Church history. Who doesn't love history? If you're a Christian, this is a must watch video. Now you may not be able to go to Bible college or maybe read a church history book which I encourage you to do so but in this video, I'll give you a basic rundown of church history. It will help you to understand Christian beliefs, how they were formed as well as give you lessons that we all can learn from the past. There are about 2.3 billion followers of Christianity worldwide. That's one third of world population. Throughout the centuries, Christians have made multiple contributions to human progress in the areas of benevolence, orphanages, hospitals, schools, homeless shelters, education. For example, most of Western universities were founded as Christian institution. In scientific discoveries as well as in medicine, science music and other inventions. So I will break down the church history into few sections or parts. The one about church being formed 30 to 300 AD. The church being famous 300 to 600 AD. The church divides from 600 to 1,000 AD. Then the church's dark ages which most of you have heard about that 1,000 to 1,500 AD and then the church reforms as well as from 1600s until now. So let's dive in. The first section or part is the church was powerful and persecuted. The birth of the church. It started with Jesus's death and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Conversion of Paul caused the spread of Christianity to go beyond the Jewish communities to the Gentiles, non-Jews as well as when many Gentiles became believers in Jesus there was a council in Jerusalem that was a deciding factor to really disconnect a lot of Gentile believers from the ceremonial Jewish traditions without rejecting the Old Testament teachings. There was a huge spread of Christianity around the time from 30 to 300. What caused this spread of Christianity? There were few factors. One of them is burning conviction to spread read the message of Jesus as well as to meet needs of people. Christians were practically expressing love. They were persecuted which actually helped to publicize Christian faith and God was confirming preaching with miracles, signs and wonders. During this time of the church formation, there was a formation of canon. Canon is the standard. It's what we call the New Testament. The books of the New Testament Canon were written before 120 AD. By the end of the apostolic age, there was a general consensus of the New Testament containing 27 books. But what decided which books will be included in the New Testament Canon. Well, few things. One of them is apostolic authorship or authenticity written by authors closely associated with the original apostles as well as uniform conformity to Orthodox beliefs and consistency among the 27 books as well as widespread usage by early church fathers and consist consistency within the Christian tradition. Around this time of the church formation, there was a heavy persecution. Now we must understand is the Romans were initially tolerant toward religions from conquered lands which did not require people to worship the emperor. Christians were initially considered a sect of the Jewish religion which granted them same religious freedom as the Jews. When the Jews made it clear that Christians were not part of their community, Romans attitude changed. Christians differed from the Jews in several ways. They were trying to convert others unlike the Jews as well as by converting others from the religion of Rome, it was seen as a refusal to worship the emperor and inciting others not to worship emperor. The major persecution started under emperor Nero who accused Christians of stirring up fire. Around this persecution, that's when apostle Peter was most likely martyred. The persecutions involved violence and brutality. They were fueled by accusations of sexual immorality. Yes, Christians were accused of sexual immorality, cannibalism and atheism. Now when Christians would meet together, it was called a love feast. Romans because the Christian meetings were secret, started to spread rumors that there was sexual orgies committed there because believers called their meetings love feasts and because believers partook of the Lord's Supper, they were accused of eating other people and as well as because they believed in invisible God, they were accused of atheism toward Roman gods. Early church faced this heresy head on. Gnostics, they believed in dualistic worldview and they saw a clear distinction between the spiritual realm and the material realm. The spiritual realm, they called divine and the natural material realm, they called evil. They claimed to possess secret spiritual knowledge that provided a path to salvation. They also rejected the God of the Old Testament from being true ultimate God. They believed in the higher divine being and saw the creator of the material world often identified with the God of the Old Testament as a lesser flawed deity. They believed that salvation came from acquiring the secret knowledge rather through faith in the Christian teachings or the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus. Gnostics, they denied the true humanity of Jesus claiming that He only appeared to be human and did not possess a human body. Gnosticism was considered a heresy by early Christian leaders because it contradicted Orthodox teachings of the church. Now let's move to part two of the church history and that is when the church became popular. So we also see in this stage from year 300 to year 600, there was a rise of Christian fathers. Church fathers were influential Christian theologians and writers who lived during the early centuries of Christianity. Some prominent church fathers during this period were Augustine of Hippo, Jerome and so many others. They wrote extensively on the matter of theology, philosophy and Christian living, leaving behind a rich legacy of writings and teachings. Around this time, there was also conversion of Armenia. When I visited