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El liderazgo en las primeras comunidades cristianas se formó en el contexto de persecución y necesidad de guía. Basándose en los enseñanzas de Jesús, surgieron líderes que buscaban guiar a sus comunidades hacia una interpretación y vivencia de los mensajes del evangelio adecuadas a sus realidades.

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Christianity in the 1st century covers the formative history of Christianity from the start of the ministry of Jesus ( c. 27-29 AD) to the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles (c.  100) and is thus also known as the Apostolic Age. Early Christianity developed out of the eschatological ministry of Jesus. Subsequent to Jesus' death, his earliest followers formed an apocalyptic messianic Jewish sect during the late Second Temple period of the 1st century. Initially believing that Jesus' resurrection was the start of the end time, their beliefs soon changed in the expected Second Coming of Jesus and the start of God's Kingdom at a later point in time.

Paul the Apostle, a Pharisee Jew who had persecuted the early Jewish Christians, converted c.  33-36 and started to proselytize among the Gentiles. According to Paul, Gentile converts could be allowed exemption from Jewish commandments, arguing that all are justified by their faith in Jesus. This was part of a gradual split between early Christianity and Judaism, as Christianity became a distinct religion including predominantly Gentile adherence.

Jerusalem had an early Christian community, which was led by James the Just, Peter, and John. According to Acts 11:26, Antioch was where the followers were first called Christians. Peter was later martyred in Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. The apostles went on to spread the message of the Gospel around the classical world and founded apostolic sees around the early centers of Christianity. The last apostle to die was John in c.  100.

Early Jewish Christians referred to themselves as "The Way" (), probably coming from Isaiah 40:3, "prepare the way of the LORD". Other Jews also called them "the Nazarenes". According to Acts 11:26, the term Christian ( Greek: Χριστιανός), meaning "follower of Christ", was first used in reference to Jesus's disciples in the city of Antioch. The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Greek: Χριστιανισμός) was by Ignatius of Antioch, in around 100 AD.

Jewish-Hellenistic background

The earliest Christians were an apocalyptic sect within Second Temple Judaism. Christianity "emerged as a sect of Judaism in Roman Palestine" in the Hellenistic world of the first century AD, which was dominated by Roman law and Greek culture. A major challenge for Jews during this time was how to respond to Hellenization and remain faithful to their religious traditions. During the early 1st century AD, there were many competing Jewish sects in the Holy Land, including Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and other groups. Each group adopted different stances toward Hellenization.

The basic tenets of Jewish religion were ethical monotheism, the Torah (or Law), and an eschatology that looked forward to a future messianic age. Jews believed the Law was given by God to guide them in their worship of the Lord and in their interactions with each other. A central concern in 1st century Judaism was the covenant with God, and the status of the Jews as the chosen people of God. Many Jews believed that this covenant would be renewed with the coming of the messiah.

Messiah ( Hebrew: meshiach) means "anointed" and is used in the Bible to designate Jewish kings and in some cases priests and prophets whose status was symbolized by being anointed with holy anointing oil. It can refer to people chosen by God for a specific task, such as the whole Israelite nation ( 1 Chronicles 16:22; Psalm 105:15) or Cyrus the Great who ended the Babylonian captivity ( Isaiah 45:1).The term is most associated with King David, to whom God promised an eternal kingdom ( 2 Samuel 7:11-17). After the destruction of David's kingdom and lineage, this promise was reaffirmed by the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, who foresaw a future Davidic king who would establish and reign over an idealized kingdom.

In the Second Temple period, there was no consensus on who the messiah would be or what he would do. Most commonly, he was imagined to be an Endtimes son of David going about the business of "executing judgment, defeating the enemies of God, reigning over a restored Israel, establishing unending peace". The messiah was often referred to as "King Messiah" ( Hebrew: מלך משיח, melekh mashiach) or malka meshiḥa in Aramaic. Yet, there were other kinds of messianic figures proposed as well-the perfect priest or the celestial Son of Man who brings about the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment. The concept has its root in the apocalyptic literature of the 2nd century BC to 1st century BC.

Christian sources, such as the four canonical gospels, the Pauline epistles, and the New Testament apocrypha, include detailed stories about Jesus, but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus. The two events of Jesus' life subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect. The Gospels are theological documents, which "provide information the authors regarded as necessary for the religious development of the Christian communities in which they worked." They consist of short passages, , which the Gospel-authors arranged in various ways as suited their aims.

Non-Christian sources that are used to study and establish the historicity of Jesus include Jewish sources such as Josephus, and Roman sources such as Tacitus. These sources are compared to Christian sources such as the Pauline epistles and the Synoptic Gospels. These sources are usually independent of each other (e.g. Jewish sources do not draw upon Roman sources), and similarities and differences between them are used in the authentication process.

There is a scholarly consensus for certain aspects of Jesus' life. As described by biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine:

Most scholars agree that Jesus was baptized by John, debated with fellow Jews on how best to live according to God's will, engaged in healings and exorcisms, taught in parables, gathered male and female followers in Galilee, went to Jerusalem, and was crucified by Roman soldiers during the governorship of Pontius Pilate (26-36 CE). But, to use the old cliché, the devil is in the details.

There is widespread disagreement among scholars on the details of the life of Jesus mentioned in the gospel narratives, and on the meaning of his teachings. Scholars often draw a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, and two different accounts can be found in this regard.

Critical scholarship has discounted most of the narratives about Jesus as legendary, and the mainstream historical view is that while the gospels include many legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the accounts of a historical Jesus who was crucified under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate in the 1st-century Roman province of Judea. His remaining disciples later believed that he was resurrected.

Academic scholars have constructed a variety of portraits and profiles for Jesus. Contemporary scholarship places Jesus firmly in the Jewish tradition, and the most prominent understanding of Jesus is as a Jewish apocalyptic prophet or eschatological teacher. Other portraits are the charismatic healer, the Cynic philosopher, the Jewish Messiah, and the prophet of social change.

In the canonical gospels, the ministry of Jesus begins with his baptism in the countryside of Roman Judea and Transjordan, near the Jordan River, and ends in Jerusalem, following the Last Supper with his disciples. The Gospel of Luke () states that Jesus was "about 30 years of age" at the start of his ministry. A chronology of Jesus typically has the date of the start of his ministry estimated at around AD 27-29 and the end in the range AD 30-36.

In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jewish eschatology stands central. After being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus teaches extensively for a year, or maybe just a few months, about the coming Kingdom of God (or, in Matthew, the Kingdom of Heaven), in aphorisms and parables, using similes and figures of speech. In the Gospel of John, Jesus himself is the main subject.

The Synoptics present different views on the Kingdom of God. While the Kingdom is essentially described as eschatological (relating to the end of the world), becoming reality in the near future, some texts present the Kingdom as already being present, while other texts depict the Kingdom as a place in heaven that one enters after death, or as the presence of God on earth.. Jesus talks as expecting the coming of the " Son of Man" from heaven, an apocalyptic figure who would initiate "the coming judgment and the redemption of Israel." According to Davies, the Sermon on the Mount presents Jesus as the new Moses who brings a New Law (a reference to the Law of Moses, the Messianic Torah.

Jesus' life was ended by his execution by crucifixion. His early followers believed that three days after his death, Jesus rose bodily from the dead. Paul's letters and the Gospels contain reports of a number of post-resurrection appearances. Progressively, Jewish scriptures were reexamined in light of Jesus's teachings to explain the crucifixion and visionary post-mortem experiences of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus "signalled for earliest believers that the days of eschatological fulfilment were at hand." Some New Testament accounts were understood not as mere visionary experiences, but rather as real appearances in which those present are told to touch and see.

The resurrection of Jesus gave the impetus in certain Christian sects to the exaltation of Jesus to the status of divine Son and Lord of God's Kingdom and the resumption of their missionary activity. His followers expected Jesus to return within a generation and begin the Kingdom of God.

Traditionally, the period from the death of Jesus until the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles is called the Apostolic Age, after the missionary activities of the apostles. According to the Acts of the Apostles the Jerusalem church began at Pentecost with some 120 believers, in an "upper room," believed by some to be the Cenacle, where the apostles received the Holy Spirit and emerged from hiding following the death and resurrection of Jesus to preach and spread his message.

The New Testament writings depict what orthodox Christian churches call the Great Commission, an event where they describe the resurrected Jesus Christ instructing his disciples to spread his eschatological message of the coming of the Kingdom of God to all the nations of the world. The most famous version of the Great Commission is in Matthew 28 ( Matthew 28:16-20), where on a mountain in Galilee Jesus calls on his followers to make disciples of and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Paul's conversion on the Road to Damascus is first recorded in Acts 9 ( Acts 9:13-16). Peter baptized the Roman centurion Cornelius, traditionally considered the first Gentile convert to Christianity, in Acts 10. Based on this, the Antioch church was founded. It is also believed that it was Antioch where the name Christian was first used.

After the death and resurrection of Jesus, Christianity first emerged as a sect of Judaism as practiced in the Roman province of Judea. The first Christians were all Jews, who constituted a Second Temple Jewish sect with an apocalyptic eschatology. Among other schools of thought, some Jews regarded Jesus as Lord and resurrected messiah, and the eternally existing Son of God, expecting the second coming of Jesus and the start of God's Kingdom. They pressed fellow Jews to prepare for these events and to follow "the way" of the Lord. They believed Yahweh to be the only true God, the god of Israel, and considered Jesus to be the messiah ( Christ), as prophesied in the Jewish scriptures, which they held to be authoritative and sacred. They held faithfully to the Torah, including acceptance of Gentile converts based on a version of the Noachide laws.

