The use of written communication by the early Christian leaders: for maintenance and the propagation of Christianity.

Abstract

The New Testament Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη records numerous aspects important to faith such as inter alia, the virgin birth, miracles, teachings, death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and each of these had to be maintained and propagated. The death of Christ brought great disappointment to the lives of His disciples. Disillusioned by what had taken place they went back into their previous vocations. However, when they discovered that Christ was indeed alive, they were excited. After the resurrection of Christ, He spent forty days with His disciples before He ascended into heaven. The disciples spent many days in the upper room anticipating the arrival of the Holy Spirit which gave the much needed power so that they could maintain and propagate the values and beliefs of their teaching of Christ. This study sought to identify the forms of communication used by the early Christians to maintain and propagate the gospel of Christ. This study used a desktop methodology. The theoretical framework for this paper was based on Lasselle’s Communication Theory, where there is a communicator, message, medium, receiver and an effect. The early Christian leaders used verbal, small group, written, and public communication methods to propagate the faith and document their values and beliefs.

Keywords

• Communication forms
• early Christians
• maintenance
• propagation
• faith