The Great Cloud of Witnesses
The church has never had a quiet century. Here is the whole stretch of it: from the upper room to the house churches of this hour: cut into ten eras, each with its own page, its own dated line, and the men and women who stood in it.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us.” Hebrews 12:1 Berean Standard Bible
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St Paul Preaching in Athens — Raphael (1515), public domain
Era 1 of 10 · to AD 100
This is the church's first breath. The men and women who had walked with Jesus took His message out of Jerusalem, and within one lifetime it reached the capital of the world.
Everything you read in Acts and the Epistles happened inside this era, knowing its shape turns the New Testament from a book into a map.
4 witnesses on the wall14 dated moments1 outpourings
The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer — Jean-Léon Gérôme (1863–83), public domain
Era 2 of 10 · AD 100–313
For two hundred years, being a Christian could cost you your life. This is the era when the church had no legal standing, no power, and no protection, and, for most of it, no building of its own. It grew anyway.
This era shows what the New Testament looks like when it is obeyed under pressure, and it is where the early church's own writings about Scripture and worship come from.
40 witnesses on the wall13 dated moments
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The First Council of Nicaea — Vasily Surikov (1876), public domain
Era 3 of 10 · AD 313–600
The persecution stopped and the arguments started. In these three centuries the church put into careful words who Jesus is, and recognized which books were Scripture.
The words you say in the Nicene Creed and the twenty-seven books in your New Testament both come from here. This is where the church defended the deity of Christ.
130 witnesses on the wall14 dated moments
Wycliffe Giving 'The Poor Priests' His Translation — W. F. Yeames, public domain
Era 4 of 10 · AD 600–1500
Nine hundred years, and the usual summary is "the dark ages." It is not that simple. The institution grew corrupt in places, and at the same time monks copied Scripture by hand, missionaries walked into pagan Europe, and God kept a lamp burning.
Your Bible survived this era because someone hand-copied it. And the protests raised here are the ones that finally broke open in 1517.
51 witnesses on the wall14 dated moments
Luther at the Diet of Worms — Anton von Werner (1877), public domain
Era 5 of 10 · 1500–1600
One monk's conscience, one printing press, and one open Bible. In a single century Scripture went from a chained Latin book to something a farmhand could read in his own language.
You read the Bible in your own language, and you believe you are saved by grace through faith, both of those come to you through this century.
19 witnesses on the wall14 dated moments
Pilgrims Going to Church — George Henry Boughton (1867), public domain
Era 6 of 10 · 1600–1730
The Reformation had opened the Bible. Now came the harder question: has it opened you? This is the century of the examined heart, the family altar, and the prayer meeting that would not quit.
Personal devotions, small groups, family worship, and modern missions all trace back to these people. So does *Pilgrim's Progress*.
17 witnesses on the wall14 dated moments1 outpourings
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Camp Meeting of the Methodists — Dubourg after Milbert (1819), public domain
Era 7 of 10 · 1730–1800
God poured out His Spirit on two nations at once. Whole towns stopped talking about anything else, and the preaching moved out of the buildings and into the fields.
This is where modern evangelicalism was born: the call to be born again, the hymnbook, and the small group all come from here.
14 witnesses on the wall14 dated moments4 outpourings
Stanley meets Livingstone at Ujiji — Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0
Era 8 of 10 · 1790–1910
Awakened people looked at a map and could not stay home. In a hundred and twenty years the gospel was carried, at enormous cost, to India, China, Africa, and the islands.
Most of the world's Bible translations and many of its churches exist because of this era's people, who usually packed their belongings in a coffin.
29 witnesses on the wall14 dated moments2 outpourings
Evan Roberts's last revival meeting, Anglesey, 4 July 1905 — public domain
Era 9 of 10 · 1900–1950
At the opening of the twentieth century God moved again, in Welsh mining villages, in a shabby Los Angeles building, in Korea and India, and the church rediscovered the power of Pentecost.
This is the headwater of the movement that now numbers hundreds of millions worldwide, and the era where Acts 2 stopped being only history.
17 witnesses on the wall18 dated moments5 outpourings
Dietrich Bonhoeffer with his students, 1932 — Bundesarchiv, CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Era 10 of 10 · 1930–today
Two counts of the twentieth century's Christian dead are in circulation and they are built differently, so the page gives both. David Barrett and Todd Johnson put the figure near forty-five million in the World Christian Encyclopedia, first edition 1982 and second edition 2001. They counted every believer whose life was cut short by human hostility. That takes in whole populations killed in wars and famines where faith was one cause among several. Thomas Schirrmacher, working for the International Institute for Religious Freedom, puts the yearly figure near seven to eight thousand, counting only deaths documented case by case as killings for confessing Christ. Barrett and Johnson's own Center for the Study of Global Christianity revised the annual rate down in the third edition of 2019. The wide number and the narrow number measure two different things, and even the narrow one is large. The same century saw the church grow faster than it ever had. Both are true of the same hundred years.
This is your own era's chapter. It shows what following Jesus costs where it is illegal, and where the church's center of gravity has actually moved.
37 witnesses on the wall14 dated moments