The Jerusalem ekklēsia

The New Testament's Acts of the Apostles and Epistle to the Galatians record that an early Jewish Christian community centered on Jerusalem, and that its leaders included Peter, James, the brother of Jesus, and John the Apostle. The Jerusalem community "held a central place among all the churches," as witnessed by Paul's writings. Reportedly legitimised by Jesus' appearance, Peter was the first leader of the Jerusalem ekklēsia. Peter was soon eclipsed in this leadership by James the Just, "the Brother of the Lord," which may explain why the early texts contain scant information about Peter. According to Lüdemann, in the discussions about the strictness of adherence to the Jewish Law, the more conservative faction of James the Just gained the upper hand over the more liberal position of Peter, who soon lost influence. According to Dunn, this was not an "usurpation of power," but a consequence of Peter's involvement in missionary activities. The relatives of Jesus were generally accorded a special position within this community, which also contributed to the ascendancy of James the Just in Jerusalem.

According to a tradition recorded by Eusebius and Epiphanius of Salamis, the Jerusalem church fled to Pella at the outbreak of the First Jewish-Roman War (AD 66-73).

The Jerusalem community consisted of "Hebrews," Jews speaking both Aramaic and Greek, and "Hellenists," Jews speaking only Greek, possibly diaspora Jews who had resettled in Jerusalem. According to Dunn, Paul's initial persecution of Christians probably was directed against these Greek-speaking "Hellenists" due to their anti-Temple attitude. Within the early Jewish Christian community, this also set them apart from the "Hebrews" and their Tabernacle observance.

The sources for the beliefs of the apostolic community include oral traditions (which included sayings attributed to Jesus, parables and teachings), the Gospels, the New Testament epistles and possibly lost texts such as the Q source and the writings of Papias.

The texts contain the earliest Christian creeds expressing belief in the resurrected Jesus, such as 1 Corinthians 15:3-41:

[3] For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, [4] and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, [5] and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. [6] Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. [7] Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

The creed has been dated by some scholars as originating within the Jerusalem apostolic community no later than the 40s, and by some to less than a decade after Jesus' death, while others date it to about 56. Other early creeds include 1 John 4 ( 1 John 4:2), 2 Timothy 2 ( 2 Timothy 2:8) Romans 1 ( Romans 1:3-4) and 1 Timothy 3 ( 1 Timothy 3:16).

Two fundamentally different Christologies developed in the early Church, namely a "low" or adoptionist Christology, and a "high" or "incarnation Christology." The chronology of the development of these early Christologies is a matter of debate within contemporary scholarship.

The "low Christology" or "adoptionist Christology" is the belief "that God exalted Jesus to be his Son by raising him from the dead," thereby raising him to "divine status." According to the "evolutionary model" c.q. "evolutionary theories," the Christological understanding of Christ developed over time, as witnessed in the Gospels, with the earliest Christians believing that Jesus was a human who was exalted, c.q. adopted as God's Son, when he was resurrected. Later beliefs shifted the exaltation to his baptism, birth, and subsequently to the idea of his eternal existence, as witnessed in the Gospel of John. This evolutionary model was very influential, and the "low Christology" has long been regarded as the oldest Christology.

The other early Christology is "high Christology," which is "the view that Jesus was a pre-existent divine being who became a human, did the Father's will on earth, and then was taken back up into heaven whence he had originally come," and from where he appeared on earth. According to Hurtado, a proponent of an Early High Christology, the devotion to Jesus as divine originated in early Jewish Christianity, and not later or under the influence of pagan religions and Gentile converts. The Pauline letters, which are the earliest Christian writings, already show "a well-developed pattern of Christian devotion [...] already conventionalized and apparently uncontroversial."

Some Christians began to worship Jesus as Lord.

Ehrman and other scholars believe that Jesus' early followers expected the immediate installment of the Kingdom of God, but that as time went on without this occurring, it led to a change in beliefs. In time, the belief that Jesus' resurrection signaled the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God changed into a belief that the resurrection confirmed the Messianic status of Jesus, and the belief that Jesus would return at some indeterminate time in the future, the Second Coming, heralding the expected endtime. When the Kingdom of God did not arrive, Christians' beliefs gradually changed into the expectation of an immediate reward in heaven after death, rather than to a future divine kingdom on Earth, despite the churches' continuing to use the major creeds' statements of belief in a coming resurrection day and world to come.

Coming from a Jewish background, early Christians believed in angels (derived from the Greek word for "messengers"). Specifically, early Christians wrote in the New Testament books that angels "heralded Jesus' birth, Resurrection, and Ascension; ministered to Him while He was on Earth; and sing the praises of God through all eternity." Early Christians also believed that protecting angels-assigned to each nation and even to each individual-would herald the Second Coming, lead the saints into Paradise, and cast the damned into Hell." Satan ("the adversary"), similar to descriptions in the Old Testament, appears in the New Testament "to accuse men of sin and to test their fidelity, even to the point of tempting Jesus."

The Book of Acts reports that the early followers continued daily Temple attendance and traditional Jewish home prayer, Jewish liturgical, a set of scriptural readings adapted from synagogue practice, and use of sacred music in hymns and prayer. Other passages in the New Testament gospels reflect a similar observance of traditional Jewish piety such as baptism, fasting, reverence for the Torah, and observance of Jewish holy days.

Early Christian beliefs regarding baptism probably predate the New Testament writings. It seems certain that numerous Jewish sects and certainly Jesus's disciples practised baptism. John the Baptist had baptized many people, before baptisms took place in the name of Jesus Christ. Paul likened baptism to being buried with Christ in his death.

Early Christian rituals included communal meals. The Eucharist was often a part of the Lovefeast, but between the latter part of the 1st century AD and 250 AD the two became separate rituals. Thus, in modern times the Lovefeast refers to a Christian ritual meal distinct from the Lord's Supper.

During the first three centuries of Christianity, the Liturgical ritual was rooted in the Jewish Passover, Siddur, Seder, and synagogue services, including the singing of hymns (especially the Psalms) and reading from the scriptures. Most early Christians did not own a copy of the works (some of which were still being written) that later became the Christian Bible or other church works accepted by some but not canonized, such as the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, or other works today called New Testament apocrypha. Similar to Judaism, much of the original church liturgical services functioned as a means of learning these scriptures, which initially centered around the Septuagint and the Targums.

At first, Christians continued to worship alongside Jewish believers, but within twenty years of Jesus' death, Sunday (the Lord's Day) was being regarded as the primary day of worship.

Emerging church - mission to the Gentiles

With the start of their missionary activity, early Jewish Christians also started to attract proselytes, Gentiles who were fully or partly converted to Judaism.

Christian missionary activity spread "the Way" and slowly created early centers of Christianity with Gentile adherents in the predominantly Greek-speaking eastern half of the Roman Empire, and then throughout the Hellenistic world and even beyond the Roman Empire. Early Christian beliefs were proclaimed in (preaching), some of which are preserved in New Testament scripture. The early Gospel message spread orally, probably originally in Aramaic, but almost immediately also in Greek. A process of cognitive dissonance reduction may have contributed to intensive missionary activity, convincing others of the developing beliefs, reducing the cognitive dissonance created by the delay of the coming of the endtime. Due to this missionary zeal, the early group of followers grew larger despite the failing expectations.

The scope of the Jewish-Christian mission expanded over time. While Jesus limited his message to a Jewish audience in Galilee and Judea, after his death his followers extended their outreach to all of Israel, and eventually the whole Jewish diaspora, believing that the Second Coming would only happen when all Jews had received the Gospel. Apostles and preachers traveled to Jewish communities around the Mediterranean Sea, and initially attracted Jewish converts. Within 10 years of the death of Jesus, apostles had attracted enthusiasts for "the Way" from Jerusalem to Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Cyprus, Crete, Alexandria and Rome. Over 40 churches were established by 100, most in Asia Minor, such as the seven churches of Asia, and some in Greece in the Roman era and Roman Italy.

According to Fredriksen, when early Christians broadened their missionary efforts, they also came into contact with Gentiles attracted to the Jewish religion. Eventually, the Gentiles came to be included in the missionary effort of Hellenised Jews, bringing "all nations" into the house of God. The "Hellenists," Greek-speaking diaspora Jews belonging to the early Jerusalem Jesus-movement, played an important role in reaching a Gentile, Greek audience, notably at Antioch, which had a large Jewish community and significant numbers of Gentile "God-fearers." From Antioch, the mission to the Gentiles started, including Paul's, which would fundamentally change the character of the early Christian movement, eventually turning it into a new, Gentile religion. According to Dunn, within 10 years after Jesus' death, "the new messianic movement focused on Jesus began to modulate into something different ... it was at Antioch that we can begin to speak of the new movement as 'Christianity'."

Christian groups and congregations first organized themselves loosely. In Paul's time there were no precisely delineated territorial jurisdictions for bishops, elders, and deacons.

Paul's influence on Christian thinking is said to be more significant than that of any other New Testament author. According to the New Testament, Saul of Tarsus first persecuted the early Jewish Christians, but then converted. He adopted the name Paul and started proselytizing among the Gentiles, calling himself "Apostle to the Gentiles."

Paul was in contact with the early Christian community in Jerusalem, led by James the Just. According to Mack, he may have been converted to another early strand of Christianity, with a High Christology. Fragments of their beliefs in an exalted and deified Jesus, what Mack called the "Christ cult," can be found in the writings of Paul. Yet, Hurtado notes that Paul valued the linkage with "Jewish Christian circles in Roman Judea," which makes it likely that his Christology was in line with, and indebted to, their views. Hurtado further notes that "[i]t is widely accepted that the tradition that Paul recites in 1 Corinthians 15:1-7 must go back to the Jerusalem Church."

Paul was responsible for bringing Christianity to Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi, and Thessalonica. According to Larry Hurtado, "Paul saw Jesus' resurrection as ushering in the eschatological time foretold by biblical prophets in which the pagan 'Gentile' nations would turn from their idols and embrace the one true God of Israel (e.g., Zechariah 8:20-23), and Paul saw himself as specially called by God to declare God's eschatological acceptance of the Gentiles and summon them to turn to God." According to Krister Stendahl, the main concern of Paul's writings on Jesus' role and salvation by faith is not the individual conscience of human sinners and their doubts about being chosen by God or not, but the main concern is the problem of the inclusion of Gentile (Greek) Torah-observers into God's covenant. The inclusion of Gentiles into early Christianity posed a problem for the Jewish identity of some of the early Christians: the new Gentile converts were not required to be circumcised nor to observe the Mosaic Law. Circumcision in particular was regarded as a token of the membership of the Abrahamic covenant, and the most traditionalist faction of Jewish Christians (i.e., converted Pharisees) insisted that Gentile converts had to be circumcised as well. By contrast, the rite of circumcision was considered execrable and repulsive during the period of Hellenization of the Eastern Mediterranean, and was especially adversed in Classical civilization both from ancient Greeks and Romans, which instead valued the foreskin positively.

