Contagion of the Christian Spirit

In Rodney Stark's wonderful book entitled The Rise of Christianity, he shares many insights, but one in particular is staggering.  He states that the collective conclusions of many in his sociological field have become convinced that one half or more of the persons in the Roman Empire had become Christian by AD 300.

This would not be so awe inspiring were that Christianity a state church enforced by the government as it was later, or were it a great monolithic authoritarian church.  But it was neither.  It was a movement of persons sharing about their experiences with the Living God, as Paul was fond of doing.

Can you imagine the good news they were sharing person-to-person being so attractive to so many?  When my imagination works on how this could have happened, it immediately requires that the stories told by believers be very appealing stories.  If persons were being changed in spirit and lifestyle like they were on Pentecost, at Antioch, and on the Damascus Road, I can begin to focus on the picture.

Paul constantly wrote about spirits being changed by the presence of the Spirit of God in an individual life.  Persons were receiving new spirits and those spirits were wonderful.  If they were producing the fruits of the Spirit which Paul spoke of, disciples of Jesus were becoming the most wonderful of beautiful people.  They were characterized by the concepts behind the words "grace" and "agape."

If disciples agapied the people around them... If they lived like Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount...  If they returned good for evil...  It is no wonder that their experiences and message was received so widely in so short a time.

They lived in a very religious world, as Paul indicated on Mars Hill.  But the religions in the world were anything but attractive.  Gods were angry and punishing.  Legalism abounded among the gods and their devotees.  Required sacrifices were often unbelievably demanding.  The religions of the ancient world were not "good" news.  They were bad news.

Into this stark and overly serious world came Paul and other disciples who had an entirely different experience with a God who is alive, gracious, loving, and fatherly.  They treated each other and those around them with peace, agape, and genuine care.  They were people of truth and integrity in a world of guile and deception.  What was not to like about this new understanding of God and his ability to create new hearts, minds, and lifestyles in persons who believed in he and his teachings?

Paul told the Roman church that humanity had fallen short of the glory which God intended for it.  These new people of the Way were giving evidence that they were indeed becoming a glorious kind of people.  Obviously, people wanted to know a God who created the kind of persons they were observing.  They were too good to be true.

The Spirit of God is still creating these new creations today.  Regrettably, many of them get overshadowed by persons using the Christian name who do not have this new spirit.  Too many are not persons of grace and agape.  Too many are not good news to their worlds.  Too many do not cause those around them to praise God for what he had done in them.

But the Spirit is still moving in the world, and it will continue to do so.  Amen and amen.