Our Faith Confessed

Not only was the church born in persecution, the more it was oppressed, the more it multiplied and spread. In a scope never before seen, the apostles began to witness the manifestation of the Spirit in salvation, judgment, and His evident works. When Stephen stood up and demonstrated that the work of God had always been shown throughout the world, the unbelieving Jews did what they had always done before to the prophets: tried to silence him.

The first witnesses were martyrs who confessed the faith often unto their death. Men like Polycarp and Justin Martyr followed in the footsteps of Stephen, whose testimony began to demonstrate the effectiveness of the gospel to the Hellenist world beyond the first Hebrew believers. Incredibly, not only would the gospel begin to spread throughout the Hellenistic world, God would even use the Greek language to preserve the new and better covenant through His Word.