Forgotten Forefathers: A Commentary on the Early Jewish Churches and the Book of Acts

The book of Acts ends with Paul in Rome, awaiting trial in 63 A.D. Except for a few scraps of information from Josephus and some Rabbinic opposition writings, we have no records of the next seventy-five years of church life. In those years, the Judean churches and their records were destroyed. Meanwhile, the gentile churches erased any residual Jewish influence and adopted Roman culture. In those historically blank years, a believer from Paul's home church at Antioch would not have recognized what the churches had become.

Thus, with 2000 years of Christian unawareness of its Jewish roots, most think the Church began with Paul's Missionary Journeys. Few realize that significant Judean, Samaritan, and Galilean congregations preceded Paul's trips by fifteen to twenty years. Though Rabbinic Judaism would contest it, Christianity may well have become Israel's dominant religious group! Meanwhile, Paul's gentile church-starts were little "cuttings" from God's Jewish vineyard, planted in Greko-Roman soil.

We are fortunate to have Luke's letters to Theophilus and the Jewish history of Josephus. Again, the information is scant, but perhaps we can read between the lines as we study Acts, and come to understand our earliest years better.