Latest / The Grove Church / Mapping the First 500 Years of Church History

Transcript

Mapping the First 500 Years of Church History · The Grove Church

• 0:05
  Charlie Loften: The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that's why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word, and the way that he's called us to live. Everyone, welcome to The Complete Podcast with Grove Church.
• 0:38
  I'm Charlie Loften. I'm the lead pastor there. I'm here with creative director, podcast producer, great friend, hat designer. I guess, you gonna... What do you think?
• 0:50
  You think you're just gonna keep wearing that hat?
• 0:52
  Abigail Boone: For every episode? Are you gonna go back to
• 0:56
  Charlie Loften: our girl tower coffee hat?
• 0:58
  Abigail Boone: Girl power. My roommate actually, end of last week, sent a picture of a new coffee that she wanted us to try. And I kept thinking, I've seen that brand name before, but I can't remember what it's from. It was my hat. Your hat.
• 1:12
  Amazing.
• 1:14
  Charlie Loften: So we are now, I guess, three... This is now week three
• 1:18
  Abigail Boone: Yeah.
• 1:18
  Charlie Loften: Of a series we're starting on church history Yes. That is gonna be an undetermined length of time. Correct. I just... We need to make sure that, you know, it's it's the pacing that's the problem because there may come a point, I know you may not, where it's not like where it starts to feel, okay, we need...
• 1:34
  We kinda need to be done with this. But if we haven't... We don't wanna say, okay, we're not done with our Church History podcast. This has been going... Dragging on too long, and we're only we're only in the 12 hundreds.
• 1:43
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. That'd be really sad.
• 1:44
  Charlie Loften: And then we'll take care of everything from the 12 hundreds to now, two episodes can get done. But we'll just see. That would be wild. Alright. So we spent two weeks kinda talking about why it is important to study church history.
• 1:57
  Abigail Boone: Yeah.
• 1:58
  Charlie Loften: It's times around just, you know, humility giving us a bigger picture, understanding what our theological foundations are, understanding the different guardrails that have been put up from the battling of various heresies, the desire to just kind of grow in our knowledge and understanding of where things come from and where my beliefs came from, and then ultimately helping us just to be better followers of God and students of His Word. And I think even if you are still somewhat unconvinced, I know you're not, but if you may be, you may be unconvinced, I think as we talk about it, you'll get it. Because I remember the first time I took a church history class, was fascinated by it. They started talking, and I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna like this, but there's
• 2:43
  Abigail Boone: Do have whole to do that in school?
• 2:44
  Charlie Loften: I didn't have to. You had to take a two semester Western civilization class of some kind.
• 2:50
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 2:50
  Charlie Loften: And most people just took the generic one, but History of Christianity is what it was called, was a choice. And I I took that instead. I just thought it would be really interesting. Then I heard him... Then at first, was...
• 3:04
  Then he started talking. I was like, I don't know. And then the more we got into it, was like, no. I'm totally glad. And then had to take it again in seminary.
• 3:14
  Abigail Boone: I probably in undergrad you took it?
• 3:16
  Charlie Loften: I took it in undergrad, and I took it in grad school. I took it in grad school.
• 3:20
  Abigail Boone: So so... But Seminary is considered grad school?
• 3:24
  Charlie Loften: You get a master's degree when you're done.
• 3:26
  Abigail Boone: Interesting. I've never thought about it like that. So you couldn't just go straight to seminary after high school? Mm-mm. Interesting.
• 3:33
  Charlie Loften: You'd have to go to some Bible school or whatever, get a Bible degree if you knew that's what you wanted to do. Now you would... Seminary is a graduate program.
• 3:43
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 3:44
  Charlie Loften: You have to have a
• 3:45
  Abigail Boone: bachelor's Yeah. To There you go.
• 3:47
  Charlie Loften: Alright. So we talked about why, and we're now gonna kinda get into the what of it. But I think we just kinda need to say, what are we even really talking about here? So we're gonna have kind of this a broad history
• 4:00
  Abigail Boone: k.
• 4:01
  Charlie Loften: Lesson here, and we really kinda have this divided
• 4:04
  Abigail Boone: on broad.
• 4:05
  Charlie Loften: We have... You know, we're gonna have this divided up into eight Oh, wow. Eight sections. Okay. K?
