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    How the Church Began- Studies in Acts
    How the Church Began- Studies in Acts
    How the Church Began- Studies in Acts
    Ebook69 pages49 minutes

    How the Church Began- Studies in Acts

    By Freda Hawkes

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    About this ebook

    The birth of Jesus, his life in Palestine, his death in Jerusalem and then his astonishing live appearances to his followers are recorded in four biographies at the start of the New Testament of the bible. The next book, Acts, is a record of what Jesus’ followers did after Jesus left the earth – the acts of the apostles, the people Jesus sent to be his witnesses. The action is set in Palestine and the eastern Mediterranean in about 30 to 65 AD, a melting-pot of cultures with the Roman Empire in charge. From the original group of about 120 men and women, the message spread from Jerusalem to Rome itself. Peter and Paul, charismatic characters with surprising back-stories, explained why Jesus is good news for everyone. You can discover from their words recorded in Acts what the first Christians believed and how they communicated their message to hostile or indifferent societies. Where people believed, they formed communities, churches. Learn what these communities were like and how they dealt with problems and successes. The 15 studies each start with a summary of the story so far and have notes helping you understand the context. Maps are included. You can study individually or in a group, each study taking about 1 hour. Using these studies you can find from Acts how the church began and why Christians today believe the story of Jesus is good news for everyone.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFreda Hawkes
    Release dateMar 7, 2014
    ISBN9781310520877
    How the Church Began- Studies in Acts

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      Book preview

      How the Church Began- Studies in Acts - Freda Hawkes

      How the Church Began-

      Studies in Acts

      Published by Freda Hawkes at Smashwords

      Copyright 2013 Freda Hawkes

      ISBN: 9781310520877

      *****

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this free eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.

      Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

      *****

      Many thanks to my husband Dennis for drawing the maps and preparing this document for publication as an eBook. Many thanks also to our friends who have done these studies with us over the past decade.

      *****

      Introduction

      What is the church?

      All over the world you can find buildings that in the English language are described as churches. These buildings have been used as meeting places by people who call themselves Christians. When the source book of Christianity, the bible, talks about churches it does not mean buildings but people. The New Testament of the bible that records the origins and growth of Christianity was written in Greek. In that language, the word used for church means an assembly of people or people called out to become a community. Today there is a wide range of Christian communities. How did this all begin?

      The story of Jesus divides our history into BC (Before Christ or BCE Before the Common Era) and AD (in Latin, Anno Domini, meaning the year of our Lord). In the same way the bible is divided into the Old Testament (before Jesus lived on earth) and the New Testament. The birth of Jesus in a town near Jerusalem, his life in Palestine, his death in Jerusalem and his astonishing resurrection, appearing alive to many of his followers, are recorded in four biographies of Jesus at the start of the New Testament. These four books are called the gospels, the Old English word for good news. The next book, Acts, is a record of what Jesus’ followers did after Jesus left the earth – the acts of the apostles, the people Jesus sent to be his witnesses. Acts tells us the good news of who Jesus is and what he has done, using the explanations of Jesus’ followers to people who did not understand the story.

      At the beginning of Acts we read of eleven apostles. Three years earlier they been called by Jesus to follow him and be his disciples (students). Crowds followed Jesus because of his authoritative teaching and powerful miracles, but there was great discussion about who Jesus really was. When Jesus asked the disciples Who do you say I am? one of them, Peter, answered You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. The word church appears in the New Testament for the first time in Jesus’ reply to Peter ….on this rock I will build my church….. The church belongs to Jesus, and is made of people who believe he is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Using the 15 studies here, you can discover why the apostles believed and taught that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and why this is good news for us today.

      Acts and the Old Testament

      The Old Testament was written in classical Hebrew, related to the language spoken today in Israel, with some parts in Aramaic. It contains the history of the nation of Israel up to approximately 450 BC. Unusually for that period of history, the Jewish nation believed in one God. Around 2000 BC God made a covenant (a legal promise) with Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people. About 1400 BC God made a covenant with the nation itself, rescuing the people from slavery in Egypt under the leadership of Moses. To keep the covenants the Jewish people had to circumcise boy babies and obey God’s laws given to Moses (the 10 commandments and other laws about morality, social life and worship of God, including a rest day for everyone on the seventh day each week). In summary the laws are to love

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