The Bible teaches that God sent Christ into the world at a very specified time. Paul writes, “When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son” (Gal. 4:4). He wrote that Jesus was sacrificed on the Cross “at the proper time” (1 Tim. 2:6; cf. Eph 1:10; Titus 1:3; Mk. 1:15). In what way was the world ready to hear about Christ in the first century AD?
The world conquest of Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered the known world in the 4th century BC. As a result, he brought a common language (Greek) to all of the nations he conquered. Gonzalez writes, “It did provide the eastern Mediterranean basin with a unity that opened the way first to Roman conquest, and later to the preaching of the gospel.”[1] Since most people had a common language at this time, this greatly benefited the spread of the gospel.
Bible-believing Jews were spread across the world. Jewish people had spread into various cities in the ancient world, setting up synagogues, and reading the Bible publicly. This gave Paul a place to begin, when he entered a new city. Gonzalez writes, “Diaspora Judaism is of crucial importance for the history of Christianity, for it was one of the main avenues through which the new faith expanded throughout the Roman Empire. Furthermore, Diaspora Judaism unwittingly provided the church with one of the most useful tools of its missionary expansion, the Greek translation of the Old Testament.”[2]
The translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. This translation is called the Septuagint or LXX. It was translated anywhere from 250 to 132 BC.[3] Since the early church emphasized predictive prophecy so much (see “Predictive Prophecy”), this gave their audience a translation of the Bible to read for themselves.
The presence of the Roman Empire, and the “peace” it provided. Before the Romans, nations were constantly at war with one another. After the Roman Empire conquered the known world, it brought tremendous political stability. Gonzalez writes, “The political unity wrought by the Roman Empire allowed the early Christians to travel without having to fear bandits or local wars. When reading about Paul’s journeys, we see that the great threat to shipping at that time was bad weather.”[4]
The presence of a road system. Gonzalez writes, “In the first century, well-paved and well-guarded roads ran to the most distant provinces. Since trade flourished, travel was constant; thus Christianity often reached a new region, not through the work of missionaries or preachers, but rather through traveling traders, slaves, and others. In that sense, the political circumstances favored the spread of Christianity.”[5]
[1] Gonzalez, Justo L. The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984. 8.
[2] Gonzalez, Justo L. The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984. 12.
[3] Harris notes that the 250 B.C.E. date is inferred from tradition—a translation done under Ptolemy Philadelphus. The 132 B.C.E. date comes from the prologue of Ecclesiasticus in the apocrypha, which refers to the OT being dressed in Greek. Harris, R. Laird. Inspiration and Canonicity of the Scriptures. Greenville, SC, 1995. 76.
[4] Gonzalez, Justo L. The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984. 14.
[5] Gonzalez, Justo L. The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984. 14.