• 4:11
  That's pretty concise. At one week per... This is... This would be, you know, a twelve, thirteen week series based on what we've already done. Yeah.
• 4:22
  Two weeks per.
• 4:23
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm. And then you gotta get q and a's in there.
• 4:26
  Charlie Loften: Right? Yeah. It's already... I mean, now you say, what we would do... What if we did three week?
• 4:30
  Because you're talking how much how much can we cover about, you know, these... During these three centuries. Yeah. Three episodes per, and now we just... Now it's
• 4:39
  Abigail Boone: For our listeners, we need to probably treat them like toddlers on a road trip where it's like, we'll be there soon.
• 4:44
  Charlie Loften: We're not gonna be there soon. So the first the first one is the one that you said that you were the most interested... You're one of the ones you were interested in Mhmm. Which is really kind of what the Bible tells us about church history. If we just let me just kinda put in the thing, it's like, well, the history of Christianity, church history, really, the academic study of it really doesn't start...
• 5:07
  It starts where the Bible ends, then we can maybe... We'll just call this the The Bible study portion? Preamble. Okay. The preamble.
• 5:15
  Right? So you've got the the the church as led by the apostles themselves, which essentially starts approximately thirty to thirty three AD and goes until the end of the zeros.
• 5:28
  Abigail Boone: They go.
• 5:31
  Charlie Loften: The zero years. The zero hundreds. Yeah. And so that start... I would say, really kinda church history starts on the day of Pentecost
• 5:40
  Abigail Boone: Right.
• 5:41
  Charlie Loften: Which a couple of Sundays ago, we talked about. Mhmm. This... You know, and and they kind of looked at that passage there in Acts chapter two where it talks about what happens with the early church, that they they break bread together, and they were dedicated to fellowship, and the apostles teaching, and they they served each other and met needs and added to their number daily. That...
• 6:01
  Like, that's the moment where church history starts.
• 6:04
  Abigail Boone: So you can pun this down the road if you want to, but just for the average listener, the question may be, well, people met in synagogues and temples before that. Why is that not also church history?
• 6:16
  Charlie Loften: Well, the church is something new that Jesus started that was people who were explicitly followers of Jesus. And so church is not... Church is... In this sense, church is not a building where people gather for God centered worship service. Church is a collection of people dedicated to following Jesus.
• 6:40
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 6:41
  Charlie Loften: And so that is when that started to happen. I mean, He had His disciples, and there were a handful of them. But as far as, like, there being the creation of a movement built around the worship and following of Jesus Christ, that started then. And so that is a new thing that was being built. You know, when Jesus said to Peter after He confessed to, you know, I believe that you are the Son of God, he says, Peter, you're the rock, and on this rock, I'll build my church.
• 7:11
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 7:12
  Charlie Loften: Which will be a very significant thing that we have to talk about. Yeah. If we're gonna talk about church history at all, how you under... How you understand that verse
• 7:24
  Abigail Boone: determines what... Where you're gonna be. Right?
• 7:27
  Charlie Loften: And and and the interpretations and some people would say misinterpretations of what Jesus was really saying there. Yeah. You know? But there's regardless, if we're thinking about what it is that has made the church what it is, that is probably one of the most important verses in all of the Bible as far as what set the foundation of the church is this belief that... Does that verse say that Peter was being placed in charge of the church?
• 7:55
  Mhmm. And then does all authority from the church from that have to pass through Peter directly? So anyways.
• 8:02
  Abigail Boone: But that's down the road.
• 8:04
  Charlie Loften: Not that far down.
• 8:05
  Abigail Boone: Really? It's in this section?
• 8:07
  Charlie Loften: Well, I mean, it's... It... It it... You know, what what was Peter up to during this time really matters. Yeah.
• 8:15
  Because at some point, he did go to Rome, and Catholics would say he was the first bishop of Rome. Mhmm. I think that's a bit of a stretch.
• 8:25
  Abigail Boone: Is that the same thing as a pope? I don't really know anything when it comes to Catholic terminology.
• 8:35
  Charlie Loften: Pope is the guy that's in charge of all the bishops everywhere.
• 8:38
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 8:38
  Charlie Loften: And eventually, they added cardinals, and cardinals are kinda like middle managers that oversee groups of bishops. Bishops. But there really wasn't a pope per se until the three hundreds.
