The Church Before Christianity

by Wes Howard-Brook

Book Overview

A companion to the best-selling Jesus Before Christianity, which offers a classic portrait of Jesus from Scripture. Wes Howard-Brook here offers as compelling a picture of the earliest followers of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1570754039
• ISBN13: 9781570754036
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: Orbis Books
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

author's description

This book is intended to be a sequel to Albert Nolan's "Jesus Before Christianity," an effort which Nolan has gracefully endorsed. It is a look at how the first discipleship communities known as "churches" (from the Greek, ekklesiai, meaning "the called out") saw their commitment not as simply a Sunday morning battery charge for service to Empire, but as the formation of a Spirit-driven alternative society. It links these churches to their roots in biblical Israel's covenant with God to live differently from the "gentiles" (nations) surrounding them. The book draws on a diversity of New Testament texts in focusing on these themes:1. prayer and worship2. kinship3. economics4. healing, exorcism and public witnessEach of the six chapters contains reflection questions for personal or small group use. It concludes with a "thought experiment" on how these lessons might be lived out as church in our time.

author's review

I wrote this book to give Christians and folks considering Christianity an idea of what "church" was intended to mean in the early days: a complete society alternative to empire, with God reigning in the midst of the community. It is a "sequel" to Albert Nolan's "Jesus Before Christianity." What Nolan did for the Jesus of Palestine, I tried to do for the first disciples amidst the cities of the Greco-Roman world.Each of the six chapters has reflection questions suitable for individual or small group use.