Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
Albert Barnes writes of Manaen, “He was, therefore, a man of rank and education, and his conversion shows that the gospel was not confined entirely in its influence to the poor.” The commentaries have much to say about this. Manaen, some say, was the son of Herod’s nurse. I read that the Jewish writers often refer to one Manahem being in the court of Herod.
The point I wish to make is that the gospel was not confined to the illiterate, poor, or untraveled. God saw to it that the Word of God was not only received among the wealthy but also among those of influence. Rome - the seat of world power at the time - had many who knew Christ and had the ability to spread the gospel message to unimaginable regions of the world.
It is a short-sighted view that cannot see the gospel outside of the Middle East before the end of the first century. We have indications of this message already finding its way deep into Africa, far into India, and west into the British Isles while the Apostles were still alive. What reason is there to reject the possibility of the gospel reaching regions even far more remote than those before the end of the first century?
And so, we are not forced to conclude that all Christianity came out of Roman Catholicism. Indeed, we believe that the purest forms of Christianity are not Protestant because they were never part and parcel with Catholicism, Roman or otherwise.
#GospelInfluence #ChristianityAcrossSociety #InfluenceoftheGospel #GospelBeyondSocialBoundaries #SpreadofChristianity
Beyond Rome: Tracing Christianity's Global Reach
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