• 8:52
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 8:52
  Charlie Loften: But that particular pope traced his lineage back through all of the bishops of Rome. So Peter was the bishop of Rome, then this guy became the bishop of Rome, and then this guy, then this guy, then this guy. And so really, was the first pope, and it was just the bishop of Rome was always the pope but didn't get the official title until later, which I think that's is just a little bit of revised history. You can be a Catholic and believe in the pope and still, really, I think it is more intellectually honest to say that the first pope was not Peter, but the first pope became... When when church and political power became centralized in Rome, which was not until the three hundreds.
• 9:35
  I... But, again, I don't I don't think there's anybody listed that's trying to fight me. Sure.
• 9:40
  Abigail Boone: Peter, at this point, was doing what all the other apostles were doing. Right?
• 9:44
  Charlie Loften: He was mostly based in Jerusalem for a long period of time. Okay. But then at some point, did go to Rome.
• 9:50
  Abigail Boone: But it would've looked similar to what all the other peop... He wasn't, like, doing a distinct different type of church at that time.
• 9:55
  Charlie Loften: No. No. No. I mean, it was very similar to what... You know, Paul was probably the more active missionary as we think of that term, but, you know, we'll...
• 10:04
  We can talk about Thomas who went to India and is considered kind of a patron saint there and the founder of that church there, and the martyrdom of all of the apostles except for John, who was the only one to die of natural causes. And essentially, that section from say, you know, thirty AD to one hundred AD, somewhere around in there, is just really what we see in the book of Acts from it kinda starting at Pentecost to being a very localized movement to really kind of it following the outline that Acts one:eight says that first it'll be in Jerusalem and then Judea, Samaria, the surrounding areas, and ultimately to the ends of the earth. The book kind of follows that sort of outline and you see that movement as it's kind of going from a localized movement to a regional movement to at least what they would have considered a worldwide movement, the world that they had access And so you see that there, the expansion of the Gospel, Paul's missionary journeys, individual churches being established within the capital c Church, you know, to the church in Ephesus, to the church in Galatia. You start to see some of that.
• 11:13
  The letters are being written. Persecution really starts to kick in.
• 11:19
  Abigail Boone: Since this first started at this point in time, all of... Or someone like Paul was going to start churches, not just to visit churches, but they're going to, like, start churches.
• 11:34
  Charlie Loften: You had to start... There was no church in Galatia
• 11:36
  Abigail Boone: Yeah.
• 11:36
  Charlie Loften: Until somebody went there to start it.
• 11:38
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. Okay.
• 11:40
  Charlie Loften: And then in that is an... Topic that you have brought up. Our apologies if all you can hear in the background is They are mowing our parking lot. Seemingly. Oh.
• 11:54
  But also in the middle of this era from thirty to ninety or a hundred AD is an event that you were talking about, which is the destruction of the church in Jerusalem Mhmm. Of the Temple. The Temple Of Jerusalem Mhmm. Which is significant because it was a mitigating factor in the spread of the gospel because, again, it was Paul was going out and doing missions. Mhmm.
• 12:16
  But by and large, most everyone else was kind of staying In their spot. Staying in their spot and creating a a Jewish a Jewish offshoot religion Mhmm. In Israel. And so everybody was kinda staying, like like most people wanna do. It's like, this is where I was born, so I'm raised.
• 12:36
  I'm gonna stay here. Mhmm. And post destruction of the temple, there was just a significant amount of religious persecution by Kinda like a diaspora. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened.
• 12:50
  I mean, so not only were were Jews, Jewish people, you know, who were so religiously Jewish, they were spreading up, so were so were the Christians because I don't think the realm really saw a whole lot of difference between them. Right. They just scattered all. Right? And so you've got that, and then you've got, you know
• 13:10
  Abigail Boone: What year was that? Seventy AD. Okay.
• 13:14
  Charlie Loften: And, again, I was just at the Colosseum a few months ago. Mhmm. And apparently, I did not know this until then, but that is when when Rome sacked the... Sacked Jerusalem Mhmm. They brought back with them tens of thousands of slaves Mhmm.
• 13:30
  And all the treasures from the temple, and that's what built the Colosseum. The treasures from the temple is what they used to finance it, and the slaves from Jerusalem are the ones that
• 13:39
  Abigail Boone: built it. Interesting.
