by Ezekiel

Created on: November 26, 2006   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

Christianity is a relatively modern term which is used typically to refer to the religious culture surrounding the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who lived and taught in an area of the Middle East encompassed, for the most part, by modern Israel. This culture began around 2ooo years ago, when this Jesus, who was believed by many of his followers to be the long-awaited Messiah prophesied about in various books of the Old Testament in the Bible, began to gather a few disciples together to teach them about the One True God. He did this mainly by telling parables, which were intended to cast light on the Spirit behind the Law of God which had been previously recorded in the Old Testament.

As the followers of Jesus grew in number, and especially when the news of Jesus' teachings and miracles he performed among the people had reached the ears of the leaders of the established church in the region, known as Judaism, this group became known as "The Way", probably referring to Jesus' claims that He was "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and "No one comes to the Father but through me."[*1] Jesus' teachings were viewed as heresy by most of the leaders of Judaism, mainly because their understanding of the Holy Scriptures lead them to expect that the coming "Messiah" would be someone with far different qualities. This disdain shared by the leaders of the established church led to the eventual mock trial and death of Jesus by means of crucifiction.
This group known as "The Way" did not fall apart, as the church leaders had expected. On the third day after Jesus' death, He appeared to many of His disciples in bodily form, fully alive and well. These appearances, and Jesus' subsequent instructions to the disciples before He ascended into the heavens in front of many witnesses, served to fan the flames of the fire that Jesus had sparked by His coming to Earth. And so the group flourished, growing by the thousands in the following years as its culture spread like a wildfire across the Mediterranean Region and eventually into the far corners of the world.
However, with the growth of "The Way" into so many different nations and cultures of people, a peculiar thing happened. As the group's leaders continued to organize so that the large number of local groups, which began to become known as "churches", could be more effectively served, pride and politics began to rear their ugly heads in the group. Churches saw the need for hierarchical leadership, and gradually this developed

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