Paul objected strongly to the insistence on keeping all of the Jewish commandments, considering it a great threat to his doctrine of salvation through faith in Christ. According to Paula Fredriksen, Paul's opposition to male circumcison for Gentiles is in line with the Old Testament predictions that "in the last days the gentile nations would come to the God of Israel, as gentiles (e.g., Zechariah 8:20-23), not as proselytes to Israel." For Paul, Gentile male circumcision was therefore an affront to God's intentions. According to Larry Hurtado, "Paul saw himself as what Munck called a salvation-historical figure in his own right", who was "personally and singularly deputized by God to bring about the predicted ingathering (the "fullness") of the nations ( Romans 11:25)."

For Paul, Jesus' death and resurrection solved the problem of the exclusion of Gentiles from God's covenant, since the faithful are redeemed by participation in Jesus' death and rising. In the Jerusalem ekklēsia, from which Paul received the creed of 1 Corinthians 15:1-7, the phrase "died for our sins" probably was an apologetic rationale for the death of Jesus as being part of God's plan and purpose, as evidenced in the Scriptures. For Paul, it gained a deeper significance, providing "a basis for the salvation of sinful Gentiles apart from the Torah." According to E. P. Sanders, Paul argued that "those who are baptized into Christ are baptized into his death, and thus they escape the power of sin [...] he died so that the believers may die with him and consequently live with him." By this participation in Christ's death and rising, "one receives forgiveness for past offences, is liberated from the powers of sin, and receives the Spirit." Paul insists that salvation is received by the grace of God; according to Sanders, this insistence is in line with Second Temple Judaism of c. 200 BC until 200 AD, which saw God's covenant with Israel as an act of grace of God. Observance of the Law is needed to maintain the covenant, but the covenant is not earned by observing the Law, but by the grace of God.

These divergent interpretations have a prominent place in both Paul's writings and in Acts. According to Galatians 2:1-10 and Acts chapter 15, fourteen years after his conversion Paul visited the "Pillars of Jerusalem", the leaders of the Jerusalem ekklēsia. His purpose was to compare his Gospel with theirs, an event known as the Council of Jerusalem. According to Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, they agreed that his mission was to be among the Gentiles. According to Acts, Paul made an argument that circumcision was not a necessary practice, vocally supported by Peter.

While the Council of Jerusalem was described as resulting in an agreement to allow Gentile converts exemption from most Jewish commandments, in reality a stark opposition from "Hebrew" Jewish Christians remained, as exemplified by the Ebionites. The relaxing of requirements in Pauline Christianity opened the way for a much larger Christian Church, extending far beyond the Jewish community. The inclusion of Gentiles is reflected in Luke-Acts, which is an attempt to answer a theological problem, namely how the Messiah of the Jews came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church; the answer it provides, and its central theme, is that the message of Christ was sent to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected it.

Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire occurred sporadically over a period of over two centuries. For most of the first three hundred years of Christian history, Christians were able to live in peace, practice their professions, and rise to positions of responsibility. Sporadic persecution took place as the result of local pagan populations putting pressure on the imperial authorities to take action against the Christians in their midst, who were thought to bring misfortune by their refusal to honour the gods.

Only for approximately ten out of the first three hundred years of the church's history were Christians executed due to orders from a Roman emperor. The first persecution of Christians organised by the Roman government took place under the emperor Nero in 64 AD after the Great Fire of Rome. There was no empire-wide persecution of Christians until the reign of Decius in the third century. The Edict of Serdica was issued in 311 by the Roman emperor Galerius, officially ending the Diocletianic persecution of Christianity in the East. With the passage in 313 AD of the Edict of Milan, in which the Roman Emperors Constantine the Great and Licinius legalised the Christian religion, persecution of Christians by the Roman state ceased.

In an ancient culture before the printing press and the majority of the population illiterate, most early Christians likely did not own any Christian texts. Much of the original church liturgical services functioned as a means of learning Christian theology. A final uniformity of liturgical services may have become solidified after the church established a Biblical canon, possibly based on the Apostolic Constitutions and Clementine literature. Clement (d. 99) writes that liturgies are "to be celebrated, and not carelessly nor in disorder" but the final uniformity of liturgical services only came later, though the Liturgy of St James is traditionally associated with James the Just.

Books not accepted by Pauline Christianity are termed biblical apocrypha, though the exact list varies from denomination to denomination.

The Biblical canon began with the Jewish Scriptures. The Koine Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, later known as the Septuagint and often written as "LXX," was the dominant translation from very early on.

Perhaps the earliest Christian canon is the Bryennios List, dated to around 100, which was found by Philotheos Bryennios in the Codex Hierosolymitanus. The list is written in Koine Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew. In the 2nd century, Melito of Sardis called the Jewish scriptures the " Old Testament" and also specified an early canon.

Jerome (347-420) expressed his preference for adhering strictly to the Hebrew text and canon, but his view held little currency even in his own day.

The New Testament (often compared to the New Covenant) is the second major division of the Christian Bible. The books of the canon of the New Testament include the Canonical Gospels, Acts, letters of the Apostles, and Revelation. The original texts were written by various authors, most likely sometime between c. AD 45 and 120 AD, in Koine Greek, the lingua franca of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, though there is also a minority argument for Aramaic primacy. They were not defined as "canon" until the 4th century. Some were disputed, known as the Antilegomena.

Writings attributed to the Apostles circulated among the earliest Christian communities. The Pauline epistles were circulating, perhaps in collected forms, by the end of the 1st century AD.

Early orthodox writings - Apostolic Fathers

The Church Fathers are the early and influential Christian theologians and writers, particularly those of the first five centuries of Christian history. The earliest Church Fathers, within two generations of the Twelve Apostles of Christ, are usually called Apostolic Fathers for reportedly knowing and studying under the apostles personally. Important Apostolic Fathers include Clement of Rome (d. AD 99), Ignatius of Antioch (d. AD 98 to 117) and Polycarp of Smyrna (AD 69-155). The earliest Christian writings, other than those collected in the New Testament, are a group of letters credited to the Apostolic Fathers. Their writings include the Epistle of Barnabas and the Epistles of Clement. The Didache and Shepherd of Hermas are usually placed among the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, although their authors are unknown.

Taken as a whole, the collection is notable for its literary simplicity, religious zeal and lack of Hellenistic philosophy or rhetoric. They contain early thoughts on the organisation of the Christian ekklēsia, and are historical sources for the development of an early Church structure.

In his letter 1 Clement, Clement of Rome calls on the Christians of Corinth to maintain harmony and order. Some see his epistle as an assertion of Rome's authority over the church in Corinth and, by implication, the beginnings of papal supremacy. Clement refers to the leaders of the Corinthian church in his letter as bishops and presbyters interchangeably, and likewise states that the bishops are to lead God's flock by virtue of the chief shepherd (presbyter), Jesus Christ.

Ignatius of Antioch advocated the authority of the apostolic episcopacy (bishops).

The Didache (late 1st century) is an anonymous Jewish-Christian work. It is a pastoral manual dealing with Christian lessons, rituals, and Church organization, parts of which may have constituted the first written catechism, "that reveals more about how Jewish-Christians saw themselves and how they adapted their Judaism for Gentiles than any other book in the Christian Scriptures."

There was a slowly growing chasm between Gentile Christians, and Jews and Jewish Christians, rather than a sudden split. Even though it is commonly thought that Paul established a Gentile church, it took a century for a complete break to manifest. Growing tensions led to a starker separation that was virtually complete by the time Jewish Christians refused to join in the Bar Kokhba Jewish revolt of 132. Certain events are perceived as pivotal in the growing rift between Christianity and Judaism.

The destruction of Jerusalem and the consequent dispersion of Jews and Jewish Christians from the city (after the Bar Kokhba revolt) ended any pre-eminence of the Jewish-Christian leadership in Jerusalem. Early Christianity grew further apart from Judaism to establish itself as a predominantly Gentile religion, and Antioch became the first Gentile Christian community with stature.

The hypothetical Council of Jamnia c. 85 is often stated to have condemned all who claimed the Messiah had already come, and Christianity in particular, excluding them from attending synagogue. However, the formulated prayer in question (birkat ha-minim) is considered by other scholars to be unremarkable in the history of Jewish and Christian relations. There is a paucity of evidence for Jewish persecution of "heretics" in general, or Christians in particular, in the period between 70 and 135. It is probable that the condemnation of Jamnia included many groups, of which the Christians were but one, and did not necessarily mean excommunication. That some of the later church fathers only recommended against synagogue attendance makes it improbable that an anti-Christian prayer was a common part of the synagogue liturgy. Jewish Christians continued to worship in synagogues for centuries.

During the late 1st century, Judaism was a legal religion with the protection of Roman law, worked out in compromise with the Roman state over two centuries (see Anti-Judaism in the Roman Empire for details). In contrast, Christianity was not legalized until the 313 Edict of Milan. Observant Jews had special rights, including the privilege of abstaining from civic pagan rites. Christians were initially identified with the Jewish religion by the Romans, but as they became more distinct, Christianity became a problem for Roman rulers. Around the year 98, the emperor Nerva decreed that Christians did not have to pay the annual tax upon the Jews, effectively recognizing them as distinct from Rabbinic Judaism. This opened the way to Christians being persecuted for disobedience to the emperor, as they refused to worship the state pantheon.

From c. 98 onwards a distinction between Christians and Jews in Roman literature becomes apparent. For example, Pliny the Younger postulates that Christians are not Jews since they do not pay the tax, in his letters to Trajan.