• 13:41
  Charlie Loften: Absolutely brand new information
• 13:43
  Abigail Boone: to me. Like the coliseum that you were looking at?
• 13:46
  Charlie Loften: Like, the act... Like, the the the coliseum. Okay. Interesting. That's when it started being built was after the conquest of the...
• 13:55
  Of Jerusalem in seventh day AD.
• 13:57
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 13:58
  Charlie Loften: Alright. So that is section one
• 14:00
  Abigail Boone: Uh-huh.
• 14:00
  Charlie Loften: Which, you know, that could easily be a year long series right now. I mean, it's 28 chapters in Acts. I mean, you could talk about everything in there for a really, really long time. But that... That's the big picture.
• 14:12
  And then the kind of the next the next section, there's kind of these landmark dates. Right? So the the death of the apostles is what kind of marks the end of this era. And then the second era is what's called the early church, which takes us from there all the way up to like 03/25, which is when the guy that I will spend probably the most time talking about just at random times, that's that story of Constantine where he has this famous battle, but we'll talk about it when we get there.
• 14:41
  Abigail Boone: So He wasn't always Christian, was he?
• 14:43
  Charlie Loften: No.
• 14:44
  Abigail Boone: I actually don't know that much
• 14:45
  Charlie Loften: about it. Really... There is even some speculation about whether or not he did or did not fully Convert. Convert. It just
• 14:55
  Abigail Boone: More a political.
• 14:56
  Charlie Loften: Was it a political thing? It's like, I will I will also be Christian. Yeah. He didn't get baptized until his... Till near his death.
• 15:03
  And so there's there's the idea that he completely converted before this famous battle but just waited to get baptized. He didn't really convert until his deathbed confessional and baptism, or really, it was always just political.
• 15:18
  Abigail Boone: But still massive implications for the Christian faith.
• 15:20
  Charlie Loften: Huge implications that the emperor of Rome said he was Christian.
• 15:24
  Abigail Boone: Wait. So it say the time span again?
• 15:26
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. But that's that's that's that's section three. It's like... So section two is the early church
• 15:30
  Abigail Boone: Which is
• 15:31
  Charlie Loften: from about 100 to 03/25. And 03/25 is when Constantine Constantine takes over.
• 15:37
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 15:38
  Charlie Loften: So this period is marked most significantly by persecution.
• 15:43
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 15:44
  Charlie Loften: It is it is a it is a
• 15:47
  Abigail Boone: Persecution by Rome?
• 15:49
  Charlie Loften: By the Rome... Roman Church. It is it is it is illegal most places to be a Christian.
• 15:55
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 15:55
  Charlie Loften: And it is very dangerous to be a Christian. And, honestly, have you ever heard of the Streisand effect? Ever heard
• 16:01
  Abigail Boone: of this?
• 16:01
  Charlie Loften: Man. There was essentially some Streisand effect to it. If you don't know what that is, you can look it up. But, essentially, a a picture of Barbara Streisand's house was put into... Like, you know, was put out in circulation.
• 16:15
  And she got really, really mad about what an incredible invasion of privacy that this was and how dare you put this out there, which then made people be like, what is she even talking about?
• 16:25
  Abigail Boone: Right. And so then
• 16:26
  Charlie Loften: it drew more people to it. Yeah. Her making a big deal about it is exact... Maybe we should call it the
• 16:31
  Abigail Boone: Streisand era.
• 16:32
  Charlie Loften: We should call this the the... We should call the Streisand effect the early church effect because that... That's what you have here. Yeah. The more it was persecuted, the more it
• 16:40
  Abigail Boone: began arrive. Yeah.
• 16:41
  Charlie Loften: Which will be a major theme of what we talk about between section two and section three is, was Christianity becoming mainstream? Was that ultimately a good thing?
• 16:54
  Abigail Boone: Right. Once, like, Constantine
• 16:57
  Charlie Loften: Mixed bag. Yeah. Mixed bag, a little bit, kinda like
• 16:59
  Abigail Boone: we talked about
• 17:00
  Charlie Loften: with the printing press.
• 17:01
  Abigail Boone: At that time, Rome was persecuting them, but that's separate from Jewish people who did not believe in the church. Right. Okay.
