LIFE
OF CHRIST
Session 1:
Introduction: Part One -- The Power to Change Lives
(Students
should complete "Tracing the Historical Events of the
Life of Christ" exercise on page 15
of the manual.)
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enabled a carpenter by trade and twelve men (fishermen, a tax collector,
and largely common laborers) in a short thirty year period so impact
their world that life has never been the same?
What cause the twelve to be so radically changed?
From being beaten down -- fearful and afraid-- by the
circumstances of life:
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To men who uncompromisingly
faced their impending death:
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What cause these "unlearned and ignorant men" (Acts 4:13) to
be able to spread from Jerusalem to their entire known world in
basically one generation.
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Without
the use of television, radio, newsletter, city-wide crusades, or mass
revivals.
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The
Spread of Christianity Is Extraordinarily Remarkable:
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Its
success was not dependent on military power, but on the
persuasive speech of wandering preachers.
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The
expansion took place under the conditions of duress: local
harassment and persecution, the death of leaders, and the lack
of a strong or controlling center.
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What
cause these "unlearned and ignorant men" to be able to
accomplish immediately *five major transitions in basically one
generation.
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Geographically,
the movement traveled from a local Palestinian base to a
Greco-Roman world.
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Sociologically,
it moved from an itinerant, rural phenomenon to an urban
culture located in households.
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Linguistically,
it moved from the Aramaic of Palestine to the koine Greek
of the Hellenistic world.
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Culturally,
it moved from being a sect within Judaism to an assembly with
dominant Greco-Roman culture.
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Demographically,
it increasingly succeeded among Gentiles rather than Jews, so
that by 70, the majority of Christians were already Gentile in
background.
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The
Death and Resurrection of Jesus Is the Basis for Christianity
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Christianity
was born, not as a direct result of Jesus’ teaching or action,
but as a result of what God is claimed to have done through his death
and resurrection.
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The
beginning of Christianity is unique in it was not established as
Judaism.
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In
Judaism, God disclosed his will through speaking and that, then,
was recorded in writing that became a system or basis of life.
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Christianity’s
fundamental moment of revelation is:
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What enabled these early followers of Jesus to experience such phenomenal
happenings was a powerful spiritual experience.
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It
was not so much the teaching of Jesus, as such, and consequently
the attempt to follow those teaching that began the movement of
Christianity.
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The
movement of Christianity had its beginning in the claim of the
early followers of Jesus to have had "an experience of
Jesus" after his death.
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They
were saved, they were transformed, they were empowered by the
experience of Jesus himself.
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They
were touched by a personal, transcendent, transforming energy
that came from God, not from themselves -- what they knew as the
Holy Spirit.
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What
radically changed the early followers of Jesus was they encountered the
"Resurrection Experience."
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The
"Resurrection Experience" is based upon the claims of
Jesus: He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no
man cometh unto the Father but by
me." (John. 14:6)
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Jesus revealed the Way by the life he lived.
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The death and resurrection of Jesus not only revealed the Way; it, more
importantly, became the Way.
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When
Jesus was raised from the dead, he did not come back to life in the same
physical sense as before his death.
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Although
retaining a body, he was profoundly changed.
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Mark
recorded, "he appeared in another form unto two of them, as
they walked."
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Luke
described, "And as they thus spake, Jesus himself appear in
the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they
had seen a spirit. (Luke 24:37)
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"And
it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and
blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were
opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their
sight." (Luke 24:30,31)
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Jesus
did not resume his earthly, physical existence but now share
fully in the life of God as Lord.
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"So
then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up
into heaven, and set on the right hand of God. (Mark 16:19)
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He
was raised from the dead and became the source of life -- the
life-giving Spirit.
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The
resurrection experience radically changed Jesus who became
the firstborn of many believers who also would go
through a radical change by the resurrection event.
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*Johnson,
Luke Timothy, "Early Christianity: The Experience of the
Divine," The Teaching Company: The Great Courses, Part II, page 3
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Schedule