On Ministry and Revolving Doors
Practical Challenges and Ideas for Ministry in a Mobile Society
June 10, 2010
I. Mobility and Urbanization in the Early Church1
The entire book of Acts describes the development and geographic expansion of the NT church and its western Diaspora which faced the issues of mobility, globality, urbanality, and religious plurality.
A. Wayne Meeks2 (Mobility)
“‘The guiding thread for every history of earliest Christianity is the irresistible expansions of the Christian faith in the Mediterranean region during the first 120 years’ (M. Hengel, “Die Ursprunge der christlichen Mission”, NTS [1971], 15). That expansion was closely associated with personal mobility, both physical and social…
From the schematic itineraries of the book of Acts alone, Ronald Hock has calculated that Paul traveled nearly 10,000 miles during his reported career, which put him on roads busy with “government officials, traders, pilgrims, the sick, letter carriers, sighseers, runaway slaves, fugitives, prisoners, athletes, artisans, teachers, and students” (R. Hock, The Social Context of Paul’s Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980], 27)
Some of this travel was undertaken specifically for the Christian mission, but much of the mission was carried out by people who were traveling for other reasons…Roman power made possible this flourishing travel in two very practical ways: the Roman military presence undertook to keep brigandage on land and piracy on the sea at a minimum.
The thriving maritime commerce was no less important for the early Christians’ mobility…Much of the travel on these routes, apart from the military and administrative operations of the empire, was undertaken by individuals for purposes of trade or professional advancement (C. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels [Nashville, Broadman and Holman, 1997], 23, states that the period of Roman rule over Israel was primarily a positive one for the spread of Christianity. Two of the Six major factors are the development of transportation and communication and “a cosmopolitan spirit grew, particularly in the cities, that transcended national barriers. Old tribal distinctions and identities were breaking down leaving people ripe for new religions or ideologies to fill the gaps. The gospel would meet many felt needs in this climate”). It is not surprising that the spread of foreign cults closely followed the spread of trade, or that Christianity repeated this already-established pattern….The ways in which the movement of artisans and tradespersons could facilitate movements of religious cults were manifold.”
B. Rodney Stark3 (Urbanality)
Stark lists 31 Greco-Roman Cities having a population of 30,000 or more in 100CE (e.g. London, Seville, Cordova, Cadiz, Nimes, Milan, Rome, Capua, Carthage, Syracuse, Thessalonica, Corinth, Athens, Ephesus, Sardis, Smyrna, Pergamum, Byzantium, Memphis, Caesarea, Damascus, Salamis, Antioch, Edessa, Nisibis)
He states that “despite the fact that about 98% of its population lived in farms or in tiny rural villages, Rome was an urban empire (96, “Christianity was an urban movement, and the NT was set down by urbanites”, The Rise of Christianity [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1997], 147). As Wayne Meeks explained, ‘the cities were where the power was and where changes could occur’ (97). Thus it was that the overwhelming majority of early Christians were urbanites. However, considering that the total urban population of the empire was about 3 million (99), the fact that the total population of these 31 cities was approximately 2 million suggest that they housed about two-thirds of the Greco-Romans who lived in towns and cities and probably about the same proportion of all urban Christians.
It is well accepted that Christianity made its earliest appearances in the larger port cities at the eastern end of the empire, where Hellenic culture prevailed. Although social networks play the critical role to conversion, doctrine matters too, as we saw earlier-just not in the way that usually has been supposed. It is not so much a matter of what the doctrine promises to do for people as it is the investment of time, effort, and emotions that bodies of doctrine and the religious culture that surrounds them represent. That is, any religion requires an adherent to master a lot of culture: to know the words and actions required by various rituals or worship activities; to be familiar with certain doctrines, stories, music, symbols.”
C. Tim Keller4 (Globality and Plurality)
“The 21st century is becoming a globalized, urbanized, and post-secular world again. I say ‘again’ because this means that the 21st century will be more like the 1st century AD than has been any of the centuries in between.
There is now a mobility of ideas, people, capital unprecedented since the Pax Romana. As Wayne Meeks put it--travel during the Pax Romana was easier than it ever had been and ever was again until the 19th century. And the easier travel the faster the rise of cities. The works of Wayne Meeks and Rodney Stark have shown that the rise of early Christianity was largely an urban phenomenon. Globalized cities became furiously multi-ethnic and international and thus became more enormously influential and central then their nations--essentially they were city states. Why? Antioch was really a United Nations, with Asian, African, Jewish, Greek, and Roman section. From Antioch there were powerful networks that led back into three continents. Capital and culture flowed back and forth through those networks. And thus Paul's mission strategy remarkably 'urban-centered'.
First, it is a globalized world again. The triumph of Rome's power created the Pax Romana and an unprecedented mobility of people, capital, and ideas. Cities became multi-ethnic and international in unprecedented ways.
Second, it is a fragmented, pluralistic world again. For centuries--cultures and nations had much more widespread consensus about basic questions of truth, morality, and the nature of God and ultimate reality.
Thirdly, it is an urbanized world again. In the Greco-Roman world during the height of the Roman empire, individual nation-states were weak, and large cities (Rome, Corinth, Ephesus) operated virtually as independent city-states. Cities, not national governments, ruled the world.
Conclusion: No matter what their world was like, Christians have gone back to the book of Acts for centuries to learn ministry practice. But we have now a double reason to do so. Our world has become much more like the world of the Mediterranean world of the 1st century. If we want to see how to spread the gospel in the 21st century--the book of Acts has not more directly and simply applicable to our situation in 2,000 years. (All of the Bible is always applicable to every human situation, but often the gap between the culture of the original hearers and the culture of the listeners is very great and takes a great deal of translation. But today we are so much closer to the book of Acts that it makes application much simpler.”
[1] The Book of Acts can be structurally divided into 6 panels (1.1-6.7; 6.8-9.31; 9.32-12.24; 12.25-16.5; 16.6-19.20; 19.21-28.30) giving the narrative a forward movement from its Jewish/Jerusalem setting with Peter as its leading figure toward a predominantly Gentile church with Rome as its capital and Paul as the leading figure. Each section contributes to this western diaspora geographic expansion movement (G. Fee, outline on Acts for Intro to NT).
[2]Meeks, Wayne. The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 16-18.
[3]Stark, Rodney. The Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement Conquering Rome (San Francisco: Harper, 2006).
[4]Keller, Tim. Theology and Practice of Church Ministry: Ministry and Leadership in the City (Unpublished private notes, 2004), 90-93.