• 17:13
  Charlie Loften: This is this is the government, the the the governmental systems of Rome. Yeah. You know, feeding Christians to the lions and those kinds of
• 17:21
  Abigail Boone: things. I guess since we're about to head into a lot of this history, for all of this, whenever you speak of Jewish people, are you talking people who are Christians a part of the church, or is that a
• 17:34
  Charlie Loften: different to say Jewish Christians.
• 17:36
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 17:37
  Charlie Loften: And then religious Jew. I will try to make a distinction
• 17:40
  Abigail Boone: there. Okay.
• 17:41
  Charlie Loften: So... Yeah. So a lot of persecution, but even even... But even through that and maybe even to a degree part of it Mhmm. A significant amount of growth.
• 17:51
  Growth. Uh-huh. Right? And so a lot of defending the faith. You're also gonna see the establishment of more organizational structures.
• 18:01
  It's like, okay, well, this is kind of a widespread movement. So you see the appointment of bishops over different particular areas and that these bishops, they had they had really just kind of a loose network of affiliation. Mhmm. Again, keep making this caveat, this is not a Catholic podcast. Sure.
• 18:19
  So it was a very loose affiliation without anybody who kind of was like the one who was completely and totally directing it. Mhmm. But we're starting to build those structures of, okay, well, we've kinda got this issue. This bishop's talking to this bishop's talking to this bishop. It's like, hey, this is a problem.
• 18:35
  We all need to get together and address it, which is the kind of thing that you see with a lot of these heresies that are that are going to come out, some of which you may have heard of, Gnosticism, Docetism, Marcionism, Montanism, Arianism, all these different heresies are coming out during this time, and we're starting to squash them, mostly kind of centered around who is Jesus? Who is Jesus real... But who is He? Trinitarian heresies. So defining the very nature of who Jesus is and then the nature of the Trinity is kind of where a lot of the theological
• 19:18
  Abigail Boone: capital
• 19:21
  Charlie Loften: is being spent. And then... And so then the major figures here, I gonna ask if you know any of these, but I think I've heard you talk about Hiranaeus. Oh, heard it now. That's one of your boys, isn't it?
• 19:32
  Abigail Boone: It's my main boy.
• 19:33
  Charlie Loften: And I think one of the people you said we needed to spend some time talking about.
• 19:36
  Abigail Boone: He's fascinating. Yep. I have no children, but there's random times where I'm reading something or watching something that I'm like, oh, I'd wanna name my kid that.
• 19:44
  Charlie Loften: Right.
• 19:45
  Abigail Boone: Uranus, I was like, there's no shortened version of that. That would be cool for a kid to have, but people need to be named after him.
• 19:52
  Charlie Loften: Right.
• 19:53
  Abigail Boone: He's legendary. Ira? Eir... That'll be Ira. Nayus.
• 19:59
  Nay. Nay.
• 20:02
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. So you start with... So that is the time, even in the midst of all this persecution, there's rapid growth and where the really the foundations of Christian theology got set.
• 20:17
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 20:18
  Charlie Loften: And so that... That's gonna be a really important... We we will spend most of our time talking about these various bishops and their theological contributions, but really, it will be about all of these different heresies that are coming to come.
• 20:59
  Abigail Boone: Get ahold of stuff quickly enough.
• 21:01
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. So they're But,
• 21:02
  Abigail Boone: like, these guys, they're like, a lot could take this down or could lead people to wrong belief. So we gotta get ahold on it before it spins out
• 21:11
  Charlie Loften: of control. So now they're they're establishing those kind of hierarchical structural relationships that they need. The forming of these councils that come together to kind of debate these significant theological issues as they're trying to figure out what they're trying to do with all these different heresies that seem to be popping up, which you can't really say is a heresy until you've kind of discussed it. Right. And so that's what kind of comes I'm out
• 21:37
  Abigail Boone: of sure there is a lot of people that were like, well, you're making too many rules or, like, you're getting... Because, like, there's a point whenever your family grows to a certain extent where you have to, like, start making a bunch of different categories or systems to make Chris's morning work good and all that kind of stuff. And my seven Enneagram number is like, oh, you're making it too formal, but it's like, well, we're big enough now. That way I have to put up some guardrails to make sure it actually happens.
• 22:06
  Charlie Loften: Right.
• 22:07
  Abigail Boone: And so they were hitting that, but I'm sure there are people that were like, let it be organic. Right. You know?
