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    Defending First-Century Faith: Christian Witness in the New Testament
    Defending First-Century Faith: Christian Witness in the New Testament
    Defending First-Century Faith: Christian Witness in the New Testament
    Ebook158 pages2 hours

    Defending First-Century Faith: Christian Witness in the New Testament

    By F. F. Bruce

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    What is the gospel? And how was its first preached--and defended? Opposition of many kinds--religious, political, and cultural--met the early Christians in their eagerness to tell the world about Jesus Christ. The kinds of opposition they faced still exist in new guises and we can learn much from the sensitive way the apostles tackled them. While adapting their approach, the early Christians never watered down their message. "The Kingdom of God calls loudly for such men and women today," writes the author. Defending First-Century Faith is clear, concise, and deeply perceptive. It is factual, fresh, and inspiring and written by the most outstanding evangelical scholar in Britain in the second half of the twentieth century.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateDec 8, 2017
    ISBN9781912149070
    Defending First-Century Faith: Christian Witness in the New Testament
    Author

    F. F. Bruce

    F. F. Bruce (1910-1990) was Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester. Trained as a classicist, Bruce authored more than 50 books on the New Testament and served as the editor for the New International Commentary on the New Testament from 1962 until his death in 1990.

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      Book preview

      Defending First-Century Faith - F. F. Bruce

      Copyright

      PUBLISHER’S

      INTRODUCTION

      During the Easter vacation from his duties as Professor of Biblical History and Literature at the University of Sheffield in 1958, F.F. Bruce made a quick tour in the United States that included giving the Calvin Foundation lectures at Calvin College and Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His goal in those lectures was to uncover principles for apologetics today—defending the gospel against opposition of various kinds—by looking at the apologetic practices of the early Christians.

      In their eagerness to tell the world about Jesus Christ, the early Christians met religious opposition (from the Jews), cultural opposition (from paganism), political opposition (from the Roman empire), and philosophical opposition (from Christian deviations such as legalism, Gnosticism, and Docetism). Bruce shows how the early Christians responded to each such opposition.

      The Christians did not accommodate themselves to the worldviews they encountered. For instance, they regarded prophecy and miracles as the strongest evidences for the truth of the gospel. Today [these evidences] are more often felt to be an embarrassment, and Bruce challenges contemporary believers to inculcate a new awareness of the authority of the Scriptures as God’s Word written, and a new awareness of the power of God at work in the world which he created.

      At times Bruce sounds like an evangelist. The truth of Christ’s supremacy over all the powers in the universe is one which modern man sorely needs to learn, he writes. A Christian witness, therefore must confront men with the truth about God—creator, provider, Lord of history, judge of all—and his command to repent. He must confront them with the truth about man, and his moral bankruptcy in the sight of God. And above all he must confront men with Jesus Christ in his resurrection power, his authority to execute judgment, and his redeeming love by which he delivers men and women from their estrangement and rebellion, and creates them anew in the knowledge of their creator.

      In a statement that is more relevant today than when it was written, Bruce says, "Christianity will not relax its exclusive claims so as to accommodate [other religions]. It presents itself, as it did in the first century, as God’s final word to man; it proclaims Christ, as it did in the first century, to be the one Mediator between God and man…. Any proclamation of the gospel … must inevitably clash with any system which proclaims another than Christ to be the spokesman of God par excellence."

      Christians in the New Testament adapted their approach, but never watered down their message. The kingdom of God calls loudly for such men and women today, he adds.

      The Calvin Foundation lectures were published in England as The Apostolic Defence of the Gospel and in the U.S. as The Defence of the Gospel in the New Testament. They were revised nearly twenty years after first publication, and are presented here as Defending First-Century Faith: Christian Witness in the New Testament. Ideal for adult or high school and college study groups, the book is factual, fresh, and inspiring … by the most outstanding evangelical scholar in Britain, says The Christian Herald.

      * * * * *

      Defending First-Century Faith is published under the Kingsley Books imprint of F.F. Bruce Copyright International.

      When Robert Hicks, a British book publisher, realized that many of the works of F.F. Bruce were not readily available, he wanted to correct that situation. Of the nearly 60 books and hundreds of magazine articles written by the Dean of Evangelical Scholarship, Robert felt many of those not in print could be presented in a visually appealing way for the modern reader.

      After receiving the support of F.F. Bruce’s daughter, Sheila Lukabyo, Robert enlisted the help of Larry Stone, an American publisher. Together they contacted nearly twenty of F.F. Bruce’s publishers. Some of Bruce’s books are being reformatted into printed booklets suitable for evangelism and Bible study in universities and in church groups. Many of Bruce’s printed books as well as collections of articles never before appearing in book form are being made available as reasonably-priced ebooks that can be easily distributed around the world.

      The purpose of F.F. Bruce Copyright International is to encourage an understanding of Professor Bruce’s teaching on the Scripture, to encourage his spirit of humility in approaching the Bible, and encourage academic scholarship among today’s evangelical students and leaders.

