Christianity Name Course College Tutor July 30, 2013 Christianity Introduction Christianity is a religion founded on the pioneer of the religion “Christ” of Nazareth who was also known as the Messiah. Its principles and edicts are based on the life, death, teachings and the exemplary living of its originator Jesus Christ (Bergant, 1998). Jesus was a Jewish teacher chiefly known as Rabbi who lived and taught his followers in Palestine in the first century, he was conceived by a virgin known as Mary, his father Joseph came from the lineage of the great king David to fulfill the promise that the Lord would deliver the Israelites and establish his throne forever (Psalms, Holy Bible). During the life of Christ, he lived amongst the people and taught them God`s ways, he revealed himself as the son of the living God a concept that did not anchor well with the religious adherents of his days as they considered that a blasphemy. Jesus taught through the Hebrew Scriptures that his appearance was in realization of God`s divine purposes of God reconciling man to himself. Jesus made the people realize that the kingdom of God was forthcoming, and it brought forgiveness of sins for all those who forsook their old ways and followed him. His claim to be the Messiah brought a lot controversy because the Israelites expected the Messiah to be a military authority so as to deliver them from the Roman rule (Rodney, 1996). The Pharisees who were then the religious leaders imprisoned him and executed him on the cross, on the third day he however rose again and after he went back to heaven his disciples together with the chosen twelve apostles went forth to spread Christianity as a religion. The History of Christianity Christianity as a religion emerged in the mid of the first century in a place known as Levant, the modern day Israel and Palestine. After Christ was executed he rose gain on the third day, after staying for forty days he was taken up to heaven (Acts 1, The Holy Bible). His followers were determined to preach the good tidings about the savior of mankind and the religion spread from Jerusalem through the newly converted adherents to places like Syria, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Jordan and Egypt (Rodney, 1996). Gradually, the religion was gaining acceptance and recognition, for instance in the 4th century the religion was adopted as the state religion in Armenia, Roman empire and Aksumite Empire (Rodney, 1996). Christian religion became common in Europe during the middle ages and it expanded to the rest of the world during the era of exploration. From the time of renaissance onwards the religion blossomed to become the world`s largest religion. Currently, Christianity has got over two billion adherents. Early Christianity mainly comprised of two major phases namely the apostolic age and the post-apostolic era. In the first phase, the first apostles of Jesus Christ were alive and the church was founded on their teachings and ...