• 22:14
  Charlie Loften: So now now we moved to kinda the era three, and this is kind of one, again, I would say one of the most significant landmark events of church and Christian history where at this point, the Roman Empire has gotten really, really big Mhmm. And power is being shared amongst four different people.
• 22:34
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 22:34
  Charlie Loften: So you've got an emperor, and underneath that emperor, you got a western emperor and an eastern emperor. And amongst... And just underneath both of these guys is kind of a a Caesar underneath them who kind of... And between the four of them, they are all collectively overseeing the Roman Empire.
• 22:51
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 22:52
  Charlie Loften: And you can imagine that that is not gonna last very long because eventually somebody's gonna be like
• 22:59
  Abigail Boone: This, like, geographically covered a ton.
• 23:01
  Charlie Loften: Yes. Yes. So somebody's eventually gonna be like... So basically, everything that we would... Just about everything that we would consider Europe all the way over as far as Turkey.
• 23:13
  Mhmm. I mean, just all of that. Northern Northern Africa's in there, pretty much all of Europe, all the way over to Western Asia. And so it was just logistic... That was the only way to logistically manage it is to separate this out.
• 23:28
  But this guy, Constantine, who we will talk about in-depth, basically makes the decision that he is going to... He's he's going to... He's gonna take over.
• 23:39
  Abigail Boone: And he he was one of those four?
• 23:42
  Charlie Loften: He was one of the four. Okay. And he is working his way down from essentially the Northwest corner of the empire, what we would call modern day Great Britain. Okay. And he's working his way down to Rome to take out this guy, take out the guy who was Oh, scandal.
• 23:58
  Ruling in in in Rome. And there's this major battle called the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.
• 24:05
  Abigail Boone: K.
• 24:05
  Charlie Loften: And that... Just the Battle of Milvian Bridge will be its own episode. Okay. But suffice to say
• 24:12
  Abigail Boone: But he was just doing it for, like, Roman conquest at the time, not for anything else.
• 24:17
  Charlie Loften: And, you know, they... He he was heading down there essentially thinking he was gonna have to set up a siege of Rome Mhmm. To essentially... You you know what that... A siege is when you don't really attack the city, you surround the city Mhmm.
• 24:31
  And all their food and their supplies are outside the walls. Right. And so we're gonna starve you out of your city.
• 24:36
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 24:37
  Charlie Loften: That's really kind of what he was prepared for Mhmm. But ultimately taunted this guy into and coming and fighting him.
• 24:45
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 24:46
  Charlie Loften: And it was ill advised for a dozen different reasons.
• 24:49
  Abigail Boone: Right.
• 24:49
  Charlie Loften: But the night before this major battle that was gonna take place in and around this bridge called the Milvian Bridge, the the story goes that Constantine had a vision where it said, in this sign, you will conquer. And it was a it was a symbol that's two Greek letters, the chi and the rho, which was Yeah. The primary symbol for Jesus at the time. Was not the cross at this time. Right?
• 25:17
  Abigail Boone: That's how he always held his hand in pictures, and then the Cairo would be next to it. Art history major.
• 25:22
  Charlie Loften: Right. And so in this sign, you will conquer. Mhmm. And so the vision was, okay, well, I need to I need to convert to Christianity. Right?
• 25:32
  But at a minimum, whether or he converted or not, he believed that, put the Christian symbol on all his... All the shields and the armor on everybody, the banners, everything, and then won the battle the next day, and that changed history. Just Christian history, but world history.
• 25:54
  Abigail Boone: All of it in one night? Yeah. Just... Yeah.
• 25:56
  Charlie Loften: He's painting it on there. That's crazy. I mean, just maybe
• 25:59
  Abigail Boone: That could be a whole episode of how he took that down.
• 26:02
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. I mean... And just and just this idea, like... I mean, like... And and and the and the history of the world changes in that moment.
• 26:08
  He has this vision or believes he has this vision or whatever, wins this battle. So, well, now the Christian God is the one that has given me this great victory. Mhmm. And he immediately ends the persecution, and then slowly, process, by the time it gets to his son, his son essentially makes Christianity the official state religion.
• 26:33
  Abigail Boone: But before he had that vision, it was just Rome taking over Rome.
