The religious cultural scene into which the seed of Christianity was planted should be somewhat easy for us to understand; after all, we have a similar religious climate today. The primary word I would use to describe it is “multi-faceted.” Not only was there disparities, or denominations, in the Jewish religion, the Roman religious climate contained all sorts of different groups of thinking. This is not at all foreign to our thinking today. As I am going to be showing you, there are many comparisons to be made between the religious climate of today and that of the 1st Century.
I’m going to provide a fresh look at the religious culture of the New Testament by comparing the Jewish culture to our “church culture” today and the Roman-Greco culture to the culture of the un-churched American masses. It will help us both to understand the New Testament better, and to provide application to the lives of Christians today.
Before I start, I want to explain briefly what I mean when I use the term “Church Culture.” There is an important distinction to be made between those who just attend church once in a while, and those who submerse themselves in their church’s culture. Some churches don’t really have a culture distinct from the world around them and are more similar to social clubs. The majority, though, have some sort of culture. “‘Culture is composed of the tacit assumptions about rules, rituals, roles, and relationships, which are expressed in values and symbols. The equipper functions as cultivator of culture, fostering the awareness of the system’s history and depths‘1.”[1]
I want to start by discussing Jewish Culture. The first thing to note is that their religious culture was multi-faceted. In modern terms, they had several different “denominations.” They did not have nearly as many denominations of “Christianity” as we have today, but there are definitely comparisons to be made. To accomplish this, I am going to divide our denominations into three broad categories that comprised the main Jewish sects of the day: The strict (conservative), the liberal (modernized), and the fringe elements (cultish).
The Pharisees were the conservative, traditionalists of the day. They were doctrinal purists and believed strongly in a strict interpretation of the Old Testament. “Each statement was scrutinized carefully, lest any command, whether expressed or implied, should be overlooked.”[2] They also resisted change especially in the area of tradition. (Sound like any churches you know?) They had a tendency toward legalism and hypocrisy.
This is comparable to the church culture of the “strict, conservative” churches, the traditionalists. Many comparisons can be made, but the obvious ones are that, like the Pharisees, they resist change, tend to be doctrinal purists—they are often more concerned with doctrine than relationship, and they believe in a strict interpretation of the New Testament. Like the Pharisees, they also have a tendency toward legalism and hypocrisy. Several denominations come to mind, but the ones that best exemplify my points in this category would the “Church of Christ” denomination (yes they are a denomination) and the Southern Baptists.
The second group of people I am going to talk about in the 1st century is the Sadducees. The Sadducees are slightly less well known by most people today mostly because they aren’t talked about quite as much in the New Testament as the Pharisees are. The Sadducees were the modernized, liberals of the day. Unlike the Pharisees, they were more willing to compromise on matters of tradition. They were much more accepting of the Roman-Greco culture and knew how to adapt in that cultural and political climate, and, as a result, they could be referred to as the “ruling class” in the culture of the Jews that was so dominated by religion. They accomplished this by winning favor with the Romans who appointed them to positions of power including the position of High Priest.1 They had a tendency toward materialism. “Their worship was formal rather than personal and their general attitude was materialistic.”1
I would compare the Sadducees to the broad, more amorphous, group of denominations I would classify as “Modernized or Liberal.” Now there are many varying degrees with which these denominations carry out these ideals, as is also the case with the traditional churches, but I will do my best to summarize the basic comparisons between them and the Sadducees and give a brief overview.
Like the Sadducees, the modernized churches are much more willing to accept the culture that we live in and let it trickle into their own church culture. Also like the Sadducees, because of their ability to adapt to the current times, they tend to have much larger churches. This Church sub-culture is the innovator of the modern “mega-church.” The harmful tendency in this sub-culture is to descend into materialism and to view doctrine as un-important. The idea here is that the only important thing is our relationship with Christ and that truth is relative to each person.
The last major religious sect in the 1st century is the Essences. By far, it is the least well known and smallest of the religious sects of that time. They believed in complete separation from society. They were very disconnected, but had a strong belief in family and community. The negative tendency here is the tendency to descend into cultism.
I would compare them to the “fringe elements” of Christianity. A few denominations that would possibly fall into this category would be the Amish, Quakers, and possibly Mormons. Like the Essences, this group tends to be completely disconnected from the culture around them while maintaining a strong sense of family and community. As far as cultism goes, some, like the Mormons, are downright cults, while others are on the border.
The second similarity between the Jewish religious culture and the church climate of today is that both are were/are in the minority as far as religious culture goes. The Greco-Roman religious culture in the 1st century in the known world, dominated almost exclusively by the Roman Empire, vastly dwarfed the Jewish religious culture. This is becoming more and more the case in America today. Now I need to clarity here, the people that identify with one of the church cultures which I mentioned previously are a much smaller group then those who claim to be “Christians.” I am making a crucial distinction between those who claim to believe, even follow, God, and those who are actively involved in their church and are mostly submerged into their church’s culture. One thing is clear though, in both the Jewish culture and in our Church culture, there is immense pressure from the culture of the world around us. Paganism, materialism, and relativism are three of the major pressures both then and now.