Armenia, they reminded me of this that before the 4th century AD, Armenia followed a pagan religion with multiple gods and goddesses being worshiped but in 301 AD, there was this king in Armenia who became a ruler known for his cruelty and during his rule, there was Gregory the Illuminator arrived in Armenia and he was imprisoned for 12 years. However, when the king experienced mental illnesses and issues, he asked for Gregory to pray for him. According to tradition, after being miraculously healed, the king and his court converted to Christianity and were baptized by Gregory. So this king then declared Christianity as a state religion of Armenia through a royal degree making it the first country to officially adopt Christianity as a national religion before even Rome now and then of course in 313 AD after Constantine's conversion to Christianity, we see an Edict of Milan that pretty much gave Christianity support and it became a favorite religion and the persecution stopped. The Edict of Milan actually granted religious tolerance to Christians ending the persecution and allowing the Christian faith to flourish. In 380 AD, Christianity became the national religion of Rome under the Roman Emperor Theodosius I and then of course, it didn't come without the heresies. There was another heresy that Christians were fighting during this time. During the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, they were fighting and addressing Arian heresy. Now Arian heresy started with Arius and his followers who believed that Jesus was a created being not fully divine. So if Gnostics in the previous section had a problem with Jesus being human because they believed everything supposed to be divine and being material is evil then Arius and Arianism went further to the other side and they said that Jesus was a created being not fully divine. Arians saw Jesus as a subordinate to God the Father not equal in essence. Arians view Jesus as a mediator not part of the Divine Trinity. Arians denied the eternal existence of Jesus believing that He was created by the Father. Arians believed salvation came from following Jesus's teaching not His sacrificial death. As you can imagine in this council, Council of Nicaea, this heresy was quickly shut down and praise God for that. During this time as well during this forming and the church being famous, there was a rise of desert fathers because the church became famous. The church became popular. The church was legal now persecution ended and monastery life replaced martyrdom. If in the 1 and 2 century model believer was a martyrer, in the third century, that model believer was a monk. Desert fathers focused on solitude silence and prayer. St Anthony is considered the founder of this movement of getting away from the city, going into the desert to spend time with God. They were fighting this pool of the culture and the world by getting away to be alone with God. Around this period also there was a fall of Rome in 410 AD. Rome was conquered by Germans. Rome falls and theologian Augustine of Hippo actually writes the city of God offering a Christian perspective on the fall of Rome. Gregory the Great becomes the Pope playing the viral role in converting German tribes to Christianity. Over some period, they Germans gradually converted to Catholicism notably the Franks under Clovis in 496. During this period, Christianity also spread to Ireland and then from Ireland to Scotland and then north of England with major figures like St Patrick in the 5th century. Now let's go to part three of the church history and that is from year 600 to year 1000. One of the things that happened then is the church buildings became hospitals. Actually one of the emperors decreed that every Cathedral should have a hospital school and monastery attached to it and so monks started to provide medicine and take care of the poor. In fact, the first textbook of surgery was written by a priest/surgeon. During this time, there was a rise of Islam. In 625 AD, Muhammad gets a revelation from Allah and begins to dictate the Quran. He used the sword to convert many of the people that lived in that area where he was at. He rejected Christianity because of their belief in the Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ. Around this time, there was also a huge divide in the church from eastern to western church. In the year 1054 known as the Great Schism. Now there was this divide that happened because of few reasons. One is the view on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone, eastern church believed. The Roman Catholic Church, the western church believed that the Holy Spirit proceeded both from the Father and the Son. So just this minor difference but it was deeper than that. The view on Pope also was a dividing factor. The western church which was a Roman Catholic Church believed that Pope is the successor of St Peter and he's infallible but the eastern church believed that Jesus is the head of the church not Pope and that Pope is not infallible. There were of course other issues for example virgin Mary was free from the original sin. That's what Catholics believe that Orthodox don't believe in that. Priests cannot marry. Something that Catholics believed, Orthodox do not practice that. Belief in the purgatory, something that Catholics believe and the Eastern Orthodox Church doesn't believe in that. There was a language issue as well. Latin was the language that the way service was conducted in the west and Greek is the language in which the service was conducted in the east. So due to these disagreements both theologically, language and other issues, they excommunicated each other mutually and the church took a divide. The fourth part of our church history deals with the church's dark days. It started of course with the crusades. Crusades were series of military campaigns to reclaim the Holy Land from the Muslims. There was about nine of these crusades but ultimately they all failed. They were against all