      For the latest information on the availability of ebooks and printed books by F.F. Bruce and his friends, see www.ffbruce.com.

      INTRODUCTION

      CHRISTIAN WITNESS IN THE N EW T ESTAMENT called repeatedly for the defence of the gospel against opposition of many kinds—religious, cultural and political. Writing from prison in Philippians 1:16, Paul speaks of himself as posted there for the defence of the gospel. Some years later Peter, addressing his fellow Christians in Asia Minor at a time when their faith was being exposed to a severe test, says, Always be prepared to make a defence to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 3:15). The Greek word which both Paul and Peter use for defence is apologia , from which we derive the words apology, apologist and apologetic.

      The second century AD is the period specially known as the age of the apologists. It was the age when Christian leaders began to fight back against the repressive policy of the Roman state, regarding the pen as a mightier and worthier weapon than the sword. In the earlier part of that century we have the apologetic writings of Quadratus and Aristides. We have those of Justin Martyr in its middle years, while Minucius Felix and Tertullian bring up the rear at its close.

      Christianity, said these second-century apologists, is innocent of the charges of sedition and immorality brought against it. It is preposterous indeed that honest and law-abiding people should be falsely accused of crimes and vices which have been freely ascribed to the gods worshipped by their accusers!

      Christianity, they added, is the final and true religion, by contrast with the imperfection of Judaism and the error of paganism. Not only does Christianity provide the proper fulfilment of that earlier revelation of God given through the prophets of Israel in Old Testament times, but it also supplies the answer to the quests and aspirations expressed in the philosophies and cults of the other nations. It was divinely intended from the beginning to be a universal religion.

      So, with varying emphases, they argued. But the main lines of argument found in their writings were already laid down in the first century; they are plainly to be recognized in the New Testament. It is with this New Testament witness that we are to concern ourselves in the following chapters. And it may be that such a study will help us to discover lines along which the defence of the gospel and other forms of Christian witness should be conducted in our own day, when necessary allowances have been made for the differing situations of the first and twentieth centuries.

      But in every form of Christian witness, including apologetic and polemic, the object must always be to commend the Saviour to others. A victory in debate is a barren thing compared with the winning of men and women to the cause of Christ. If at times we are inclined to forget this, the Christians of the first century will refresh our memories.

      They will remind us, too, that, while Jesus remains the same, and the gospel in the twentieth century does not differ in essence from the gospel in the first century, the means adopted to commend it may vary widely according to the changing situations in which Christian witnesses find themselves. The men and women who commended the gospel in the first century had understanding of the times; the kingdom of God calls loudly for such men and women today.

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE MEANING OF GOSPEL

      OUR WORD GOSPEL IS A SIMPLIFIED FORM of the Old English godspell, which meant good story in the sense of good news. The Old English word was designed to be the equivalent of the Latin evangelium , which in turn was derived from the Greek euangelion. In Greek the prefix eu- means well or good, while the second part of the word is related to the verb angello , report, bring a message, and to the noun angelos , messenger. (Since in the Bible a messenger is often a heavenly messenger, the noun angelos in Jewish and Christian usage acquired this specialized meaning, which it retains in Latin angelus , and in English angel.) The Greek compound euangelion thus appears in the New Testament in the sense good news or good tidings. The companion verb euangelizo means bring good tidings, and from it is derived the noun euangelistes which means one who brings good tidings, i.e. an evangelist.

      In the New Testament this group of words is used with special reference to the Christian message, whether it be the message proclaimed by Jesus himself, or the message proclaimed by his followers in his name both before and after his death and resurrection. The choice of this particular group of words was probably deliberate. The same word group had been used in the Greek translation of Isaiah to denote the good news of the liberation and restoration of the exiled people of Judea and Jerusalem, as a result of the enlightened policy of the Persian king Cyrus after his overthrow of the Babylonian Empire. The well-known words of Isaiah 40:9, as rendered in Handel’s Messiah—O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion…—referred originally to the announcement of the Jewish exiles’ homecoming. But their use by Handel reflects the reinterpretation of this whole section of Old Testament prophecy to refer to the liberation accomplished by Christ, a reinterpretation which is well attested in the New Testament itself. The words of Isaiah 52:7, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, referred in their original setting to the messenger who hurries west from Mesopotamia to Judea with the news of restoration, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’ But in Romans 10:15 they are applied by Paul to preachers of the Christian message, and in that sense, of course, they also figure in the Messiah.

      Even more important than the two texts just mentioned is Isaiah 61:1, where an unnamed speaker introduces himself by saying, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the poor.... Whoever the speaker is, he is one who has been divinely anointed for his task, and in the original Hebrew the verb so translated is that from which Messiah is derived, represented in the Greek translation by the verb which gives us the designation Christ. So the speaker, identified by many expositors with the Servant of the Lord whom we meet in earlier chapters

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