly, in 782 he had a discussion of religion with Caliph Al-Mahdi (reigning 775-785). In some ways this appears to be the earliest (or at …
Continue reading 782AD 1st Millennium Missions History. Interfaith Dialogue
Many years ago I read a book, "The History of Anti-Semitism" by Leon Poliakov. Actually, I only read Volume 2 because that was the only one for which I had a copy. (The book is available in digital form at http://www.archive.org.) It is rather disheartening that the topic of anti-semitism would need to have multiple …
Continue reading 776AD 1st Millennium Missions History. Start of “The Cross or the Sword”?
In 754 AD, St. Boniface died. He was killed by Frisian robbers. I must admit that, although there is much to commend him in terms of missional fervor and even in terms of innovation (such as supporting women serving in a missionary capacity), I find him rather unlikable. The main thing is his active support …
Continue reading 754AD 1st Millennium Missions History. Death of Boniface
Christian Missions in the 4th and 5th centuries seemed to grind to a halt. If I remember right, Patrick Johnstone described this period as the "First Stagnation." PERHAPS that is the "triple whammy" one gets from Christianity becoming a state religion. #1. There is the temptation to see the faith as an "Ethnic Religion"--- seeing …
Continue reading 635AD 1st Millennium Missions History. Moving East
369AD was the approximate date of the completion of the translation of the Bible into the language of the Goths--- a Germanic Language. This was completed before the Vulgate Latin translation (although Latin translation did occur before this). The Gothic Bible exists before the Armenian translation. That is kind of amazing considering that Armenia was …
Continue reading 369AD 1st Millennium Missions History. Inspiring But Different
In 301 AD, Christianity first became a state religion. (I know that legend has it that Osrhoene established Christianity as its state religion in the 2nd century... but even if true, that was only for a short time.) In 301AD, Armenia became a "Christian nation." Eleven years later, with the Battle of Milvian Bridge, Christianity …
Continue reading 301AD 1st Millennium Missions History. Century that Changed So Much
As the apostles (vocational church planters) faded out in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the local churches became the lead missionary entities. This had a positive aspect as the Christian faith slowly spread out from major Roman and Near East cities into the surrounding regions. Negatively, there seems to be less leaps of the faith …
Continue reading 156AD 1st Millennium Missions History. Second and Third Century Missions
One might think of the Jerusalem Council described in Acts 15 as codifying the first big transition in the church. At the council a major decision was made (or was identified that the Holy Spirit had already made it). That is that a Greek can become a Christian without also becoming (behaviorally or culturally) a …
Continue reading 100AD 1st Millennium Missions History. The Second Big Transition