• 26:38
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. Just a different part of the... A different person who was a leader in the Roman Empire
• 26:43
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 26:43
  Charlie Loften: Conquering another one to establish that more of the territory of
• 26:48
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 26:49
  Charlie Loften: The Roman Empire is his. And so then... But then also, you still got this over here in the East over in constant... What is now called Constantinople.
• 26:58
  Abigail Boone: Constantinople. Can
• 26:59
  Charlie Loften: you imagine where Constantinople got its name?
• 27:01
  Abigail Boone: Constantine. Constantine.
• 27:04
  Charlie Loften: Right? So, obviously, it wasn't called that when he conquered it.
• 27:06
  Abigail Boone: Right.
• 27:07
  Charlie Loften: But he eventually takes over the whole thing. And so there's so many different aspects of this of just kinda like where, you know, Rome Rome as a center of power versus what becomes Constantinople becoming a city of power, the Christianity becoming the established state religion moving from a place of immense persecution to it's now mainstream, and it is now the first instance of really just kind of the intertwining of church and state. And so everything that happens there has changed everything. And again, it was really then at this point that more than any other time where the center of not just political power but now religious power is now in Rome. And so then we kind of, again, all due respect, retrofitted the story of the pope was always the bishop of Rome, but that is a historical development that comes from Years of Yeah.
• 28:03
  Essentially, moment of what Constantine does after winning this battle and establishing Christian and political power both in the same place.
• 28:15
  Abigail Boone: So before this, was Rome just pagan? Like, they're they're being persecuted, but it wasn't like Jews are persecuting them. So was it just like a pagan, non religious kind of?
• 28:29
  Charlie Loften: You know, they just were... The Christians just really kinda failed to pay homage to What they believe. The Roman gods, and they just weren't good citizens because they didn't believe the right things and acted a certain way. Mhmm. And so then from there, then we will see some of the most significant church councils happen during this time because, again, Constantine with mixed motives is like, I need to have a unified kingdom.
• 28:59
  And so I can't allow what he would probably have considered minor theological splits to be dividing my empire.
• 29:07
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. That'd be bad.
• 29:08
  Charlie Loften: And so then the tradition of kind of these major councils coming together, being established in Rome, either called by the emperor and or the bishop of Rome and them all coming together. So there's gonna be some major kind of next level establishments of church doctrine. We've kind of established who the Trinity and who Jesus is, but there's still gonna be a lot of attacks and fights on that during this time. And, again, I would I would consider this moment kind of the creation of what we would now call the Roman Catholic Church. Or, again, a Roman Catholic would say the Roman Catholic Church started at the moment when
• 29:49
  Abigail Boone: Right. Jesus said
• 29:52
  Charlie Loften: Jesus said to Peter, on this rock, I'll build my church. In fact, you'll see a lot of really important paintings of Jesus actually handing a set of keys to Peter in that moment. And so that that that would be what they would say. But really, the political and organizational structures and its central... Centrality of Rome and all these things happened during this time.
• 30:15
  Abigail Boone: Which is probably hard for us to comprehend how bizarre it would have been for those people to finally have a seat at the table. Because they went from being the persecuted and the slaves and dispersed people to now we need to have councils so you can direct us in how this plays out. What it's been like going from here to
• 30:35
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. Yeah. And and now you got to deal with... And we'll we'll spend a decent amount talking about this too. Now you've got the problem of what we would now call cultural Christians.
• 30:46
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 30:47
  Charlie Loften: You know? Or convenience Christians. Mhmm. Or, you know, like, oh, I'm... You know, the emperor says he's Christian.
• 30:54
  I'm I'm I'm Christian too.
• 30:55
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. Don't and you have the good or bad of it's culturally beneficial Right. To be Christian.
• 31:05
  Charlie Loften: So now you now you've... I mean, like, there's... There there weren't any people really like, I mean, Christianity seems cool, I guess. I'll convert Yeah. Back when it would potentially cost you your life.
• 31:17
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. There is stakes too following this.
• 31:21
  Charlie Loften: Right. And so now the the culture of what Christianity is has now completely shifted.
• 31:26
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 31:26
  Charlie Loften: And so that'll be the biggest thing that we talk about when we talk about section two and section three, is kind of what what the cultural implications were of Christianity being a persecuted religion, the pluses and minuses of that, and then this immediate change into the culturally accepted religion, the pluses and minuses of that, and then this epic moment in between that on the face of it just feels like, I mean, how many over the course of the centuries of the Roman Empire were there various coup attempts and Mhmm. Battles between rival emperors or people with rival claims to the throne. Mhmm. How many of those happened?
