The Emergence of the Church: Context, Growth, Leadership & Worship
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
The early church did not descend from heaven on a golden string. Nor did it spring full-grown from the mind of Jesus or the apostles. The church emerged as the result of God’s decisive action within a particular people, Israel, their story, and their historical context. The focal point of this action was Jesus—his ministry, death, and resurrection. But there were challenges, setbacks, and conflicts, as well as bursts of understanding, expansion, and growth. While the main lines of this story display a remarkable unity, a closer examination also reveals a living diversity of cultures, perspectives, and practices.
In The Emergence of the Church Arthur G. Patzia explores the story, weighs the issues, and traces the contours of the early church’s expansion and growth, life and practices, leadership and worship. He offers both a panoramic introduction to the church as it was in the first century and a foundation for considering how it should be in the twenty-first century.
- Explores the story and life of the early church
- Focuses on church leadership and worship
- Considers how the church should be in the twenty-first century
Top Highlights
“Why, then, did Christianity succeed and the mystery religions fail? No doubt Samuel Angus was correct about his assessment of syncretistic religions: ‘A living religion must not conform to but transform, the spirit of the age.” (Pages 51–52)
“For this reason, it has been suggested that Acts should be called ‘The Acts of the Holy Spirit,’ because the word spirit (pneuma) occurs seventy times in Acts, nearly 20 percent of the total usage of pneuma in the New Testament.” (Page 76)
“We must acknowledge that worship in the early church was a dynamic and living phenomenon rather than a static one” (Page 185)
“There is no evidence that Paul ever felt compelled to standardize worship according to some divine blueprint” (Page 184)
“Paul’s actions revealed his pastoral care for new converts and churches. Instead of proceeding to” (Page 107)
The Emergence of the Church is a carefully crafted and well-executed piece of work, admirably suited to the classroom and useful for private study. It will serve the needs of many students of the first-century church and be a boon to teachers offering courses on the Christian movement in the early decades.
—Ralph P. Martin, former Professor of New Testament,Fuller Theological Seminary
. . . Its fine bibliographies, sensitivity to cultural issues of the Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts and especially its focus on and extensive treatment of both ministry and church order/office and also worship in the first-century church make this a very useful and distinctive textbook.
—David M. Scholer, Professor of New Testament and Associate Dean for the Center for Advanced Theological Studies, School of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary
An enjoyable introduction and a useful reference tool.
—Steven Spriggs, Themelios 28:2
Arthur G. Patzia (PhD, McMaster University) is Senior Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary of Northern California. He is also the author of Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon in the New International Bible Commentary series.
