A comprehensive and beneficial analysis of the promotion of Christianity in its first three centuries.

The author discusses the Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts in which the message was first promoted, the message itself and the way that it was promoted, those doing the promotion, their motivations, and their strategies, based upon textual and archaeological evidence.

The author does well at showing the critical importance placed on evangelism as part of the Christian life in early Christianity, but also vice versa-- that the Christian life was an important aspect of evangelism in the same period. He does well at showing the challenges that the first century world provided against the promotion of the Gospel and how the early Christians worked to overcome those challenges.

There are times when the author is likely stretching the evidence; as a good Anglican, he still seeks to justify infant baptism and grace only theology, although he does recognize that the bishop/presbyter/elder was the same office in the first century.

Nevertheless, an excellent resource to gain a better appreciation of the work of evangelism done in the first centuries of Christianity, and provides encouragement regarding the ability of doing the same work today. ( )

1977

AUTHOR INDEX; GENERAL INDEX; CHAPTER NOTES; ILLUSTRATED

we have reprinted edition of 1990