Thank you for joining us today. We are pleased to welcome Dr. Gordon Heath, a distinguished church historian.
I had the privilege of taking a course with Professor Heath during my master’s in theological studies. Like many students, I found the experience impactful. I once told my wife, “I wish everybody could understand and know the history of what they believe in.”
In addition to God’s call in my life, academically, I am a trained systematic theologian. It means that, as a systematic theologian, I focus on collecting and carefully interpreting the teachings of all biblical passages on a particular topic. As Dr. Wayne Grudem explains it, “systematic theology is any study that answers the question, ‘What does the whole Bible teach us today?’ about any given topic.” Systematic theologians sometimes use terms and concepts not found in the Bible, but these arise from synthesizing biblical teachings on specific topics. For example, ‘Trinity’ and ‘incarnation’ do not appear in Scripture, yet they effectively summarize key biblical theology. So, while I am comfortable talking about church history, which I have and will continually do by God’s grace, throughout this series, Dr. Heath will share his insights with us.
The purpose of this series with Dr. Heath is to explore the origins of Christianity and the lessons we can from the past. In this first episode, we discussed the following questions:
- You’ve studied how Christianity moved from a small first-century movement to a global religion. What makes its origins historically unusual?
- When people hear “early Christianity,” what do they usually imagine—and where does that picture tend to be misleading?
- In the first century, Christianity was marginal and often viewed with suspicion. What conditions made its survival—and growth—so improbable?
- How did early Christianity emerge from Judaism while gradually becoming a distinct movement?
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