How did people learn the gospel of Christ?

How relevant is the gospel of Jesus Christ today? Do you think it continues to have the same life-changing effect as it did since the days of its inception?

The Good News of our Lord’s Resurrection is more than 2,000 years old and has been translated into almost 3,000 languages (United Bible Society, 2008). The Bible is only a click away on the internet, and available in virtually every public library and retail bookstore, so access has never been greater.

However, for most all of the first converts, their conversion to the Faith did not come about by reading. In the first place, the books and letters of the New Testament were being written during the last half of the first century AD, but were not compiled into the New Testament canon (official listing) we have today for another three centuries. St. Athanasius provides the earliest complete listing of the New Testament in his 39th Festal letter of 367AD.

Secondly, prior to the invention of moveable type printing in the mid-fifteenth century, copies of bibles were kept only in churches and monasteries. For centuries there were no copies of the bible around the house, and no Sunday School classes. So how did they do it? How did people learn – and not just learn but adopt as their way of life – the gospel of Christ?

The answer is through Church communities. As the Apostle Paul made his travels following his own conversion experience, he would preach the gospel everywhere and anywhere he would find an audience: indoors, outdoors, in synagogues and in homes. (Much later in the early 13th century, St. Francis of Assisi, with a similar evangelical passion, would say, “Preach the gospel always, if necessary, use words.”)

The gospel, transmitted by word of mouth, was spread to a variety of nations beginning with the feastday of Pentecost. In each case, the message was met with either whole-hearted acceptance or total rejection. Those who accepted it, embraced and lived the message, and continued to meet, pray and worship together, forming the first Christian church communities.

Encouraged by St. Paul, the other apostles and by newly baptized converts, their newfound faith in Christ filled their hearts with hope and love. Living in a society that was openly hostile to Christians, many were confronted, often with very little warning, with a life or death decision: renounce their Christian faith or be put to death.

The number of martyrs in the first three centuries after Christ’s resurrection gives more than ample testimony to the fact that the gospel meant so much more than belonging to another group or social organization. Christians would not have given their lives for anything less than what they knew was something greater and eternal; the hope of rejoining their loved ones who had gone before them, and to be in the loving presence of their Creator and God.

The writers of the New Testament did not write in a vacuum; they wrote about the faith they lived. They were the ones who walked with Christ, who witnessed His crucifixion and spoke with Him following his resurrection. They were forever changed, and were compelled to talk and write about it, to share this Good News at every opportunity. The gospel is meant for every nation on earth, just as Jesus Christ died for all of humankind. Learning about the gospel by reading the bible should be part and parcel of our lives as Christians.

Living the gospel, however, can’t be done alone, simply reading in our room by ourselves. It requires contact with others, within a community of believers, the divine/human living organism we know as the body of Christ, the Church.

This is how Christianity developed and grew from the beginning; and this is how people are still converted today. The bible may indeed be ancient literature when viewed in the 21st century, but its contents communicates God’s eternal story for mankind. This is why it will continue to be relevant in every age, and in every society. There will always be people willing to listen, to learn and convert their minds and hearts to faith in the living God.

We all know people who are apathetic about the gospel and others who insist it is irrelevant to contemporary life. Never let those people or that kind of thinking sway your faith or cause anger or despair to overcome you.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving this month, let us turn our thoughts to thanking God as the source of all blessings in our lives. Read again these words of St. Paul from his letter to the Colossians, who suffered greatly for his faith, yet giving thanks always to God.

“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Col.3:12-17)