• 32:11
  Abigail Boone: But didn't turn out. Hundreds. Yeah. That didn't turn out like this one did. Did you
• 32:16
  Charlie Loften: call the gate? Course of the world, the Milvian Bridge. Milvian. Milvian Okay. Milvian Bridge.
• 32:23
  Abigail Boone: Did you see it?
• 32:26
  Charlie Loften: No. And then we'll we'll talk more about it. But I did see the the archway that is there by the Colosseum
• 32:34
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 32:34
  Charlie Loften: That essentially Constantine would have marched marched his troops through after after the victory went in. So it's still still sitting there.
• 32:43
  Abigail Boone: Cool.
• 32:44
  Charlie Loften: So it's really, really cool.
• 32:46
  Abigail Boone: So next week, we need to have a slideshow of your trip photos.
• 32:50
  Charlie Loften: Oh, next... That's... I can't tell you how many weeks. We gotta do the first section first.
• 32:54
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's that's section three.
• 32:56
  Charlie Loften: That's section three. We haven't talked... We gotta talk about everything that happens in the book of Acts, and then we gotta talk about the period of persecution and all those early councils that developed the deity of humanity of Jesus and Trinitarianism. We gotta go through all of that before we even get to probably the most influential moment in church history. We gotta we gotta set up all the context to get there.
• 33:17
  Yeah. But before that, Abigail?
• 33:19
  Abigail Boone: Gotta do the next assessment.
• 33:20
  Charlie Loften: Even talked about the other three major sections of history. So we've talked about three major section history. We're all the way to 03/25.
• 33:31
  Abigail Boone: That's as far as we made it.
• 33:33
  Charlie Loften: Well, I guess I guess, technically, we made it to, like, three ninety eight.
• 33:35
  Abigail Boone: Bit.
• 33:36
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. That's... I think that's one. Wait. Wait.
• 33:37
  Wait. No. No. I think that's in the 4 hundreds. See?
• 33:41
  Look at me. I'm just saying it. Yeah. So it's from $3.25 to 500.
• 33:45
  Abigail Boone: Okay. So it's still in the grand scheme?
• 33:49
  Charlie Loften: Still in the grand scheme. Well, that that is just the first five hundred years of history. Yeah. Yeah. Most of us kinda like, we're...
• 33:55
  Hey. Make... When when do we start talking about Martin Luther? Oh. When do we start talking about Pentecostalism?
• 34:00
  Very far
• 34:00
  Abigail Boone: from that.
• 34:01
  Charlie Loften: Very far from that. These these are the things that we know the least about
• 34:06
  Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
• 34:07
  Charlie Loften: But are without a doubt the most
• 34:09
  Abigail Boone: influential Still to this day.
• 34:11
  Charlie Loften: To this day.
• 34:11
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. That's having an impact on how we do our faith.
• 34:14
  Charlie Loften: I'm already feeling a little overwhelmed, Abigail. You're gonna to talk me down. You have to help
• 34:17
  Abigail Boone: me out. Just turn it into excitement
• 34:19
  Charlie Loften: Okay. Alright.
• 34:20
  Abigail Boone: And happiness of history.
• 34:21
  Charlie Loften: Figure it out. For real. It's also just not natural. It's not something that I naturally spend a lot of time talking about. And, also, it's
• 34:28
  Abigail Boone: just Do you
• 34:28
  Charlie Loften: ever read about
• 34:29
  Abigail Boone: it, stuff like that?
• 34:30
  Charlie Loften: Who who am I talking to Irenaeus about? Okay. There you go. Alright. Well, thank you fan of Irenaeus for being here, and thank future fans of Irenaeus for joining us.
• 34:39
  Yeah. And come back next week, and we will talk about the second half, kind of the rest of these overarching eras of Christian and church history. See you then. Thank you for listening to the Cultivate Podcast. Our hope is that you are taking steps to go deeper in your faith, that you are asking big questions, and you're looking for answers.
• 35:02
  We hope that we can be a resource for you through our podcast and any other way that we can help you. You can find all our episodes anywhere that you can find podcasts, YouTube. And again, thank you so much for joining us.