Winston Churchill wrote “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. I love history and have been an avid reader of history over the years. More recently, I have read a lot of church history, and rather than being “doomed” to repeat, I am praying that God will “choose” to repeat some of that history. Let me explain:
There have been several periods in history where church growth has exploded. None of these growth periods have occurred when things were good, but rather, occurred when things were very bad, and the church was under great stress. The first of these periods was in Roman times. Persecution started in Jerusalem, scattering the early church to the ends of the Roman empire. While there were periods of tolerance and acceptance, various Roman rulers also persecuted the church. When the Antonine plague struck in the second century, the church stepped in to care for the ill.
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