Who Represent Christianity?

● If people in general today were asked who best represent Christianity, many might point to the educated clerics. However, an interesting point is made about the early Christians in the book Evangelism in the Early Church:

“In contrast to the present day, when Christianity is highly intellectualized and dispensed by a professional clergy to a constituency increasingly confined to the middle class, in the early days the faith was spontaneously spread by informal evangelists, and had its greatest appeal among the working class.

“If there was no distinction in the early Church between full-time ministers and laymen in this responsibility to spread the gospel by every means possible, there was equally no distinction between the sexes in the matter. It was axiomatic that every Christian was called to be a witness to Christ, not only by life but by lip. Everyone was to be an apologist, at least to the extent of being ready to give a good account of the hope that was within them. And this emphatically included women. They had a very large part to play in the advance of Christianity.”

If, then, a woman or someone of the working class calls on you at your home to speak about Christianity, consider what he has to say from the Bible. Such a one may actually represent Christianity more closely than an educated cleric.