Church History: Seven Churches in Bible - Essay Example

?Church History: Seven Churches in Bible Introduction: Christianity is presently the largest religion of the world. At present there are more than 2 billion followers of this religion and they are spread across the globe. From a general point of view, the origin of the Christianity was from Judaism. The person who according to the historian, was behind the birth of the Christian religion was Jesus Christ. He along with all his twelve disciples were Jew, therefore the belief is that the Christian culture and religion derived from Judaism. There are lots of theories on the nature of Christian religion and culture, but the main concept is entirely based on life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and most importantly monotheistic in nature. According to their belief whatever is mentioned in the bible is the word of God (Kwintessential, nd). According to the concept of Dever (nd), the Church plays an important part in the development of the Christian culture and religion. In his review he pointed out the fact that the principleadopted by the church is a vitalfactor of Christian truth. According to his opinion It is the most noticeable part of Christian theology as well, and it is vitally connected with every other part of the Christian culture. (Dever, nd).In this paper, the main objective is to discuss about the initial stages of the development of Christian culture and religion. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the initial stages of the development of the Christian culture across the globe, how it able to spread all over and what are the impact of this concept and thought process in the society. Research Questions: This is mainly a research paper which has the focus on the Christian religion and culture across the globe. In present world the Christian religion is the largest and has its presence all over the globe in all the countries. But the situation was not like that in the initial stage. The research questions of this paper are as follows: 1. How the Christian religions develop across the globe with the time? 2. Over the years of the development, what are the problems that the people who believe in this religion and culture have to face and how they able to combat those. 3. How the seven churches mentioned in the bible able to spread the thought of Christ in the society? 4. What according to the modern age people are the key behind the success of the religion? Background: Development of the Topic: The church is the backbone of the development of the Christian religion over the world. At the beginning there were lots of objection from the people who were the ruling authority of the society. But despite their objection the thought process started to gain popularity all across the globe. According to the analysis of Patheos Library (nd), Christianity developed from the thought process of Judaism in the 1st Century C.E. The concept of Christian religion is entirely based on the life, teaching ideology death, and resurrection of the Jesus Christ. According to the review of the Patheos Library, there are several branches of the Christianity, each of the branches has variety in their beliefs and practices, but most importantly the basic principle was always the same. There are three major classes or branches available in the Christian religion; these are Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. There are several sub-categories also in all these three branches. The tradition belief of the Christian community is there is one and only God in the world, they used to believe that the Jesus was the divine and he was send by the all mighty to save this world. Having faith in Christ is the basic thought process of the religion. The basic text where the entire concept and the thought process of Christ were noted is the Bible. It includes both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. The Hebrew Scriptures is also known as the Old Testament. The basic concept of the Christian is mainly based on worship, fellowship, study of the God, and also by the engagement with rest of the world by different social activities. (Patheos Library, nd). Concept of Church: Church is the places where the Christians are generally make their prayers to holly Christ. According to the review of Dever, a church generally contains all the elect and the statements of the God. According to his review, “it consisted of a company and fellowship of faithful and holy people gathered together in the name of Christ Jesus, their only king, priest, and prophet, worshipping him aright, being peaceably and quietly governed by his officers and laws, keeping the unity of faith in the bond of peace and love unfeigned”.(Dever, nd). According to New Testament, the God’s people were generally known by the word Church. The word Church also represent a place where all the Christian generally assembles to pray to the all mighty. According to his review, the Church is Holy and generally used to be holy because according to Christian Mythology the God means Holiness. The holiness of the church defines both God’s statement regarding his people as well as the Spirit’s progressive work. Both Old and New Testament highlight the importance of holiness among the people of God so that they might achieve that service for which they are called. According to the belief of the Bible, “The church is universal and is to be universal because God is the Lord of all the earth and also the “King of the Ages”. Dever in his review also mentioned the fact that “The church is apostolic and is to be apostolic because it is founded on and is faithful to the Word of God given through the apostles. Early in Jesus’ public ministry, Jesus “called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles”. (Dever, nd). The Seven Churches of the Revelation: Brehm (nd) in his review discuss about the seven churches of the revelation. According to his review, Jesus in his book gave three basic interpretations to these churches. Those were literal-historical, spiritual-prophetic and future-prophetic. The first one is literal historical which according to his review was based on existence of the Churches. Secondly spiritual-prophetic, which represented the fact that the seven churches were representing seven different spiritual conditions, in which any particular congregation may be in, and the third one is the future-prophetic where the seven churches used to represent seven successive eras in the history of the Church. In his review, he also mentioned the seven churches of the revelation in history and what are the meanings of those. The seven churches are Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and finally Laodicea. According to his review, all these seven churches have seven specific meanings associated with each and every one and while analyzing the meaning it is very clear that the names are clearly associated with the different stages of the society or the involvement of the people.