Intro

1st Century Christians lived in an unfriendly, sometimes even hostile, environment where their faith had psychological, social and economic consequences. They had to wrestle with a number of temptations:  (1) the temptation to shame those that maligned them; (2) to carefully privatize their faith to avoid exclusion; (3) to become so politically correct that their witness would be muted; and (4) to lose all enthusiasm for sharing their faith. We may tell ourselves, “No one wants to hear about Jesus anyways.”  How do we share our faith, as disciples of Jesus, when we live in a challenging environment where our biblical convictions seem to be unwelcome?