{"id":39091,"date":"2018-09-14T15:04:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T15:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/early-church-succeeded-where-we-are-failing\/"},"modified":"2018-09-14T15:04:00","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T15:04:00","slug":"early-church-succeeded-where-we-are-failing","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/early-church-succeeded-where-we-are-failing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Early Church Succeeded Where We Are Failing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In their book, <em>The Way Back,<\/em> Phil Cooke and Jonathan Bock ask significant questions:<\/p>\n\n<p>Why did the Early Church succeed where we are failing? How did they transform the Western world in such a relatively short time? They did it because they did things that baffled the Romans. The Early Church didn&#39;t picket, they didn&#39;t boycott, and they didn&#39;t gripe about what was going on in their culture. They just did things that astonished the Romans. They took in their abandoned babies. They helped their sick and wounded. They restored dignity to the slaves. They were willing to die for what they believed. After a while, their actions so softened the hearts of the Romans that they wanted to know more about who these Christians were and who was the God they represented.<\/p>\n\n<p>Without confrontation, protest, or debate, love did its work.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3548,3602,3611,3612,3645,3672,3804,4073,4095,4376,5005,5009,5139],"tax_ctp_topics":[386],"class_list":["post-39091","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-caring","tax_ctp_tags-church-community","tax_ctp_tags-church-history","tax_ctp_tags-church-involvement","tax_ctp_tags-community-impact","tax_ctp_tags-confusion","tax_ctp_tags-disputes","tax_ctp_tags-godliness","tax_ctp_tags-great-commandment","tax_ctp_tags-light-of-the-world","tax_ctp_tags-social-action","tax_ctp_tags-social-impact","tax_ctp_tags-testimony"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Early Church Succeeded Where We Are Failing - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/early-church-succeeded-where-we-are-failing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Early Church Succeeded Where We Are Failing - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In their book, The Way Back, Phil Cooke and Jonathan Bock ask significant questions: Why did the Early Church succeed where we are failing? 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