infidels such as pagans, heretics and Muslims. The kings of Norway, England, Holland, Germany, France launched these crusades not just the pope of Roman Catholic church. So you have to understand one thing is that Muslims conquered a lot of the Middle East. They also conquered Jerusalem. The church would have pilgrims, people who love Jesus would go to Jerusalem to visit the holy sites. It meant a lot to their Christian faith. I think to some degree, they even got probably too addicted to some of those sites as well as the church started to... because it was powerful because it had military, because it had resources, it deviated from the spreading of the gospel by the means of preaching to killing other people and so they went with the sword instead of with the message of the good news and the church didn't need Jerusalem for the gospel to spread nor did they need to kill other people because Jesus clearly told us that His way is not the way of the sword. It's the way of the cross. Not only they were killing pagans and Muslims but the church actually started to kill heretics meaning, anyone who did not agree with Pope or the teachings of the church were either hanged or burned including one guy John Wycliffe, who translated the first version of the Bible into English. What was wrong with that? He was hanged for it in 1382. Part of this weird stuff that started to happen dark days really I think came from the power of the Pope. The Pope became very powerful, more powerful than the king and the emperor because he was infallible. Also Pope Innocent III said something about a Pope that was pretty shocking. He said, The pope is like the sun and the kings are like the moon. The pope is less than God but more than men. Judges all but is not judged by no one. So Pope would offer pardons for sins to those participating in the crusades of killing pagans and reclaiming Jerusalem. That's actually one of the fundraising campaigns, motivations for fundraising is that your sins will get pardoned. Power of the Pope operated with the threats of excommunication. Since the church was the way of life, being part of the church was the way of life, being kicked out of the church meant you cannot have a job as a judge, a witness, attorney or be involved in a contract and if you die, being excommunicated, you cannot have a proper burial. Pretty much, you're not going to heaven. You will live life on earth like hell because you're excommunicated from society and you're going to spend eternity in the lake of fire. So people of course would abide by the rules of the church set in motion by Pope. Now, one of the things that they practice and Catholics still do that is that in Middle Ages, forgiveness required confession. Priests would pronounce forgiveness and then require an act of penance. Now, the idea of a Catholic priest forgiving your sin would come from John chapter 20 where Jesus would tell His disciples, those you forgive sins will be forgiven. Those who don't forgive sins will not be forgiven and then the idea that you have to create some penance for your confession to be genuine, you know came from the many verses in the Bible talks about the fruit of repentance. Catholics took it to another level where they would say that... priest would actually tell you what you need to bring as an act of penance and this is to prove you're truly repentant and if you didn't have time to fulfill this penance then once you go to purgatory, you will actually have a chance to finish it there or somebody up there while you're in purgatory can finish it on your behalf. Now the idea of purgatory at first may seem so strange for us Protestants but for the Catholics, it's not super strange. That actually comes from the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18, where this servant is tortured until he pays his debt and so, they would take these verses and many others and parables and actually would push the idea that if you didn't finish your penance after your confession, you spend some time in purgatory and you will you know pay your debt and when you finish paying your debt then you go from purgatory to heaven. As you can see there's a lot of problems with that. Building a doctrine on the parables of Jesus Christ is extremely dangerous especially when those ideas are not supported by epistles and by the teachings of the apostles. Now we come to the fifth part of the church history and this is the part where another split happens within the church. It was from the year 1500s to the 1600s. The church goes through a reform. Now, prior to this there was a Pre-protestant movement, Moravian Mission movement. It was the first Protestant church 50 years before Martin Luther. The founder of it was Jan Hus. He was burned at the stake in 1415. He protested Catholic doctrine of indulgences and purgatory. He evangelized in Africa and later in the Americas and of course, he paid with his life for it. In about 1517, Martin Luther who was a German monk and a professor wrote his 95 thesis criticizing the church's practices, particularly the selling of indulgences. Now Martin Luther differed from the Catholic church in four ways because he believed in faith alone, scripture alone, Christ alone and by grace alone which created this division what we call the Protestants. So the Protestants are those who protested the Catholic teachings particularly in these few ways. One of them is that Protestants believe that our faith is in Bible alone whereas Catholics believe it's in the Bible but also the tradition and the teachings of the church even if they contradict the Bible. Protestants, the people who follow the Martin Luther's way, they believe that there are many true churches under Jesus Christ as the head. The Catholics believe there's only one true worldwide church. They believe, the Protestants that the church is built on the revelation of Jesus and the authority from the scriptures whereas Catholics believe that the church is built under Pope. Pope is