Jewish Christians constituted a separate community from the Pauline Christians but maintained a similar faith. In Christian circles, later came to be used as a label for those faithful to Jewish Law, in particular for a certain sect. These Jewish Christians, originally the central group in Christianity, generally holding the same beliefs except in their adherence to Jewish law, were not deemed heretical until the dominance of orthodoxy in the 4th century. The Ebionites may have been a splinter group of Nazarenes, with disagreements over Christology and leadership. They were considered by Gentile Christians to have unorthodox beliefs, particularly in relation to their views of Christ and Gentile converts. After the condemnation of the Nazarenes, Ebionite was often used as a general pejorative for all related "heresies".

There was a post-Nicene "double rejection" of the Jewish Christians by both Gentile Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. The true end of ancient Jewish Christianity occurred only in the 5th century. Gentile Christianity became the dominant strand of orthodoxy and imposed itself on the previously Jewish Christian sanctuaries, taking full control of those houses of worship by the end of the 5th century.

1. It appears in the Acts of the Apostles, ^ Acts 9:2, Acts 19:9 and Acts 19:23). Some English translations of the New Testament capitalize "the Way" (e.g. the New King James Version and the English Standard Version), indicating that this was how "the new religion seemed then to be designated" whereas others treat the phrase as indicative-"the way", "that way" or "the way of the Lord". The Syriac version reads, "the way of God" and the Vulgate Latin version, "the way of the Lord".
See also Sect of "The Way", "The Nazarenes" and "Christians": Names given to the Early Church.

2. In a review of the state of research, ^ Amy-Jill Levine stated that "no single picture of Jesus has convinced all, or even most scholars" and that all portraits of Jesus are subject to criticism by some group of scholars.

3. Jesus' early Galilean ministry begins when after his baptism, he goes ^ back to Galilee from his time in the Judean desert. In this early period he preaches around Galilee and recruits his first disciples who begin to travel with him and eventually form the core of the early Church. The major Galilean ministry which begins inMatthew 8 includes the commissioning of the Twelve Apostles, and covers most of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee. The final Galilean ministry begins after the death of John the Baptist as Jesus prepares to go to Jerusalem. In the later Judean ministry Jesus starts his final journey to Jerusalem through Judea. The final ministry in Jerusalem is sometimes called thePassion Week and begins with Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The gospels provide more details about the final ministry than the other periods, devoting about one third of their text to the last week of the life of Jesus in Jerusalem.

4. The Kingdom is described as both imminent (^ Mark 1:15) and already present in the ministry of Jesus () (Others interpret "Kingdom of God" to mean a way of living, or as a period of evangelization; no overall consensus among scholars has emerged on its meaning.) Jesus promises inclusion in the Kingdom for those who accept his message (Mark 10:13-27)

5. According to ^ Shaye J.D. Cohen, Jesus's failure to establish an independent Israel, and his death at the hands of the Romans, caused many Jews to reject him as the Messiah. Jews at that time were expecting a military leader as a Messiah, such as Bar Kohhba.

6. See ^ Why was Resurrection on "the Third Day"? Two Insights for explanations on the phrase "third day." According to Pinchas Lapide, "third day" may refer to :

"Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him."

See also : "Hezekiah said to Isaiah, 'What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?'"

7. Ehrman:^
* "The earliest Christians held exaltation Christologies in which the human being Jesus was made the Son of God-for example, at his resurrection or at his baptism-as we examined in the previous chapter."
* Here I'll say something about the oldest Christology, as I understand it. This was what I earlier called a "low" Christology. I may end up in the book describing it as a "Christology from below" or possibly an "exaltation" Christology. Or maybe I'll call it all three things [...] Along with lots of other scholars, I think this was indeed the earliest Christology.

8. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia: Proselyte: "The English term "proselyte" occurs only in the New Testament where it signifies a convert to the Jewish religion (Matthew 23:15; Acts 2:11; 6:5; etc.), though the same Greek word is commonly used in the Septuagint to designate a foreigner living in Judea. The term seems to have passed from an original local and chiefly political sense, in which it was used as early as 300 BC, to a technical and religious meaning in the Judaism of the New Testament epoch."

9. Ecclesiastical historian ^ Henry Hart Milman writes that in much of the first three centuries, even in the Latin-dominated western empire: "the Church of Rome, and most, if not all the Churches of the West, were, if we may so speak, Greek religious colonies [see Greek colonies for the background]. Their language was Greek, their organization Greek, their writers Greek, their scriptures Greek; and many vestiges and traditions show that their ritual, their Liturgy, was Greek."

10. Despite its mention of bishops, there is no clear evidence in the New Testament that supports the concepts of dioceses and monepiscopacy, i.e. the rule that all the churches in a geographic area should be ruled by a single bishop. According to ^ Ronald Y. K. Fung, scholars point to evidence that Christian communities such as Rome had many bishops, and that the concept of monepiscopacy was still emerging when Ignatius was urging his tri-partite structure on other churches.

11. Four years after the Council of Jerusalem, Paul wrote to the Galatians about the issue, which had become a serious controversy in their region. There was a burgeoning movement of ^ Judaizers in the area that advocated adherence to the Mosaic Law, including circumcision. According to McGrath, Paul identified James the Just as the motivating force behind the Judaizing movement. Paul considered it a great threat to his doctrine of salvation through faith and addressed the issue with great detail in Galatians 3.

12. According to 19th-century German theologian ^ F. C. Baur early Christianity was dominated by the conflict between Peter who was law-observant, and Paul who advocated partial or even complete freedom from the Law. Scholar James D. G. Dunn has proposed that Peter was the "bridge-man" between the two other prominent leaders: Paul and James the Just. Paul and James were both heavily identified with their own "brands" of Christianity. Peter showed a desire to hold on to his Jewish identity, in contrast with Paul. He simultaneously showed a flexibility towards the desires of the broader Christian community, in contrast to James. Marcion and his followers stated that the polemic against false apostles in Galatians was aimed at Peter, James and John, the "Pillars of the Church", as well as the "false" gospels circulating through the churches at the time. Irenaeus and Tertullian argued against Marcionism's elevation of Paul and stated that Peter and Paul were equals among the apostles. Passages from Galatians were used to show that Paul respected Peter's office and acknowledged a shared faith.

13. Three forms are postulated, from ^ Gamble, Harry Y, "18", The Canon Debate, p. 300, note 21, (1) Marcion's collection that begins with Galatians and ends with Philemon; (2) Papyrus 46, dated about 200, that follows the order that became established except for reversing Ephesians and Galatians; and (3) the letters to seven churches, treating those to the same church as one letter and basing the order on length, so that Corinthians is first and Colossians (perhaps including Philemon) is last.

14. Jewish Virtual Library: "A major difficulty in tracing the growth of Christianity from its beginnings as a ^ Jewish messianic sect, and its relations to the various other normative-Jewish, sectarian-Jewish, and Christian-Jewish groups is presented by the fact that what ultimately became normative Christianity was originally but one among various contending Christian trends. Once the "gentile Christian" trend won out, and the teaching of Paul became accepted as expressing the doctrine of the Church, the Jewish Christian groups were pushed to the margin and ultimately excluded as heretical. Being rejected both by normative Judaism and the Church, they ultimately disappeared. Nevertheless, several Jewish Christian sects (such as the Nazarenes, Ebionites, Elchasaites, and others) existed for some time, and a few of them seem to have endured for several centuries. Some sects saw in Jesus mainly a prophet and not the "Christ," others seem to have believed in him as the Messiah, but did not draw the christological and other conclusions that subsequently became fundamental in the teaching of the Church (the divinity of the Christ, trinitarian conception of the Godhead, abrogation of the Law). After the disappearance of the early Jewish Christian sects and the triumph of gentile Christianity, to become a Christian meant, for a Jew, to apostatize and to leave the Jewish community.

1. ^ Bromiley, Geoffrey W., ed. (1979). International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: A-D. Vol. 1 (Fully Revised ed.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. p. 689. ISBN 0-8028-3781-6.

2. ^ Seifrid, Mark A. (1992). "'Justification by Faith' and The Disposition of Paul's Argument". Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme. Novum Testamentum, Supplements. Leiden: Brill Publishers. pp. 210-211, 246-247. ISBN 90-04-09521-7. ISSN 0167-9732.

3. ^ Zahn, Theodor. "John the Apostle", The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. VI, (Philip Schaff, ed.) CCEL

4. ^ Lietaert Peerbolte, Bert Jan (2013). "How Antichrist Defeated Death: The Development of Christian Apocalyptic Eschatology in the Early Church". In Krans, Jan; Lietaert Peerbolte, L. J.; Smit, Peter-Ben; Zwiep, Arie W. (eds.). Paul, John, and Apocalyptic Eschatology: Studies in Honour of Martinus C. de Boer. Novum Testamentum: Supplements. Vol. 149. Leiden: Brill Publishers. pp. 238-255. doi:10.1163/9789004250369_016. ISBN 978-90-04-25026-0. ISSN 0167-9732. S2CID 191738355.

5. ^ Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-06-061662-5. That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.

6. ^ Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (2nd ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) p. xxiii

7. ^ Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (2nd ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) pp. 143ff

8. ^ Theissen, Gerd and Annette Merz. The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide. Fortress Press. 1998. translated from German (1996 edition)

9. ^ Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 978-0195124743.

10. The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament by Andreas J. Köstenberger, L. Scott Kellum 2009 ISBN 978-0-8054-4365-3 p. 140.

11. Paul L. Maier "The Date of the Nativity and Chronology of Jesus" in Chronos, kairos, Christos: nativity and chronological studies by Jerry Vardaman, Edwin M. Yamauchi 1989 ISBN 0-931464-50-1 pp. 113-29

12. ^ Theissen, Gerd; Merz, Annette (1998). The Historical Jesus : a Comprehensive Guide. Fortress Press. pp. 316-46. ISBN 978-1-4514-0863-8. Archived from the original on 2020-08-05.

