PART IV:
The Apostolic Church and the
Church of To-Day
LESSON XL
THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD
The apostolic Church, as was observed in the Student's Text Book, found itself from the beginning in the midst of an environment more or less actively hostile. If we had been in Jerusalem at about the year 30, we should have observed a small group of disciples of Jesus, outwardly conforming to Jewish customs, but inwardly quite different from their countrymen. In Corinth and in other pagan cities of the Greco-Roman world, the contrast between the Church and its environment was even more striking; these cities were sunk in superstition and vice; the Church was leading, in the eyes of the world, a very peculiar life.
The presence of a common enemy led in the apostolic age to a closer union among the Christians themselves, and so it will always be. When Christian people realize the power of the enemy against whom they are all fighting, then they will have no time to fight among themselves. The Christian life is a warfare against sin—sin in a thousand deadly forms. In such a warfare, if we are to be good soldiers, we must all stand shoulder to shoulder.
The apostolic Church was waging an audacious warfare against the intrenched forces of heathenism and sin. Fortunately it had a Leader; and by that Leader alone it won the victory. The Leader was Christ. The primary relation of the soldier is the relation to the commander; the relation of the individual soldiers to one another is dependent upon that. So we shall study to-day the lordship of Christ; by that study, the work of the whole quarter will be introduced.