One of the most striking features of the earliest Christian communities is that all their members were Jewish. This was no accident: Christianity began within the context of first-century Judaism, and its earliest leaders understood it this way. Jesus drew deeply on Jewish metaphors to describe himself and the people of God—the vine in John 15, for example, would have brought Hosea’s image of Israel immediately to the minds of his listeners. Nothing in Jesus’ teaching was meant to distance his followers from their spiritual heritage; rather, he was unfolding it in surprising and radical ways.
This Jewish context shaped the disciples’ thinking in a very practical way. Even after the resurrection, their understanding of the mission was narrow and national. When Jesus spoke of taking the gospel to all nations, their immediate response revealed how deeply rooted they were in Jewish expectations. In Acts 1:7 (ESV), they ask:
“Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Despite Jesus’ clear mandate to go to all nations, their focus remained on Jewish national restoration. And in the early days, the first Christians were very comfortable staying in Jerusalem, going to the Temple, and living out their faith much as they always had. Wherever they lived outside Judaea, they still relied on regular synagogue attendance. Paul’s early mission pattern reflects this too: he usually began his work by going first to the synagogue, or where there was no synagogue, to a “place of prayer”—a gathering of worshippers where Gentiles who were drawn to Judaism could meet.
The Problem of Inclusion
But once people who were not circumcised, who freely ate pork, began joining the movement, tensions arose. Questions about identity, practice, and inclusion quickly came to the fore. The Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) was convened precisely to address these debates, and much of the New Testament wrestles with this transition. The Letter to the Hebrews, for example, is largely taken up with explaining the relationship between the Old Covenant and the New—a theological attempt to make sense of how Jewish practice and the Christ-centred life relate.
Over time, the church’s life and worship gradually shifted away from Jewish forms into expressions more accessible to Gentile believers. This was not a sudden rupture, but a long, often painful process of reimagination. The early Christians had to ask: Jesus the Jew was indeed the universal Messiah, but how much of the old ways could they set aside without cutting themselves off from the roots that nourished them?
From Jerusalem to Antioch
As Acts progresses, we see a clear shift. The story moves from the church as a Jewish reform movement—centered in Jerusalem—to a new religious movement shaped increasingly by Gentile concerns. The narrative focus moves from the Acts of Peter to the Acts of Paul, and from Jerusalem to Antioch as the hub of mission.
Paul’s early strategy—to go first to the Jewish community in each city—resembles what today we might call “fringe evangelism.” In many urban synagogues there were Gentile worshippers known as “God-fearers”—people who participated in Jewish worship and practice but, because they were uncircumcised, could never become full members. They were spiritually open, but on the margins. Paul’s message—that Gentiles could be full participants in the people of God—was profoundly attractive to them. At the same time, it understandably led some Jewish believers to feel that Paul was poaching from their congregations.
Church in Homes: The Early Gatherings
When tensions rose, believers began meeting in people’s homes rather than in synagogue spaces. As these groups grew, they multiplied across cities in a network of home-based churches. Some homes had large halls that could accommodate a significant gathering; others had only a small room. It wasn’t until the third century that purpose-built church buildings became common. Even then, some Christians simply remodelled parts of their homes to make space for gatherings.
This shift—from a community steeped in Jewish worship to a diverse body shaped also by Roman cultural patterns—brought both challenges and opportunities. In Roman society, for example, the wealthy often hosted clients with lavish meals. Paul adapted this pattern in Corinth: believers would gather in a home for a shared meal—likely paid for by Paul himself. But rather than calling it “Paul’s Supper” (as one might expect in a patronage culture), it was always the Lord’s Supper.
Paul took what had been an annual Passover/Last Supper ritual and made it a more frequent, communal expression in the Corinthian context because shared meals were a normal cultural event. If we follow an incarnational model of ministry, this wasn’t a universal pattern for all time, but a contextual expression for that specific setting. In many ways it resembled what we might recognise today in small group gatherings or Alpha groups: discussion, debate, songs, teaching, shared prayer, and mutual encouragement (as we see in 1 Corinthians 11–14). It was fundamentally a grassroots, people-movement.
Rootstock in Gentile Soil
So the church grew—not by abandoning its Jewish rootstock, but by being planted in Gentile soil and shaped in new ways. By the end of the first century, Christians still made up a small fraction of the world’s population (perhaps between 8,000 and 25,000), but by the early fourth century that number had grown to around 20 million.
What began as a movement within Judaism became a global faith precisely because it was willing to adapt—to retain its heart while allowing its forms to evolve. Patrick’s own leadership centuries later would reflect that same dynamic: rooted in the faith of Israel, yet able to bear fruit across cultures and generations. In looking back at that journey from Jewish beginnings to a worldwide church, we gain not only historical perspective but inspiration for how we might shape churches today—with fidelity, resilience, and openness to where the Spirit is moving.
Richard Roberts
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