(Brehm, nd). A detail literature review and also an in-depth analysis of the topic will help to gather more knowledge about the same. Importance of the Paper: This research paper will help to analyze the role played by the seven churches mentioned in the bible in order to develop the concept and thought process of the Christian religion and also to spread the concept all over the globe. At present the Christian religion is the largest religion of the world and over the world the thought process of the Christian religion is respected by all from other religions as well. But the story was not the same at the early stage. The seven Church mentioned in the Bible were the pillar behind development of the religion. A detail research will help to analyze the impact Christian religion at the very beginning in the society and also to analyze how it able to develop its presence all across the globe over the time. Literature Review: To find out the answer of the research question that already discussed in the paper, the main way is to analyze different scholarly articles, books, and research paper published by various historians over the year in this topic. A detail literature review is always helpful to have a clear idea about what the other scholars think about the same topic, what are their findings and what are their opinion about the same. A detail literature review on the role played by the seven Church will help to understand the role played by them in the development of the Christian religion in the early part, how they able to withstand the objection that was there in the society and also how they able to make it a religion which is now the largest one in the world. The concept of the old day’s church, their thought process , how they have the impact on the people as well as on the society also give a light on the research questions that this paper is focusing on. A detail literature review will help to find answers of the first three questions. Research Methodology: The research methodology of this paper is mainly divided into two parts. One is the literature review part and the other one is the primary research. The literature review will help to find the answers of the first three research questions mentioned in the paper. The literature review is based on the opinion of different historian and scholars about the topic, therefore it will give a clear perspective about the subject as well as one can get a diverse opinion about the subject. The second part is the primary research, which is based on the market research. As it is a theoretical paper therefore, the questions of the primary research will be very limited in number. The primary research will help to gather the opinion of the people about the topic, what they feel and what according to them is the key behind the success of the Christian religion as a whole. Sample Size:For the primary research, the market survey can bedone based on a sample size of 100 people. Their opinion can be taken via internet or by directly reaching to them. While choosing the sample size one have to make it clear that there have to be people of all religion, but mostly from the Christian religion from different parts of the country, so that one can get a diversified a detail opinion. It will help to analyze the impact of the religion on the society in broader perspective. Research Questionnaire: There will 8-10 questions, out of which 6-7 question will be close ended and 3 open ended questions. Open ended questions will help to get the point of view of the people of the modern society in general, what they feel about the role played by the Christian religion in the development of the society of the present age as well as what role the religion and Churches played in the past as well. Conclusion: Here the role played by the Church in the past as well as in the present both can be critically analyzed. At the end, the conclusion part gives us the opportunity to point out the scope of farther research that can be figure out from the entire research paper. References Barclay William, Letters to the Seven Churches, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, Print. Brehm D. William, The Seven Churches of the Revelation, nd, Web, Retrieved on 20.12.2013 from http://www.be-ready.org/seven.html Brookins A Larry, Seven Things That God Hates & Seven Letters to Seven Churches, Author House, 2010, Print. Couch Mal, A Bible Handbook to Revelation, Kregel Academic, 2001, Print. Collins M. Steven, A New Look at the Seven Churches of Revelation , 2010, web, 20.12.2013, Daniel John, The Seven Churches of Revelation, Tim Baker, 2008, Print. Dever Mark, An Introduction to Church, Theology Network, nd, Web, 20.12.2013 Dwyer C John, Church History: Twenty Centuries of Catholic Christianity, Paulist Press, 1998, Print. Damen, Early Christianity and the Church, USU: history and Civilization; Web,2013, 20.12.2013, Green Calvin & Wells Y. Seth, A Summary View of the Millennial Church, Or United Society of Believers, Packard & Van Benthuysen, 1823, Print. Kuiper B.K, The Church in History, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1988, Print. Kremer Don, The Chronological Order of Revelation, Xulon Press, 2007,Print Kwintessential, A Brief Introduction to Christianity, n.d, Web, 20.12.2013 Lawrence W. John, The Six Trials of Jesus, Kregel Publications, 1996, Print.. Leppert Sue & Sullivan Francis, Church and Civil Society: A Theory of Engagement, ATF Press, 2004, Print. Logan F. Donald, A History of the Church in the Middle Ages, Routledge, 2002, Print North James & Umphery Don, A History of Church: from Pentecost to Present, College Press, 1991, Print Patheos Library, Christianity, nd, Web, 20.12.2013 Pride Fred, The Blossoming of Christianity: From the Supernatural to the Natural, Xlibris Corporation, 2013, Print Sacred Destinations, The Seven Churches of Revelation, nd, web, 20.12.2013, Read More