Bethlen Almanac 1998 (Ligonier)
Az amerikai egyháztestekben - In other denominations
The time was favorable because the “lingua franca” - Hellenistic Greek - was the common language, spoken by slaves, soldiers, merchants and emperors alike. For the emerging Christian communities, the documentary evidence: the Old Testament was on hand in the plain Greek version of the Septuagint. All the books and letters that eventually comprised the New Testament were written in Greek. For centuries, educated people were fluently bilingual in Greek and their own tribal languages. This remarkable feature of ancient civilization was not there before, and alas! - ceased to continue in the cultural darkness of medieval times. The religious-spiritual scene was rife with an innumerable variety of shallow paganism, - none of them officially endorsed or promoted by law or social convention. Roman magistrates were instructed to remain neutral in religious disputes. Jews were exempt from military service on account of their observance of the Sabbath. Until the emperor - cult of Nero and his equally corrupt successors, missionaries of the Gospel enjoyed more freedom than they would in some of the same countries today! - Not all the Jewish synagogues were obstinate pockets of rejection to the Gospel of Jesus. The Apostle Paul could stay in Corinth for nearly two years and write his great letter to the congregation of Rome. The new megapolis of Alexandria in Egypt became the first center of Christian theology. Amidst all this, and above all, God’s plan and purpose in the preaching of the early missionaries, calling all to repentance and a new life in Christ proclaimed an eagerly embraced message of brotherhood and reconciliation in a hopeless, morally bankrupt cauldron of humanity. The road from the Manger of Bethlehem to the marble colonnades of imperial Rome was one unprecedented victory march of salvation. Today, 2000 years later? We Christians also read the news from every corner of the Earth, - now popularly called our Global Village. And we behold the promoters and profit-hunters, eating the first bitter fruits of their global economy, producing more slaves of the Mammon than all the ancient empires ever did. Yes, we, too, shudder seeing the very real scepter of an all-annihilating Armageddon, a final cataclysm in which there would be no victors, only victims. God, and God alone knows the next chapter of history. We have but one task, and this we do - to give Him all the glory, - and not to any sinful man. And then, only then can we hope to live in peace, and enjoy the blessings of good will among men. 162