13. Bargil Pixner, ^ The Church of the Apostles found on Mount Zion, Biblical Archaeology Review 16.3 May/June 1990, centuryone.org Archived 2018-03-09 at the Wayback Machine

14. Eusebius, Church History 3, 5, 3; Epiphanius, Panarion 29,7,7-8; 30, 2, 7; On Weights and Measures 15. On the flight to Pella see: ^ Bourgel, Jonathan (2010). "The Jewish Christians' Move from Jerusalem as a pragmatic choice". In Dan Jaffe (ed.). Studies in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. Leyden: Brill. pp. 107-138.; P. H. R. van Houwelingen, "Fleeing forward: The departure of Christians from Jerusalem to Pella," Westminster Theological Journal 65 (2003), 181-200.

15. Horsley, Richard A., ^ Whoever Hears You Hears Me: Prophets, Performance and Tradition in Q, Horsley, Richard A. and Draper, Jonathan A. (eds.), Trinity Press, 1999, ISBN 978-1-56338-272-7, "Recent Studies of Oral-Derived Literature and Q", pp. 150-74

16. Dunn, James D. G., ^ Jesus Remembered, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003, ISBN 978-0-8028-3931-2, "Oral Tradition", pp. 192-210

17. Mournet, Terence C., ^ Oral Tradition and Literary Dependency: Variability and Stability in the Synoptic Tradition and Q, Mohr Siebeck, 2005, ISBN 978-3-16-148454-4, "A Brief History of the Problem of Oral Tradition", pp. 54-99

18. ^ Hitchcock, James (2012). History of the Catholic Church : from the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium. Ignatius Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-58617-664-8. OCLC 796754060.

19. ^ Coveney, John (2006). Food, Morals and Meaning: The Pleasure and Anxiety of Eating. Routledge. p. 74. ISBN 978-1134184484. For the early Christians, the agape signified the importance of fellowship. It was a ritual to celebrate the joy of eating, pleasure and company.

20. ^ Burns, Jim (2012). Uncommon Youth Parties. Gospel Light Publications. p. 37. ISBN 978-0830762132. During the days of the Early Church, the believers would all gather together to share what was known as an agape feast, or "love feast." Those who could afford to bring food brought it to the feast and shared it with the other believers.

21. ^ Walls, Jerry L.; Collins, Kenneth J. (2010). Roman but Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years after the Reformation. Baker Academic. p. 169. ISBN 978-1493411740. So strong were the overtones of the Eucharist as a meal of fellowship that in its earliest practice it often took place in concert with the Agape feast. By the latter part of the first century, however, as Andrew McGowan points out, this conjoined communal banquet was separated into "a morning sacramental ritual [and a] prosaic communal supper."

22. ^ Davies, Horton (1999). Bread of Life and Cup of Joy: Newer Ecumenical Perspectives on the Eucharist. Wipf & Stock Publishers. p. 18. ISBN 978-1579102098. Agape (love feast), which ultimately became separate from the Eucharist...

23. ^ Daughrity, Dyron (2016). Roots: Uncovering Why We Do What We Do in Church. ACU Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-0891126010. Around AD 250 the lovefeast and Eucharist seem to separate, leaving the Eucharist to develop outside the context of a shared meal.

24. Ronald Y.K. Fung as cited in ^ John Piper; Wayne Grudem (2006). Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism. Crossway. p. 254. ISBN 978-1-4335-1918-5.

25. ^ Black, C. Clifton; Smith, D. Moody; Spivey, Robert A., eds. (2019) [1969]. "Paul: Apostle to the Gentiles". Anatomy of the New Testament (8th ed.). Minneapolis: Fortress Press. pp. 187-226. doi:10.2307/j.ctvcb5b9q.17. ISBN 978-1-5064-5711-6. OCLC 1082543536. S2CID 242771713.

26. ^ Mack, Burton L. (1988), "The Congregations of the Christ", A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins, Fortress Press, p. 98, ISBN 978-0-8006-2549-8

27. Hodges, Frederick M. (2001). "The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and Their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme" (PDF). Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Johns Hopkins University Press. 75 (Fall 2001): 375-405. doi:10.1353/bhm.2001.0119. PMID 11568485. S2CID 29580193.

28. ^ Neusner, Jacob (1993). Approaches to Ancient Judaism, New Series: Religious and Theological Studies. Scholars Press. p. 149. Circumcised barbarians, along with any others who revealed the glans penis, were the butt of ribald humor. For Greek art portrays the foreskin, often drawn in meticulous detail, as an emblem of male beauty; and children with congenitally short foreskins were sometimes subjected to a treatment, known as , that was aimed at elongation.

29. ^ Charry, Ellen T. (1999), By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine, Oxford University Press, p. 35-36

30. The traditional title is: ^ The Divine Liturgy of James the Holy Apostle and Brother of the Lord; Ante-Nicene Fathers by Philip Schaff in the public domain

31. published by J. P. Audet in ^ JTS 1950, v1, pp. 135-54, cited in The Council of Jamnia and the Old Testament Canon Archived February 10, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Robert C. Newman, 1983.

32. ^ Decock, Paul B. (2008). "Jerome's turn to the Hebraica Veritas and his rejection of the traditional view of the Septuagint". Neotestamentica. 42 (2): 205-222. ISSN 0254-8356. JSTOR 43048677.

33. ^ Bart D. Ehrman (1997). The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Oxford University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-19-508481-8. The New Testament contains twenty-seven books, written in Greek, by fifteen or sixteen different authors, who were addressing other Christian individuals or communities between the years 50 and 120 (see box 1.4). As we will see, it is difficult to know whether any of these books was written by Jesus' own disciples.

34. Durant, Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1972

35. H.H. Ben-Sasson, ^ A History of the Jewish People, Harvard University Press, 1976, ISBN 0-674-39731-2, The Crisis Under Gaius Caligula, pp. 254-56

36. ^ Dunn, James D. G. (Autumn 1993). Reinhartz, Adele (ed.). "Echoes of Intra-Jewish Polemic in Paul's Letter to the Galatians". Journal of Biblical Literature. Society of Biblical Literature. 112 (3): 459-477. doi:10.2307/3267745. ISSN 0021-9231. JSTOR 3267745.

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Christianity in the 1st century - Wikipedia

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Christianity in the 1st century covers the formative history of Christianity from the start of the ministry of Jesus ( c. 27-29 AD) to the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles (c.  100) and is thus also known as the Apostolic Age. Early Christianity developed out of the eschatological ministry of Jesus.

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Las primeras comunidades cristianas adoptaron una estructura de liderazgo basada en la participación colectiva, donde roles como el de los diáconos, presbíteros, y obispos comenzaron a tomar forma. Estos roles no solo tenían una función espiritual, sino que también se encargaban de tareas administrativas y de bienestar comunitario.

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Main Street Church - Leadership Structure

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The church is to be led by a plurality of godly leaders. At Main Street Church we practice a Leadership, Staff driven, non-congregational governance model that positions those in leadership to lead and to serve and fulfill the mission God has given us to “Help people experience wholeness ins Christ.” We seek to puts Jesus in His rightful place as the Head of the church teaching us to hear His voice and submit to His Word. Because Jesus is the Head of the church, He has given leaders to the church with a mandate to use their gifts to fulfill His directives for the church. This model also gives staff the opportunity to maximize their gifts and talents as they lead their ministries and make practical decisions on how to implement and carry out the direction provided by the Leadership Team.

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La primera comunidad cristiana en Jerusalén sirve como un caso de estudio primordial. Guiada por los apóstoles, se caracterizaba por su enfoque en la vida comunitaria, el compartir recursos y una fuerte unidad en la fe. Este modelo de comunidad se convirtió en un ejemplo a seguir para nuevas comunidades cristianas.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christian Quarter: Arched entrance to the Muristan, northern access to Suq Aftimos

Map of the Christian Quarter

The Christian Quarter ( Arabic: حارة النصارى, romanized: Ḥārat al-Naṣārā; Hebrew: הרובע הנוצרי, romanized: Old City of Ha-Rova ha-Notsri) is one of the four quarters of the walled Jerusalem, the other three being the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter and the Armenian Quarter. The Christian Quarter is situated in the northwestern corner of the Old City, extending from the New Gate in the north, along the western wall of the Old City as far as the Jaffa Gate, along the Jaffa Gate - Western Wall route in the south, bordering on the Jewish and Armenian Quarters, as far as the Damascus Gate in the east, where it borders on the Muslim Quarter.

The Christian quarter contains about 40 Christian holy places and one of the most important communities of Christianity in Israel and holy places for Christians in the world. First among them is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Christianity's holiest place. Most of the residents of the Christian quarter remain Christians however their numbers have dwindled.

The Christian Quarter was built around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the heart of the quarter, and Christian churches and institutions are spread across much of the quarter. Besides the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there are the patriarchal seats of many Christian denominations, including the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which owns large tracts of the quarter, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Coptic Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Ethiopian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, while the Franciscan Monastery of St Saviour (often called by its Italian name, San Salvatore) is the seat of the Custody of the Holy Land.[1]

The west-east David Street and north-south Christian Quarter Road, or simply Christian Road, are the principal market streets. Several hotels, including the Casa Nova Hotel and the Greek Catholic hotel, were built by the churches as places for religious visitors and pilgrims to stay. The quarter also contains museums, including one about the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. In the southwestern part of the quarter there is a pool called Hezekiah's Pool or Patriarch's Pool that was traditionally used to store water for the area.