infallible, he's the head of the church and his authority comes from apostolic succession. Protestants believe that communion elements are symbolic whereas Catholics believe that communion elements actually become the body and the blood of Jesus after prayer. Catholics have seven sacraments and the Protestants only saw two sacraments, the water baptism and the holy communion. The Protestants believe that we are saved by grace through faith whereas Catholics believe that we are saved by grace also by being in the church and as well as by sacraments. Protestants don't pray to saints but to God through the name of Jesus and then the Catholics pray through saints and through Mary, borrowing some of those teachings from apocrypha and Protestants don't believe in purgatory meaning, in this in between place where you go after you die and you still have a way to escape from there if you pay through some indulgences or if somebody pays on your behalf whereas Catholics they believe in purgatory and of course in Protestants, one of my favorite things is that ministers can marry and in Catholics, priests do not marry. So this drift or separation started to create a drift within the Catholic church. Now what begin to happen after that is of course Catholics, they had another council that tried to bring some modification to the Catholic faith and to the Catholic church but it didn't stop the Protestants from rising and moving forward. John Calvin came along with the rise of reformed churches and then in 1525 William Tyndale translated the Greek bible into English then in 1557, the Geneva Bible was translated into English and published with footnotes and then in 1611, King James authorized the King James with no footnotes and then in 1640, Puritans sought to purify the Church of England from all Catholic practices and they're the ones that fled the persecution in England and were known as pilgrims who later came to America from Netherlands. Now, we're going to go to the final section of the church history from 1600s until the present. This period was marked by enlightenment. When man looked beyond the supernatural and began to use scientific reasoning to promote scientific political and social advances. In 17th and 18th centuries, Enlightenment emphasized reason and individualism challenging the authority of the church and the traditional religious beliefs while it led to many advancements in science, philosophy and political thought, it also increased secularism. During this time, there was a rise of Pentecostalism and Evangelical movement. In the United States, we see there was a Great Awakening that was taking place in 1734 through 1743 by people like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield. There was a second great awakening that took place in 1800s to 1840. Charles Finney was one of those ministers that got used around this time. Charles Spurgeon who was considered the prince of preachers began his ministry at the age of 19 in 1854. There was urban revivals in 1875 through 1885 Dwight L Moody was one of the faces of that revival. There was also revival of 1900s from 1905 to 1906 and Billy Sunday was one of those revivalists who was leading them. Of course, one of the biggest ones that marked the rise of Pentecostalism was the Azusa Street Revival. It happened by a black preacher William Seymour in 1906. There was also post World War 2 Awakenings led by healing revival Bill Bright and Billy Graham. The charismatic renewal and Jesus movement happened in 1960s to 1970. Then in the mid 1990s there was the Toronto Revival, Modesto Revival, Brownsville Revival, Promise Keepers Revival and so many more revivals that were happening. Two things that I will mark. In 1979, there was a film that was released called Jesus film. It is actually probably the most watched film in the history. This film didn't do really well in the box office but it was soon translated and sent to different parts of the world. I remember as a teenager, growing up in the Ukraine, gathering our neighbors and we were watching on the screen, Jesus film translated in the Ukrainian language and then seeing my neighbors accepting Jesus and the villagers being exposed to Jesus Christ as well as in 2004, Mel Gibson's film Passion of the Christ also caused a spur in worldwide evangelism by addressing and presenting the death of Jesus Christ in a Hollywood fashion. In the conclusion, Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. There was so many things that were happening in the church. So many heresies that tried to get into the church. Church from the inside was struggling because church is made out of people and people are not perfect but incredible part is that Jesus is building His church. Church went through formation, went through seasons of being very famous, division, dark days, reform and I believe the Lord is purifying His bride. The church is Jesus's building. He's building it. The church is Jesus's body, He's the head of it and the church is Jesus's bride, He's in love with it. I love the church. I love the assembly of body of believers. I love serving the local church and I am excited and I'm looking forward to the future of the church. I believe that it's an army of God. I believe it's the family of God. I believe it's the building of God. It's the body of Jesus and it's the bride of Jesus and so yes, it's not perfect but Jesus is perfecting the church and I want you to learn the history of the church so that you can see the lessons and also learn where some of the beliefs that you have or maybe some other parts of Christian section that you don't subscribe to, where those beliefs came from and why they believe in those things and they practice those things. Let me know today what did you learn from this video and if you stuck around to this time, congratulations. Drop in the comments maybe some things I missed and as well as things that you've learned from this video. Thank you. Hit like, subscribe and I'll see you in the next video.