Worship in the Early Church

De: Justo L. González, Catherine Gunsalus González

Narrado por: Timothy Andrés Pabon

While many histories of Christian worship exist, this project undertakes a task both more focused and more urgent. Rather than survey the whole history of the Christian church, it focuses on the formative period between the first and fifth centuries CE, when so many of the understandings and patterns of Christian worship came to be. And rather than include such developments as the monastic hours of prayer and the history of ordination, the authors deal primarily with those aspects of worship that recur on a weekly or regular basis: preaching, Eucharist, and baptism.

The book divides its subject into three periods. It begins with the emerging worship of the New Testament era. It moves to the second and third centuries, when the church's main tasks of establishing its identity in relation to its Jewish roots and making its way in a hostile Roman environment showed up in its theology and practice of worship. And it concludes with the fourth and fifth centuries, when introducing the increasing numbers of converts after Constantine to Christian faith became one of the highest priorities of the church's worship. This resource will serve as a valuable guide to the historical developments that brought about Christian worship as we know it today.

©2022 Justo L. González and Catherine Gunsalus González (P)2022 Tantor

Lifts the vail of nascent Christianity

Perhaps the best book I have come across on the development of what would become the Christian Faith.

I could not recommend this book highly enough.

Great historical information

I’m very detailed and accurate accounting of the worship for about the first 400 years of church, history and many questions

Explains a lot!!!

This book gives a rich history of the worship in the early churches and points to why we worship in the style we do today and where the influences came from. There are too many things to list that I learned. It is a worthwhile read.

Details

Amazing book, a must have for anyone. Full of historic knowledge full of every small detail. Lots of research time has been put into this book.

Thought provoking and well researched

Very worthwhile book to read/listen to. Explores first 3 historical periods of the church and looks at how practices in church worship developed and changed. An excellent final chapter drawing lessons (positive and negative) from each period for the church today.

Great audio book/great book

I'm familiar with Justo Gonzalez from his two-volume history of Christianity that has become a standard for students of church history. I've not read any of the works from his wife until this one. The scholarship in this is deep and well written. The grouping of eras of the early church is well done and allows the reader/listener to get a solid understanding of how the early Christian faith developed and grew from beginnings in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas to eventually become the sanctioned religion of the Roman Empire. Each stage of the development had effects on the worshippers in the local congregations and much of what we think about worship today is from that era but, as the writers here reveal, much today is radically different from how early followers of Jesus worshipped.

Unfortunately Quite Biased

At first, I appreciated the author’s attempt to trace early Christian worship historically, but by the end the clear Protestant bias completely took over. The first few chapters even read like a kind of Jewish apology, with the author almost scolding second century Christians for their harsh words toward Jews, while ignoring that these same Christians were being hunted, driven out, and killed. The issue was not that they were mean, it was that they were under persecution. That part of the book immediately set the tone for the author’s selective moralizing and modern spin.
By the later chapters, the bias becomes undeniable. Acting as though the Eucharist only became the center of Christian worship in the fourth century is just absurd. Are we reading the same Church Fathers? Whenever he has to actually address the first and second century understanding of the Eucharist, you can see the authors squirming, still feeling the need to slip in comments that they saw it as a symbol. There is simply no evidence for that. The sources overwhelmingly show the Eucharist was the heart of Christian worship from the beginning.

In the end, this book says far more about modern Protestant discomfort with history than it does about the early Church itself.