The area originated as "Haret en-Nasara" (Nasara is cognate with "Nazarenes") in the middle of the area was later to become the "Christian Quarter".[2] The convention of the boundaries of the Christian Quarter have originated in its current form in the 1841 British Royal Engineers map of Jerusalem,[3] or at least Reverend George Williams' subsequent labelling of it.[4] The city had previously been divided into many more harat ( Arabic: حارَة, romanized: Hārat: "quarters", "neighborhoods", "districts" or "areas", see wikt:حارة).[5]

The table below shows the evolution of the area which was to become known as the Christian Quarter, from 1495 up until the modern system:[6]

Local divisions

Western divisions

Date

1495

1500s

1800s

1900

1840s onwards

Source

Mujir al-Din

Ottoman Census

Traditional system

Ottoman Census

Modern maps

Quarters

Zara'na

Dara'na

Haddadin

Nasara

Christian Quarter

North

Khan ez-Zeyt

East

Nasara ("Christian")

Nasara

Middle and south

Mawarna

Jawalda

Jawalda

West

Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter: Jerusalem is generally considered the cradle of Christianity.[7]

During the 4th century, Emperor Constantine's mother, Helena, journeyed to the Holy Land, aiming to engage in acts of charity and establish churches, particularly in locations associated with significant events in the life of Jesus Christ. During this period, a prominent narrative emerged about Helena's discovery of the cross. This legend, widely recognized in Late Antiquity, is detailed in Jacopo de Varazze's 13th-century Legenda Aurea, which not only recounts the myth surrounding the cross but also commends Helena as an exemplary Christian within the Catholic Church.[8]

According to the legend, while en route to Jerusalem, Helena encountered three crosses, one of which was believed to be the cross of Christ, accompanied by the purported nails. The narrative describes three ailing individuals approaching the crosses, with the third person experiencing a miraculous healing upon touching the cross of Christ. The designated site of this discovery is said to be where the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher was subsequently erected. Helena is also credited with the establishment of the Church of the Nativity. The cross of Christ and other relics linked to this discovery became subjects of subsequent controversies within the church.[8]

While there, she identified a site in Jerusalem as Calvary, where Jesus was crucified, and the cave where Jesus was laid to rest. As a bold statement for Christianity in this part of the city, she oversaw the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Over the centuries, additional religious institutions and churches were erected nearby, forming a community of Christians.[8]

A mass of people in the Christian Quarter during the funeral of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Kamil al-Husayni, 1921

Church of the Holy Sepulchre (1885). Other than some restoration work, it appears essentially the same today.

In the 19th century, European countries sought to expand their influence in Jerusalem and began constructing several structures in the Christian Quarter. The Ottoman authorities attempted to halt European influence and established rules for buying land in the area, but personal interventions from the heads of those countries, including Wilhelm II of Germany and Franz Joseph of Austria, led to construction of some buildings for those countries' religious and secular authorities.

At the end of the 19th century, there was no further free land for development in the Christian Quarter. In the same period, the Suez Canal had opened and many Christians travelled to the Holy Land. This led to intensified competition between the European powers for influence in Jerusalem. France built hospitals, a monastery, and hostels for visitors outside the Old City adjacent to the Christian Quarter - an area which became known as the French area. The Russians located themselves in the nearby Russian Compound.

There was a natural desire for easy travel between the Christian Quarter and the new development, but at the time the Old City walls formed a barrier and travellers were forced to take an indirect path through either Jaffa Gate or Nablus Gate. In 1889, the Ottomans accepted the request of the European countries and breached a new gate in the Old City walls, in the area of the new development. The gate was called the New Gate.

Many of the streets function as typical oriental bazaars or suqs, with the David Street and Christian Quarter Road most prominent among them.

Suq Aftimos (19th century) covers much of the Muristan quarter

Though formally separate from the main bulk of the Christian Quarter, which houses mostly Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic sites, the Armenians consider their adjacent Armenian Quarter to be part of the Christian Quarter. The three Christian patriarchates of Jerusalem - the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem - as well as the government of Armenia, have all publicly expressed their opposition to any political division of the two quarters. The central reasons for the existence of a separate Armenian Quarter is the distinct language and culture of the Armenians, who, unlike the majority of Christians in Jerusalem, Israel and Palestine, are neither Arab nor Palestinian.[a]

"Apart from their ^ miaphysite views there is no reason why the Armenian community should not live happily with the other groups in the Christian Quarter. Yet, David Street is a dividing line of more than just theological significance, for the Armenians with their separate language and culture from the Arabs also have an almost exclusively commercial economic basis. Apart from the comparatively close relations between the Syrian Orthodox Community and the Armenians for theological reasons, the Armenians have preferred to separate themselves from Arabs of all faiths."
"The difference, as I see it, is that by and large most of the Christian communities here are Palestinian ethnically, whereas the Armenians have their own ethnic identity as Armenians, and that is where in some sense they stand out or differ."[10]

1. ^ Wager (1988).

2. ^ Arnon, Adar (1992). "The Quarters of Jerusalem in the Ottoman Period". Middle Eastern Studies. 28 (1). Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 12. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 4283477. The continuous Moslem area of the city occupied its entire east half penetrating its west half at the north, near Damascus Gate. Excluding its south part and the north-west bulge, this region will be defined in the nineteenth century as the 'Moslem Quarter'. In the west part of the city lay Haret en-Nasara in the middle of the area which will be named in modern times the 'Christian Quarter'. Two minorities dwelt in the south outskirts of the city: Jews in Haret el-Yahud, in the south-west part of the future Jewish Quarter and Armenians around their monastery in the south part of the modern Armenian Quarter. The layout of ethno-religious groups in sixteenth-century Jerusalem agreed then with the guidelines of their dispersal in the city in the thirteenth century described above.

3. ^ Teller, Matthew (2022). Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City. Profile Books. p. Chapter 1. ISBN 978-1-78283-904-0. What wasn't corrected, though - and what, in retrospect, should have raised much more controversy than it did (it seems to have passed completely unremarked for the last 170-odd years) - was [Aldrich and Symonds's] map's labelling. Because here, newly arcing across the familiar quadrilateral of Jerusalem, are four double labels in bold capitals. At top left Haret En-Nassara and, beneath it, Christian Quarter; at bottom left Haret El-Arman and Armenian Quarter; at bottom centre Haret El-Yehud and Jews' Quarter; and at top right - the big innovation, covering perhaps half the city - Haret El-Muslimin and Mohammedan Quarter. had shown this before. Every map has shown it since. The idea, in 1841, of a Mohammedan (that is, Muslim) quarter of Jerusalem is bizarre. It's like a Catholic quarter of Rome. A Hindu quarter of Delhi. Nobody living there would conceive of the city in such a way. At that time, and for centuries before and decades after, Jerusalem was, if the term means anything at all, a Muslim city. Many people identified in other ways, but large numbers of Jerusalemites were Muslim and they lived all over the city. A Muslim quarter could only have been dreamt up by outsiders, searching for a handle on a place they barely understood, intent on asserting their own legitimacy among a hostile population, seeing what they wanted to see. Its only purpose could be to draw attention to what it excludes.

4. ^ Teller, Matthew (2022). Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City. Profile Books. p. Chapter 1. ISBN 978-1-78283-904-0. But it may not have been Aldrich and Symonds. Below the frame of their map, printed in italic script, a single line notes that 'The Writing' had been added by 'the Revd. G. Williams' and 'the Revd. Robert Willis'... Some sources suggest [Williams] arrived before [Michael] Alexander, in 1841. If so, did he meet Aldrich and Symonds? We don't know. But Williams became their champion, defending them when the Haram inaccuracy came up and then publishing their work. The survey the two Royal Engineers did was not intended for commercial release (Aldrich had originally been sent to Syria under 'secret service'), and it was several years before their military plan of Jerusalem came to public attention, published first in 1845 by their senior officer Alderson in plain form, without most of the detail and labelling, and then in full in 1849, in the second edition of Williams's book The Holy City. Did Aldrich and/or Symonds invent the idea of four quarters in Jerusalem? It's possible, but they were military surveyors, not scholars. It seems more likely they spent their very short stay producing a usable street-plan for their superior officers, without necessarily getting wrapped up in details of names and places. The 1845 publication, shorn of street names, quarter labels and other detail, suggests that... Compounding his anachronisms, and perhaps with an urge to reproduce Roman urban design in this new context, Williams writes how two main streets, north-south and east-west, 'divide Jerusalem into four quarters.' Then the crucial line: 'The subdivisions of the streets and quarters are numerous, but unimportant.' Historians will, I hope, be able to delve more deeply into Williams's work, but for me, this is evidence enough. For almost two hundred years, virtually the entire world has accepted the ill-informed, dismissive judgementalism of a jejune Old Etonian missionary as representing enduring fact about the social make-up of Jerusalem. It's shameful... With Britain's increased standing in Palestine after 1840, and the growth of interest in biblical archaeology that was to become an obsession a few decades later, it was vital for the Protestant missionaries to establish boundaries in Jerusalem... Williams spread his ideas around. Ernst Gustav Schultz, who came to Jerusalem in 1842 as Prussian vice-consul, writes in his 1845 book Jerusalem: Eine Vorlesung ('A Lecture'): 'It is with sincere gratitude I must mention that, on my arrival in Jerusalem, Mr Williams ... willingly alerted me to the important information that he [and] another young Anglican clergyman, Mr Rolands, had discovered about the topography of [Jerusalem].' Later come the lines: 'Let us now divide the city into quarters,' and, after mentioning Jews and Christians, 'All the rest of the city is the Mohammedan Quarter.' Included was a map, drawn by Heinrich Kiepert, that labelled the four quarters, mirroring Williams's treatment in The Holy City.

5. ^ Arnon, Adar (1992). "The Quarters of Jerusalem in the Ottoman Period". Middle Eastern Studies. 28 (1). Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 5-7. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 4283477. The origin of this ethno-religious partition lies in the nineteenth-century modern survey maps of Jerusalem drawn by Europeans - travellers, army officers, architects - who explored the city. The following verbal geographical definitions of the quarters will refer to this contemporarily prevailing division of the Old City. The ethno-religious partition of the Old City on the nineteenth-century maps reflected a situation rooted in history. Crusader Jerusalem of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, was partitioned among the residential territories of people from different European countries, Oriental Christian communities and knights orders. In 1244 Jerusalem returned to Moslem hands when it became part of the Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt. The change of government coincided with a devastation of the city by the Central Asian tribe of Khawarizm which all but annihilated the city's population. In 1250 the Mamluks rose to power in Egypt. Under their rule Jerusalem became a magnet to pilgrims from all parts of the Islamic world. People from various regions, towns and tribes settled in it. The parts of the city preferred by the Moslems were those adjoining the north and west sides of the Temple Mount (the other two sides lay outside the city) on which stood their two revered mosques, the Dome of the Rock and al-Agsa Mosque. Christians from different denominations resettled in the north-west of the city, at the vicinity of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Armenians settled in its south-west, near their Cathedral of St James which had been destroyd by the Khawarizms. Jews settled in Jerusalem, beginning with the second half of the thirteenth century, near the south wall of the city, because the territory there was not settled by any other community and separated from their venerated place, the West (Wailing) Wall, only by a small quarter of North-African Moslems. When the city changed hands again at the beginning of the sixteenth century, falling to the Ottoman Turks, no change in the city's population, and hence in its quarters occurred.

