Rip Van Winkle, slept they say (or so Washington Irving would have us believe) for 20 years. When he woke up, he had become a tottery old man and the USA had become independent. Any RVW undergoing a similar couple of decades would doubtless be just as much astonished on his awakening.
But suppose it happened to a follower of the Way, the new Christian religion established by Jesus. We might suppose he was one of the Seven who were appointed to take care of social work while the apostles concentrated on spreading the Gospel. Stephen and Philip were two of the seven. They were Greek-speaking believers with connections to the Nicolaitans who may have formed a distinctive group within the early Church (Acts 6.5). We have an account of Stephen’s speech in which he made plain the widespread failure to recognise Jesus as the Messiah. Stephen, you remember, was stoned and Luke adds the ominous comment: ‘Saul was among those who approved of his execution.’
If there was a sympathetic hearer to Stephen and if that sympathetic hearer nodded off for 20 years, his mind would very likely be in a whirl. It had become apparent in the interval that the Gospel was not confined to Jerusalem and the descendants of Abraham. It was to be a worldwide faith, though this was not always accepted.
During that 20 years Paul’s letters to churches throughout the eastern Mediterranean would be providing the nucleus of a New Testament. Stories would also be circulating about the miracles and sayings of Jesus that would eventually become the Gospels that we know. Paul himself would be in Rome with heavy concerns about those churches he had shaped as well as opportunities of presenting the new faith to those of an inquiring mind.
The re-awakened RVW would discover a variety of expressions of the new faith. In Corinth there would be debate and indignation; in Philippi deep attachment to Paul and his teaching. And among those who particularly favoured ‘Hebrews’ there would be concern about the office of high priest.
The coming of the New Testament did not make the new faith an open and shut case with all questions answered. Rather there was a lively and variegated spread of believers with hopes and expectations yet to be approved or denied. The first verse of chapter eight of Acts gives some indication of what was in the offing.
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