From Jerusalem to Antioch: The Gospel Across Cultures

The author of this book wrote from a unique vantage point in the present which deeply informed his interface with the past. Jerome Crowe was a Roman Catholic missionary and scholar. His scholarly positions were in Australia and his mission work was primarily in Papua New Guinea. This background and a complete knowledge of the scholarly corpus on the topics covered in this book inform his work. Crowe explicates in clear narrative fashion an interpretation of the evangelical mission of the early Jerusalem Church and then follows that with a speculative but well grounded and equally clear analysis of the evangelical mission of the Church in Antioch. While the interpretations are orthodox as would be expected, they are surprising in many ways. The books of the New Testament beyond the gospel messages are almost always concerned with intra-Church and intra-faith matters. Here Crowe is concerned with how the Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch preached the gospel to appeal to their different non-Christian audiences. Using Biblical sources only but inform by all the latest scholarship, the section on Jerusalem is predictable to those knowledgeable in early Church history. However, when he looks at the Antioch mission using the same NT sources a different pattern of evangelism appears. There is much to be learned here by both the well read and the beginner in early Church history. Some of his insights are quite arresting. For example, there was major pre-Pauline missionary work undertaken in the diaspora by Greek speaking Christians. This is proved quite simply by the facts at hand but is often overlooked. One star is deducted for a lack of notes, although, the "suggested readings" that serve as limited bibliographies at the end of each section are very useful. Easily read by most literate adults this book is probably aimed at an audience with at least a superficial background in early Church history and the NT. The trans-cultural adaptation of the gospel message is not a likely starting point for most students of the Church. However, if early Church history is an area of concern for you, I recommend this book most highly. It would be hard to find this material elsewhere in a more accessible package.