6. ^ Arnon, Adar (1992). "The Quarters of Jerusalem in the Ottoman Period". Middle Eastern Studies. 28 (1). Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 25-26. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 4283477.

7. ^ Beckles Willson, Rachel (2013). Orientalism and Musical Mission: Palestine and the West. Cambridge University Press. p. 146. ISBN 9781107036567.

8. ^ a Moraes, Jessica da Costa Minati. "Helena of Constantinople". World History Encyclopedia. b c

9. ^ Golan, Patricia (11 February 2005). "A Cloistered Community". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 1 February 2015.

Hopkins, I. W. J. (1971). "The four quarters of Jerusalem". Palestine Exploration Quarterly. 103 (2): 68-84. doi:10.1179/peq.1971.103.2.68.

Wager, Eliyahu (1988). Tour No. 7: The Christian Quarter. Illustrated guide to Jerusalem. Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Publishing House. pp. 105-112.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Christian Quarter ( Arabic: حارة النصارى, romanized: Ḥārat al-Naṣārā; Hebrew: הרובע הנוצרי, romanized: Old City of Ha-Rova ha-Notsri) is one of the four quarters of the walled Jerusalem, the other three being the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter and the Armenian Quarter.

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Pablo de Tarso tuvo un papel crucial en la formación del liderazgo y organización de las primeras comunidades cristianas. A través de sus viajes, enseñanzas y cartas, Pablo estableció comunidades, nombró líderes y difundió los principios del cristianismo, adaptando su mensaje a diferentes contextos culturales.

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El estudio del liderazgo en las primeras comunidades cristianas revela la importancia de un liderazgo colectivo y participativo. Este enfoque permitió a las comunidades enfrentarse a retos, crecer en su fe y extender el cristianismo a través del mundo antiguo, marcando el inicio de una tradición que perdura hasta hoy.

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The term "church government" (or "ecclesiastical polity") refers to the leadership structure of a local church or denomination. Most churches today fall into one of three types of church government - Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Congregational.

Churches with an Episcopal structure are governed by bishops, who have authority over the clergy of one or more churches (or a diocese). These bishops are often subject to higher-ranking church officials, such as archbishops, metropolitan bishops, or patriarchs. Denominations with an Episcopalian structure include Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox churches, as well as some Lutherans, Methodists, and Pentecostals.

Churches with a Presbyterian structure are governed by councils. The lowest council, that of the local church, is called a session; and its members are elected by the congregation. Representatives of the session are sent to the next higher council, which is called a presbytery. Representatives of each presbytery are sent to a synod, and eventually to the General Assembly. This type of church government is found in many Presbyterian and Reformed churches.

Churches with a Congregational structure are governed by the congregation. Local churches are usually autonomous and self-governing. They choose their own pastor(s), elders, board, and other leaders. These churches may be part of an association, but the association does not have authority over the churches. This leadership structure is found most notably among Baptists as well as in many nondenominational and free churches.
What did the early Christians say?
The "correct" form of church government is strongly debated today; yet in the early church, it was rarely discussed. It simply wasn't an issue. The apostles handed down a very simple leadership structure that the early Christians followed without complaint. Their emphasis was not on the structure of the church but on following Jesus' commands, remaining faithful to the apostolic doctrines, and teaching others to do the same.

Nevertheless, the early Christians did have a system of church leadership, but it was much different - and much simpler - than any of the systems outlined above. Many of the terms they used are similar but had vastly different meanings, as their understanding was based on the simple teachings of Scripture rather than manmade systems that were developed over hundreds of years.
Church leadership in the New Testament
The New Testament establishes a very simple, 2-fold system of church leadership: bishops and deacons (Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:1-13). The Greek word for "bishop" is episkopos, meaning "overseer." In the New Testament, the words "bishop" and "elder" (Greek presbyteros) are often used interchangeably (Acts 20:17, 28; Titus 1:5-7; 1 Peter 5:1-2).

From the New Testament, it seems that the primary responsibilities of the bishop were prayer and teaching, while the deacons were to attend to physical matters (see the qualification "able to teach" for the bishop in 1 Timothy 3:2 and the responsibility of deacons to serve tables and care for widows, freeing the apostles to pray and teach, in Acts 6:1-4). Clement of Alexandria made reference to this division of duties:

"In the church, the elders attend to the ministry that has improvement [of the flock] for its object; the deacons attend to the physical things." - Clement of Alexandria (c. 195)

The apostles themselves appointed bishops of area churches:

"[Clement of Alexandria] says that Peter, James, and John (after the Savior's ascension), although preeminently honored by the Lord, did not contend for glory. Rather, they appointed James the Just to be bishop of Jerusalem." - Clement of Alexandria (c. 195), as cited by Eusebius

"John [the Apostle] returned to Ephesus from the isle of Patmos. He then traveled to the adjoining territories of the nations, being invited, here to appoint bishops, there to set in order whole churches, there to ordain such men as were marked out by the Spirit." - Clement of Alexandria (c. 195)

"Polycarp too was instructed by apostles, and he spoke with many who had seen Christ. Furthermore, the apostles in Asia appointed him bishop of the church in Smyrna." - Irenaeus (c. 180)

"Our apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be strife on account of the office of oversight [bishop]. For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect foreknowledge of this, they appointed those already mentioned. Afterwards, they gave instructions that when those men should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry." - Clement of Rome (c. 96)

The early Christians consistently followed this 2-fold system of church leadership throughout the first century:

"Therefore, appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord." - Didache (c. 50-120)

"Preaching throughout countries and cities, the apostles appointed the first-fruits of their labors to be bishops and deacons of those who would believe afterwards. However, they first tested them by the Spirit. This was no new thing. Indeed, many ages before, it had been written concerning bishops and deacons. For the Scriptures say in a certain place, 'I will appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith' [Isa. 60:17]." - Clement of Rome (c. 96)

Church leadership in the early church
Around the year 100, a new system of leadership began to emerge - a 3-fold system of bishops, deacons, and presbyters:

"I exhort you to study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles, along with your deacons." - Ignatius (c. 105)

"Let the presbyters be compassionate and merciful to all, bringing back those who wander, visiting all the sick, and not neglecting the widow, the orphan, or the poor." - Polycarp (c. 135)

"It is necessary to obey the presbyters who are in the church - those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles. For they are those who, together with the succession of the bishops, have received the certain gift of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father." - Irenaeus (c. 180)

"Innumerable commands like these are written in the Holy Scriptures, pertaining to chosen persons: some to presbyters, some to bishops, some to deacons." - Clement of Alexandria (c. 195)

"Paul himself has laid our foundation, that is, the foundation of the church. And he has put us in trust of the law - ordaining deacons, presbyters, and bishops." - Disputation of Archelaus and Manes (c. 320)

Many large cities had multiple congregations of believers who met in several different house churches. Each congregation had its own elders (presbyters) and deacons, while one bishop was appointed over the entire city. This 3-fold system of church government began around AD 100 and was universal by AD 250. While this leadership structure is not discussed in Scripture, it may have been introduced by the Apostle John, as its roots are seen in the churches of Asia Minor where John ministered during his final years.
Election or appointment?
Initially, bishops were appointed by the apostles. Acts 14:23 says that Paul and Barnabas "appointed elders . . . in every church." According to the above quotations, the apostles appointed James bishop of Jerusalem and Polycarp bishop of Smyrna, and John later traveled from city to city to appoint bishops. Later, bishops were appointed by other bishops. In Titus 1:5, Paul asked Titus, who was likely the bishop at Crete, to appoint elders (bishops) in surrounding cities (Titus 1:5).

Deacons were chosen by the congregation (Acts 6:1-6), and the congregation may have had a part in choosing bishops as well, even though they were officially appointed by other church leaders:

"Therefore, appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord." - Didache (c. 50-120)

"Cornelius was made bishop [of Rome] by the judgment of God and of His Christ. This was by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the election of the people who were then present, and by the assembly of [older bishops] and good men." - Cyprian (c. 250)

"This very thing, too, we observe to come from divine authority, that the priest [presbyter] should be chosen in the presence of the people under the eyes of all, and should be approved worthy and suitable by public judgment and testimony." - Cyprian (c. 250)

Bishops and deacons were chosen by prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit:

"John . . . ordain[ed] such men as were marked out by the Spirit." - Clement of Alexandria (c. 195)

"Preaching throughout countries and cities, the apostles appointed the first-fruits of their labors to be bishops and deacons of those who would believe afterwards. However, they first tested them by the Spirit." - Clement of Rome (c. 96)

"Those who are called by us bishops, presbyters, and deacons were made such by prayer and by the laying on of hands." - Apostolic Constitutions (compiled c. 390)

Qualifications of a church leader
In 1 Timothy, Paul outlined clear qualifications for bishops and deacons:

"An overseer [bishop] must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive. . . . He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well." - 1 Timothy 3:2-13

Some of these qualifications are overlooked in today's churches, yet the early Christians understood their importance:

"Therefore, appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord - men who are meek, not lovers of money, truthful, and tested; for they also render to you the service of prophets and teachers. Do not look down on them, for they are to be honored among you with the prophets and teachers." - Didache (c. 50-130)

"The apostle bids that such persons should be teachers: let him be a patient ruler, let him know when he may relax the reins, let him terrify at first and then anoint with honey, and let him be the first to practice what he teaches." - Commodianus (c. 240)

"Among the characteristic qualifications of those who are called 'bishops,' Paul . . . lays down as a qualification that he should be able to convince those who contradict. . . . And he selects for the episcopate a man who has been once married - rather than he who has twice entered into the married state. Also, he must be a man of blameless life, rather than one who is liable to rebuke." - Origen (c. 248)

"We should choose no one but unstained and upright ministers. In that way, the ministers who offer sacrifices to God with holy and worthy hands may be heard in the prayers that they make for the safety of the Lord's people." - Cyprian (c. 250)

As seen in the quotation from Origen, the earliest Christians believed that church leaders could be married. (The deviation into ministerial celibacy had its roots in the third century.)

