"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."- Galatians 4:4-5
- Travel by Land and Sea
- Synogogues
- Cities
- Persecution
- Charity
Travel by Land and Sea
The military ambition of Rome led to a burgeoning infrastructure of Roads and Seaports linking the major metropoli of the day. Because travel was easy cities flourished with the increase in trade, and cultures flourished and clashed with the increase of ideas. Christianity made use of this novel innovation in its spread across the empire.
Synogogues
The synogouge was an religious innovation that preserved the Jewish people during their time in the Babylonian exile. Without access to the Temple, Jewish people were in need of another way to worship. In answer to this need was the Synogogue. Synogogues allowed Jewish people to worship where they lived. When the Jewish people returned from exile, they continued the practice of meeting in Synogogues creating new ones wherever there was a community of Jewish people. The distributed nature of this place of worship provided a point of first contact during Paul's missionary journies. His commitment, to go to the Jew "first" was not simply a matter of giving God's people a chance to hear the good news first, it was also a wise strategy in that it allowed him to quickly establish a foundation in the city.
Cities
Steven Johnson calls cities sophisticated information storage and retrieval systems. Something about new ideas and cities go hand in hand. Johnson believes it is because of the density of the population and the logic of the intelligent space they create. One of the reason Paul was able to establish thriving congregations was that he took the Gospel to the major cultural centers of his day. Traveling from one city to the next Paul was able to plant churches and move on to the next town. The new church, planted in urban soil, had just the amount of soil and circulation to ensure that it would thrive even in his absence.
Migration
Migration played a large role in the expansion of the church.
The first migration is actually a pilgrimage. The feast of Pentacost was a time when faithful Jews from every nation, came to worship God in the Temple. A careful look at the places these Jews came from reveals that they are the four places Jews had historically been taken in captivity too. Egypt (to the south), Assyria (to the north), Babylon (to the East), and Rome (To the West). Acts says may people were converted that day, these people would have taken the Gospel home with them - to their own countries, to thir own families.
The second migration was the persecution in Jerusalem that caused the first believers to flee to Antioch.
The third migration was the expululsion of the Jews from Rome.
Charity
Christian Charity played a large part in the spread of the Gospel
