Acts 2:38; 3:19) From then on they keep themselves clean from fornication, idolatry and from eating blood. (Acts 15:20, 29) They strip off old personalities with their fits of anger, obscene talk, lying, stealing, drunkenness, and “things like these,” and bring their lives into accord with Bible principles. (Gal. 5:19-21; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Eph. 4:17-24; Col. 3:5-10) “Let none of you,” wrote Peter to Christians, “suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a busybody in other people’s matters.” (1 Pet. 4:15) Christians are to be kind and considerate, mild-tempered and long-suffering, lovingly exercising self-control. (Gal. 5:22, 23; Col. 3:12-14) They provide and care for their own and love their neighbors as themselves. (1 Tim. 5:8; Gal. 6:10; Matt. 22:36-40; Rom. 13:8-10) The main identifying quality by which true Christians are recognized is the outstanding love they have toward one another. “By this,” Jesus said, “all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.”—John 13:34, 35; 15:12, 13.

True Christians imitate Jesus’ example as the Great Teacher and Faithful Witness of Jehovah. (John 18:37; Rev. 1:5; 3:14) “Go . . . make disciples of people of all the nations,” ‘teaching them to do the same things I taught you to do,’ is their Leader’s command, and in carrying it out Christians urge people everywhere to flee out of Babylon the Great and put their hope and confidence in God’s kingdom. (Matt. 28:19, 20; Acts 1:8; Rev. 18:2-4) This is really good news, but proclaiming such a message brings upon Christians great persecution and suffering, even as was experienced by Jesus Christ. His followers are not above him; it is enough if they are like him. (Matt. 10:24, 25; 16:21; 24:9; John 15:20; 2 Tim. 3:12; 1 Pet. 2:21) If one “suffers as a Christian, let him not feel shame, but let him keep on glorifying God in this name,” counseled Peter. (1 Pet. 4:16) Christians render to “Caesar” what belongs to the superior authorities of this world—honor, respect, tax—but at the same time they remain separate from this world’s affairs (John 17:16; Rom. 13:1-7), and for this the world hates them.—John 15:19; 18:36; 1 Pet. 4:3, 4; Jas. 4:4; 1 John 2:15-17.

It is understandable why people with such high Christian principles of morality and integrity, accompanied by an electrifying message delivered with fiery zeal and outspokenness, quickly gained attention in the first century. Paul’s missionary travels, for example, were like a spreading prairie fire that set city after city ablaze—Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, Perga, on one trip; Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens and Corinth on another—causing people to stop, think and take their stand, either accepting or rejecting the good news of God’s kingdom. (Acts 13:14–14:26; 16:11–18:17) Many thousands abandoned their false religious organizations, wholeheartedly embraced Christianity, and zealously took up the preaching activity in imitation of Christ Jesus and the apostles. This, in turn, made them objects of hatred and persecution, which was instigated chiefly by the false religious leaders and misinformed political rulers. Their leader Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, had been put to death on the charge of sedition; now peace-loving Christians were accused of “disturbing our city,” ‘overturning the inhabited earth,’ and being a people ‘that everywhere is spoken against.’ (Acts 16:20; 17:6; 28:22) By the time Peter wrote his first letter (c. 62-64 C.E.) it seems that the activity of Christians was well known in places such as “Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.”—1 Pet. 1:1.

NON-CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY

Secular writers of the first two centuries also acknowledged the presence and influence of early Christians in their pagan world. For example, Tacitus, a Roman historian born about 55 C.E., tells of the rumor charging Nero as responsible for burning Rome (64 C.E.), and then says: “Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. . . . Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.” (The Annals, Book XV, par. 44, translated by Church and Brodribb) Suetonius, another Roman historian, born toward the end of the first century C. E., relates events that occurred during Nero’s reign, saying: “Punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief.”—The Twelve Caesars, Nero, p. 217, par. 16; translated by Robert Graves.

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews (Book XVIII, chap. iii, par. 3; translated by Whiston), mentions certain events in the life of Jesus, adding: “And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day [about 93 C.E.].” Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia in 111 or 112 C.E., faced with the ‘Christian problem,’ wrote to Emperor Trajan outlining the methods he was using, and asking for advice. “I asked them whether they were Christians,” wrote Pliny. If they admitted it they were punished. However, others “upon examination denied they were Christians, or had ever been so.” Put to the test, these not only offered up pagan sacrifices, they “even reviled the name of Christ: whereas there is no forcing, it is said, those who are really Christians into any of these compliances.” In answering this letter Trajan commended Pliny on the way he handled the matter: “You have adopted the right course . . . in investigating the charges against the Christians who were brought before you.”—Harvard Classics, Vol. IX, pp. 425-428.

Primitive Christianity had no temples, built no altars, used no crucifixes, sponsored no garbed and betitled ecclesiastics. Early Christians celebrated no state holidays, and refused all military service. In his Apology (chap. 38) Tertullian wrote: “Among us [Christians] nothing is ever said, or seen, or heard, which has anything in common with the madness of the circus, the immodesty of the theatre, the atrocities of the arena, the useless exercises of the wrestling-ground.” “A careful review of all the information available goes to show that, until the time of Marcus Aurelius [who ruled 161-180 C.E.], no Christian became a soldier; and no soldier, after becoming a Christian, remained in military service.”—The Rise of Christianity, Ernest W. Barnes, 1947, p. 333.

Nevertheless, as indicated in Pliny’s letter, not all who bore the name “Christian” were uncompromisingly such when put to the test. Just as had been foretold, the spirit of apostasy was already at work before the apostles fell asleep. (Acts 20:29, 30; 2 Pet. 2:1-3; 1 John 2:18, 19, 22) Within a period of less than three hundred years the wheat field of Christianity had been overrun with the weeds of apostate antichrists to the point where wicked Constantine the Great (himself incriminated in the murder of no less than seven close friends and relatives) was able to set up a state religion disguised as “Christianity.”

CHRISTIAN GREEK SCRIPTURES

So designated to distinguish them from the pre-Christian Greek Scriptures, that is, the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is a common practice to call this latter portion of the Bible “The New Testament.”