The Emergence of the Church: Context, Growth, Leadership & Worship [Paperback]

Arthur G. Patzia (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2001

The early church did not descend from heaven on a golden string. Nor did it spring full-grown from the mind of Jesus or the apostles. The church emerged as the result of God's decisive action within a particular people, Israel, their story and their historical context. The focal point of this action was Jesus--his ministry, death and resurrection. But there were challenges, setbacks and conflicts, as well as bursts of understanding, expansion and growth. While the main lines of this story display a remarkable unity, a closer examination also reveals a living diversity of cultures, perspectives and practices. In The Emergence of the Church Arthur G. Patzia explores the story, weighs the issues and traces the contours of the early church's expansion and growth, life and practices, leadership and worship. He offers both a panoramic introduction to the church as it was in the first century and a foundation for considering how it should be in the twenty-first century.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: IVP Academic (September 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830826505
• ISBN-13: 978-0830826506
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #939,586 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Early Church in the Bible, December 18, 2001

By 

Dr. P. R. McKechnie (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Emergence of the Church: Context, Growth, Leadership & Worship (Paperback)

Arthur G. Patzia's 'Emergence of the Church' combines New Testament background (what was Judaism like in first-century Palestine? What was life like in the Roman empire? and so on) with exposition of what the Bible says about the growth of Christianity. The book's sources are pretty strictly biblical: the Didache is dated at or beyond 100 (p.99), and discussed only at the fringe, and the clearly first-century ROTAS square (buried under the products of the volcanic eruption of 79) does not figure, even when Patzia comes to discuss (p.138) whether there were first-century churches in Italy outside Rome.

If description and discussion of what the Bible says about the early Church is what you're looking for, this is a good book to choose. The ambience is distinctly Fuller, and here and there this brings up questions which would otherwise seem curious: Patzia notes (and he is right, as far as it goes) that 'there is no indisputable evidence in the Gospels that [Jesus] personally offered sacrifices in the temple during his public ministry' (p.186). All right, but what is implied here? That Jesus might have thought sacrifical cult wrong, or avoided it? Surely not likely, when Luke (2.24) records his parents making the prescribed offering in the temple for him.

Arthur G. Patzia is an intelligent reader of the Bible and a throughgoing expositor. His book deserves a wide audience.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Introduction to the Apostolic Church, September 12, 2009

By 

Steve Jackson "stevejackson100atyahoocom" (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Emergence of the Church: Context, Growth, Leadership & Worship (Paperback)

The title "The Emergence of the Church: Context, Growth, Leadership & Worship" well explains this book. It discusses the church as understood by Jesus, its growth from the death of Christ to the death of the apostles, and how it functioned (leadership, worship and certain doctrinal issues). It is introductory in scope, but hardly superficial. Particularly helpful is the integration of Paul's writings within the framework of Acts and the discussion of the growth of Christianity in the key cities of the Roman Empire.

A few points are debatable: Patzia accepts many (or most) critical views on the dating and authorship of NT books, rejects infant baptism, and supports gender egalitarianism in ministry roles. And did Paul really teach a "law-free Gospel"?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More to this than meets the eye, April 21, 2010

By 

John Roxborogh (Dunedin New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Emergence of the Church (Paperback)

There are aspects of the disarming way Patzia tells the story of the early church which are easy to miss, and they are significant. We used to think that the closer you got to Jesus the purer the Christianity, then it went wrong and the Reformers fixed it, though it is still necessary to restore the primitive faith.

It is no accident that the Church in an age that values diversity sees its origins in a way it did not before and recognizes that this model does not fit reality then or now.

Whereas once we may have assumed and sought signs of standardisation in the early church, now it is acceptable to recognise pluriformity. Patzia's declaration that "there was no normative church in the first century"(13) may challenge romantic views of Christian beginnings, and undermine some strands of Christian teaching, but it also implies that the early church was about change as well as about renewal and that in so doing it connects with global cultural experiences of Christian faith today. All churches are involved in navigating different responses to Jesus and sorting out which are authentic and which lead away from what has been established across time and culture.

The way in which Patzia depicts the early Church as defined by its worship as well as by its geographical, cultural and religious context is also important. He explores how leadership roles developed and changed then as they do today. His approach is capable of engaging with churches who know that Christian faithfulness means taking their cultural and social heritage seriously, and who need to connect with the churches of the New Testament era as they seek inspiration for finding their way forward in a manner appropriate to their context.

Of course an historical rather than a theological approach stands the risk of affirming fragmentation and ignoring the common themes. The questions in the conclusion "Who are we?" "What are we to believe?" "What is our Mission?" and "How are we to live?" indicate the author's underlying concerns. No doubt Christians in other global contexts will ask different questions from those in Northern California, yet this is profoundly permission-giving. If Patzia's hope that his readers might catch "a glimpse of the church's expansion and what it meant to be a Christian - to be the church - in the first century"(247) is realized, it could prove a liberating stimulus to church growth in vary varied circumstances.