Church History in Plain Language, Fifth Edition: The Story of the Church for Today's Readers

by Bruce L. Shelley

the people of God in history live in a tension between an ideal—the universal communion of saints—and the particular—the actual people in a specific time and place. The church’s mission in time calls for institutions: special rules, special leaders, special places. But when institutions obstruct the spread of the gospel rather than advance it, then movements of renewal arise to return to the church’s basic mission in the world. These pages will illustrate how often that has happened.

Christianity is the only major religion to have as its central event the humiliation of its God.

Little by little his disciples came to see that following him meant saying no to the other voices calling for their loyalties. In one sense that was the birth of the Jesus movement. And in that sense, at least, Jesus founded the church.

The main theme of Jesus’ teaching was the kingdom of God. What did he mean by that? Did he believe in a dramatic intervention of God in the history of the world? Or did he mean that the kingdom is already here in some sense? He probably meant both. The two can be reconciled if we recognize that the phrase stands for the sovereignty of a personal and gracious God, not a geographical or local realm.

His followers, he said, represented another type of society and another type of greatness. In the kingdoms of this world, powerful leaders lord it over others, but God’s kingdom is governed in a wholly different way, by love and service.

Many Christians thought Paul was impossibly optimistic. They were deeply troubled by the decline in Christian morality they felt sure would come in the gentile churches. If you teach justification by faith alone, they argued, people will imagine that once they have accepted Christ by faith, it does not really matter how they live. On the contrary, said Paul, if they really have accepted Christ by faith, they have accepted the way of Christ and the mind of Christ. Those who really love God can do as they choose, for if they really love God they will choose to do the will of God.