"I am greatly grieved for Valens, who was once a presbyter among you. . . . I am deeply grieved, therefore, brethren, for him and his wife. May the Lord grant true repentance to them." - Polycarp (c. 135)

"Paul completely approves of the man who is the husband of one wife - whether he is a bishop, presbyter, deacon, or laymen - so long as he conducts his marriage beyond reproach." - Clement of Alexandria (c. 195)

Training of church leaders
The early Christians had no theological education beyond the plain teachings of Jesus and the apostles. As a result, their church leaders did not attend theological schools or have advanced degrees. Rather, they were trained in character as they grew up in the church and learned from those who were older, wiser, and more godly. Because church leaders were not outsiders but had grown up within the church, the people were familiar with their strengths, weaknesses, and character:

"The tried men of our elders preside over us, obtaining that honor not by purchase, but by established character." - Tertullian (c. 195)

"A bishop is . . . approved by the testimony and judgment of his colleagues and the people." - Cyprian (c. 250)

"How can he who is himself unclean, and in whom the Holy Spirit does not dwell, cleanse and sanctify the water [of baptism]? For the Lord says in the book of Numbers, 'And whatever the unclean person touches will be unclean' [Num. 17:22]. . . . After all, what prayer can a priest [presbyter] who is impious and is a sinner offer for a baptized person? For it is written, 'God does not hear a sinner' [John 9:31]. . . . Who can give what he himself does not have? How can he discharge spiritual functions who himself has lost the Holy Spirit?" - Cyprian (c. 250)

"As to anyone who teaches principles to live by and molds the character of others, I ask: is he not obligated himself to live by the principles he teaches? If he himself does not live by them, his teaching is nullified. [His student] answers his teacher in this manner: 'I am not able to do the things you command, for they are impossible. You forbid me to be angry, you forbid me to covet, you forbid me to lust, and you forbid me to fear pain and death. This is totally contrary to nature, because all living creatures are subject to these emotions. If you are so convinced that it is possible to live contrary to nature, first let me see you practice the things you teach so that I will know they are possible.' . . . How will the teacher take away this excuse from the self-willed unless he teaches them by his example, so they can see with their own eyes that the things he teaches are possible? For this very reason, no one obeys the teachings of the philosophers. Men prefer examples to words; for it is easy to speak, but difficult to act." - Lactantius (c. 304-313)

Authority of church leaders
Authority is instituted by God; and as such, church leaders are to be honored and respected:

"My child, remember day and night the one who speaks to you the word of God. Honor him as you would honor the Lord; for where His Lordship is taught, the Lord is present." - Didache (c. 50-120)

"Let us honor those who have the rule over us." - Clement of Rome (c. 96)

"Let everyone reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ; and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father; and the presbyters as the Sanhedrin of God and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no church." - Ignatius (c. 105)

"If the prayer of one or two persons possesses such power, how much more will that of the bishop and the whole church! . . . Therefore, in order that we may be subject to God, let us be careful not to set ourselves in opposition to the bishop. . . . It is clear, therefore, that we should look upon the bishop even as we would upon the Lord Himself." - Ignatius (c. 105)

"It is necessary to . . . [be] subject to the presbyters and deacons, as unto God and Christ." - Polycarp (c. 135)

Even though the bishop and deacons were in positions of authority, the early Christians regarded them as the first among equals. Jesus taught that Christians were to view positions of authority not as opportunities to control others but rather as opportunities to serve: "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave" (Matthew 20:25-27).

Many of the early Christian writers were themselves bishops - including Clement of Rome (Rome), Ignatius (Antioch), Polycarp (Smyrna), Irenaeus (Lyons), and Cyprian (Carthage). Yet they realized that their positions of authority came with a great expectation of humility and service:

"I do not issue orders to you, as though I were some great person. . . . For now I begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as fellow disciples with me." - Ignatius (c. 105)

"I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments to you. They were apostles." - Ignatius (c. 105)

"We . . . do not impose a law upon anyone. For each prelate has in the administration of the church the exercise of his free will, for he will give an account of his conduct to the Lord." - Cyprian (c. 250)

"Peter - whom the Lord chose first and upon whom He built His church - did not insolently claim anything to himself. Nor did he arrogantly assume anything when Paul later disputed with him about circumcision. He did not say that he held the primacy and that he needed to be obeyed by novices and those lately come." - Cyprian (c. 250)

"It remains that upon this same matter each of us should bring forward what we think - judging no man. Nor should we reject anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently from us. For none of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops. Nor by tyrannical terror does anyone compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience. For every bishop - according to the allowance of his liberty and power - has his own proper right of judgment. He can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. Rather, let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ." - Cyprian (c. 256)

During the first few centuries of Christianity, bishops began to forget their position as first among equals, gravitating towards more power and authority. Many bishops of larger cities clamored for jurisdiction over smaller cities, eventually creating a hierarchy that was never intended by Jesus and the apostles. This hierarchy eventually became an integral part of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Support of church leaders
In the early days of Christianity, church leaders were expected to give up secular jobs and devote all of their time to the work of Christ's kingdom. However, the churches did not pay their leaders a middle-class salary such as many pastors receive today. Rather, the church leaders took a small portion from the offerings that were given to support widows and orphans. As a result, the leaders typically lived near poverty level, as they were not lovers of money (1 Timothy 3) and desired to care for as many orphans and widows as possible. The heretical groups paid salaries to their leaders, but the Christian bishops and deacons took only as much as was necessary for them and their families:

"Every true prophet who wishes to abide among you is worthy of his support. In the same way, a true teacher is worthy, just as the laborer, of his support." - Didache (c. 50-120)

"Everyone . . . in the clerical service should . . . have time for prayers and supplications. For it is written, 'No man that wars for God entangles himself with the affairs of this life' [2 Tim. 2:4]. . . . But in the honor of the brethren who contribute - receiving as it were the tenths of the fruits - they should not withdraw from [these duties]." - Cyprian (c. 250)

"Let the bishop view such food and clothing sufficient as meets necessity and decency. Let him not make use of the Lord's goods as another's. Rather, let him use them moderately, 'for the laborer is worthy of his reward' [Luke 10:7]. Let him not be luxurious in diet or fond of idle furniture. . . . Let him use as a man of God those tithes and first-fruits that are given according to the command of God." - Apostolic Constitutions (compiled c. 390)

The purpose of church leadership
The purpose of church leadership was to keep the teachings of Jesus and the apostles and teach others to do the same. Leaders were not to invent new doctrines; rather, they were to faithfully steward the apostolic teachings:

"In the Lord's apostles, we possess our authority. For even they did not of themselves choose to introduce anything [new], but faithfully delivered to the nations the teaching that they had received from Christ. If, therefore, even 'an angel from heaven should preach any other gospel' [Gal. 1:18] than theirs, he would be called accursed by us." - Tertullian (c. 197)

"Nor will any one of the rulers in the churches teach doctrines different from these (however highly gifted he may be as to eloquence) - for no one is greater than the Master. . . . For the faith is ever one and the same. So he who is able to teach at great length regarding it makes no addition to it. Nor does he who can say but little diminish it." - Irenaeus (c. 180)

"From this, therefore, do we draw up our rule. Since the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, no others should be received as preachers [i.e. founding teachers] than those whom Christ appointed." - Tertullian (c. 197)

"True knowledge is that which consists in the doctrine of the apostles and the ancient constitution of the church throughout all the world. . . . [The church] is guarded and preserved without any forging of Scriptures by a very complete system of doctrine. She neither receives any addition to, nor does she allow any diminishing of, the truths which she believes. True knowledge also consists in reading the Word of God without falsification, but with a lawful and diligent exposition in harmony with the Scriptures - both without danger and without blasphemy. Above all, it consists in the pre-eminent gift of love, which is more precious than knowledge, more glorious than prophecy, and which excels all the other gifts of God." - Irenaeus (c. 180)

Conclusion
The earlies churches had a very different leadership structure from most churches today. They initially had a 2-fold system of church leadership consisting of bishops and deacons, later adding presbyters around the turn of the second century. Bishops were appointed by the apostles or other bishops, and deacons were chosen by the congregation. The qualifications outlined in 1 Timothy were important in the selection of bishops and deacons; and church leaders were trained - not in systematic theology - but in character and godliness. The leaders were to be honored and respected, yet they were to view their positions of authority not as occasions to rule but as opportunities to serve. Bishops and deacons did not receive a salary; rather, they were supported from the offering collected for widows and orphans. Ultimately, the purpose of church leadership was to faithfully keep the teachings of Jesus and the apostles and teach others to do the same.

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The Leadership Structure of the Early Church

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The term "church government" (or "ecclesiastical polity") refers to the leadership structure of a local church or denomination. Most churches today fall into one of three types of church government - Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Congregational. Churches with an Episcopal structure are governed by bishops, who have authority over the clergy of one or more churches (or a diocese).

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La adaptabilidad del liderazgo fue clave en la expansión del cristianismo. Las primeras comunidades demostraron cómo la flexibilidad en la estructura organizativa y en los roles de liderazgo podían adaptarse a distintas circunstancias, asegurando la supervivencia y el crecimiento de la fe cristiana en entornos variados.

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What characteristics are most valuable for a leader? Scores of leadership books offer lists with the 5 or 7 or 10 (but never 11 or 13) attributes that successful leaders must develop. How often have you seen "adaptability' on one of these lists? Not often enough.