Partakers Christian Podcasts

3. Church Begins - Persecution Right mouse click or tap here to save this Podcast as a MP3. The world was changing, particularly for the Jewish people.  They were still under the rule of the odious Romans, in the land God had given them.  For centuries they had been expectant of a Messiah, a King, to rise up and rid them of the Roman oppressors.  When the Messiah, Jesus Christ, did come - they missed Him.  They had misunderstood what the Messiah was to do.  The Messiah was not to lead a political revolution as they thought, but rather lead a spiritual revolution, bring people back into relationship with God.  The worldview of the Jewish people needed to be changed.  When worldviews need wholesale change of focus, problems arise.  The embryonic church, followers of Jesus Christ the Messiah, was soon to feel pressure to change back. Its not long into the book of Acts, and therefore the history of the church, that persecution arises.  We see the first stages of this persecution in Acts 4v1-4. "As they spoke t