So what is the conclusion? Which side is right? As is evidenced here, the truth is seldom found in extremes. The trick is to glean the positives from each side and learn from, not repeat their mistakes. That said, some “sides” have more good and less bad than others, as is shown by the members of the fringe elements of Christianity or the Essences.
So what can we learn, and which mistakes should we not repeat? I think from the traditionalists we can learn to hold the Scriptures in reverence, that doctrinal purity is important, and to be passionate about the truth! The mistakes to avoid with the traditionalists would be the degeneration into legalism, hypocrisy, and a tendency towards close-mindedness—no one person is 100% right or knows all the truth.
We can learn about adapting to the culture around us from the “Modernists.” We should never become out of touch with our culture. Be willing to change and adapt our means, our message, and our materials. The sermon by the Apostle Paul at Mars Hill in Athens as recorded in Acts 17 is a great example of this. The sermon preached by Paul there was completely different than any other sermon or letter that we have record of him preaching. He adapted to fit the culture while maintaining the core of his message and still being doctrinally pure. That is one downfall of this movement—Biblical doctrine cannot be sacrificed on the altar of the convenience or pleasantry, that is to say, you cannot compromise doctrine. Another common problem in this movement to avoid is the descent into materialism.
One thing a lot of the more cultish groups or “fringe elements” have figured out is how to maintain a sense of community and family. As I mentioned earlier a big issue with these groups is the tendency to ignore both the culture and a reasonable interpretation of the Bible. This leads to becoming a cult.
When the early church began, they incorporated all of these principles into the church culture of that day and thrived in a culture of degeneration and paganism.
That leads us to the subject of the Greco-Roman religious culture, comparable to the religious culture of the mostly un-churched modern America. There are several comparisons to be made here, but let’s start, as we did with the Jewish religious culture, with their multi-faceted nature.
Like the religious culture of modern America, the Greco-Roman culture was incredibly complex and diverse. However, according to Mark Moore you can categorize them under four “umbrellas.” He describes this in his essay, “Life in the Big City.” He divides them up this way, “First there are religions of deities housed in temples – Zeus, Artemis, Pan, etc…. Second, there are local and household gods…. Third, there are deities immortalized in character traits such as Hope, Harmon, Peace, Wealth, Health, ect…. Fourth, there was the emperor cult.”[3]
The first category is the public sort of ritual that was practiced by the Greeks in their concept of the Pantheon. The Romans adopted these but gave them different, more Roman sounding, names. This was not a personal type of religion(s) that expressed itself through ritual.3 The second category that had to do with household gods was specific to families and locations.3 The third category was the “feel-good” religion of the masses and the most popular form.3 The fourth and last category, the “emperor cult” was the only religion that truly emanated from Rome, and was established simply because the monarchs wanted more control and saw religion as a tool to be used to control the masses.
As you can see it was a very clouded religious scene, much as it is today in America. I do not believe that America is quite as bad today as it was back then, but we are definitely headed in that direction. A common thread between all of those religions then, and the religions in America now, is paganism and materialism.
In the book, “New Testament Times, Merrill Tenney does a great job of explaining paganism and its effect in that time. He defines Paganism as “the human attempt to satisfy an inner longing for God by the worship of a deity which will not obstruct one’s desire for self-satisfaction.”2 That certainly describes a lot of the religions that we have today! He goes on to say that Paganism is a “parody and perversion of God’s original revelation to man.”2 “Divine sovereignty becomes fatalism; grace become s indulgence; righteousness becomes conformity to arbitrary rules; worship becomes empty ritual; prayer becomes selfish begging; the supernatural degenerates into superstition…. Men had largely lost the sense of joy and of destiny that made human life worthwhile.”2
Doesn't this sound like America today? How many people are hopeless and helpless to change their destiny as they wander around in a haze thinking that they are alive. There is a clear and stark comparison between the religious culture of that day and the religious culture of America today—the search for meaning and fulfillment and purpose outside of God and His purpose for us.
We have such an important message, a message that the world around us desperately longs for! I challenge you to be an instrument of change in your world! We have a clear message of hope that will ring out like a bell in a world of hopelessness and purposelessness, and shine like the sun in a world of darkness and depravity!
As I showed in this essay, the religious climate in America and the religious climate of the ancient Roman world have remarkable similarities. The most important one, though, is that in the same way the Roman world needed Jesus and was ripe and ready for His coming, modern America needs Him just as badly and is ready to receive Him if only shown properly!
I want to close by quoting Paul, "... so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, IN WHICH YOU SHINE LIKE STARS IN THE UNIVERSE AS YOU HOLD OUT THE WORD OF LIFE..." Phil. 2:15-16.
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