Rediscovering The Roots Of Our Faith: Looking At The Early Church

Lately, I’ve been sitting with the weight of suffering. Not just my own but suffering as it threads through the story of the Church. At the same time, I’ve been diving into early church history, and the two have collided in a way that has left me both humbled and awakened.

What I keep realizing is this: so much of what we believe as Christians today didn’t just appear out of nowhere. It was handed down, often at great cost. Yet in many Protestant churches (the ones I’ve grown up around, at least), we aren’t always taught where our faith came from. We know Jesus. We know Scripture. But we can miss how deeply our beliefs are rooted in those first generations of Christians, men and women who walked so closely with the teachings of Christ and the apostles that their lives carried a weight of witness we rarely consider.

And when you start to uncover their stories, something shifts inside of you. Their courage sheds new light on our own struggles. Their endurance shows us that suffering is not a detour in the Christian life, it’s part of the path of following Christ.

A Church Born in Fire

The church was literally born in the shadow of persecution. Just decades after Jesus’ resurrection, believers were already being targeted. In AD 64, a fire ripped through Rome, and Emperor Nero looked for someone to blame. He chose the Christians.

The Roman historian Tacitus, who was no friend to Christians, wrote:

“Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or they were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as nightly illumination.” (Annals 15.44)

This is the environment where Peter and Paul were martyred. Peter, according to tradition, was crucified upside down. Paul, a Roman citizen, was beheaded. And yet, instead of destroying the Church, persecution only seemed to spread it further.

The Courage of the First Martyrs

From the very beginning, the church fathers and mothers understood that suffering was part of sharing in Christ’s life.

Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop and disciple of the apostle John, was arrested and marched toward Rome around 110 AD. Instead of begging for mercy, he wrote letters to the churches along the way. His words still shake me:

“I am God’s wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found pure bread of Christ.” (Letter to the Romans, 4)

He saw his death not as loss, but as union with Christ. That perspective is so different from how we often view suffering today.

Polycarp, another disciple of John, was arrested in his eighties. When soldiers urged him to deny Christ and live, he answered:

“Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” (Martyrdom of Polycarp, 9)

At his execution, he prayed:

“I bless You, Father, for judging me worthy of this hour, so that in the company of the martyrs I may share the cup of Christ.” (Martyrdom of Polycarp, 14)

This is what faith looks like when it is rooted, not shaken.

The Fire Spreads

The pattern continued for centuries. Under emperors like Decius and Diocletian, Christians were hunted, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Scriptures were ordered to be burned. Church buildings were destroyed.

And yet… believers still gathered. In the catacombs beneath Rome, they worshiped by candlelight, etching prayers and fish symbols into the stone walls. They risked everything for the simple act of praying together and receiving the Eucharist.

Tertullian captured this paradox in the late 2nd century:

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” (Apology, 50)

It wasn’t a slogan, it was reality. Every drop of blood spilled only watered the soil for new believers to rise.

Stories of Faith in the Face of Death

Some of the most moving accounts come from the 3rd century. Perpetua and Felicity were young women imprisoned in Carthage for refusing to renounce Christ. Perpetua came from a wealthy family; Felicity was her slave. Yet in Christ they stood side by side as sisters.

Perpetua recorded visions she had in prison. In one, she saw a tall ladder guarded by a dragon. She wrote:

“At the foot of the ladder lay a dragon… and I said, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, he shall not hurt me.’” (Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, 4)

At her execution, she was mauled by a wild animal and then finished by a gladiator. But even then, witnesses said she guided the soldier’s hand to her throat, showing that she went to Christ willingly.

Justin Martyr, one of the earliest Christian apologists, stood before the Roman authorities and boldly testified:

“No one who is rightly minded turns from true belief to false. We desire nothing more than to suffer for our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Acts of Justin)

These stories are not just history, they are the heartbeat of our faith.

What We’ve Lost

Today, in many of our churches, we don’t often hear these stories. We might know the names of Peter or Paul, but not of Ignatius, Polycarp, Perpetua, or Justin. We aren’t always taught how the early councils defended the truth that Jesus was fully God and fully man, or how ordinary believers risked their lives just to hear the Scriptures read aloud.

We’ve also lost a certain theology of suffering. Modern Christianity often treats hardship as something to avoid at all costs, or as evidence that something is “wrong” in our walk with God. But the early church understood that suffering was not the end, it was a doorway into deeper fellowship with Christ.

Origen, who was tortured during the persecutions, later wrote:

“If persecution comes, God gives the strength. He does not permit us to be tempted beyond what we can bear.” (Homilies on Jeremiah, 9.4)

That truth sustained them and it can sustain us too.

Finding Our Roots Again

As I sit with my own struggles, I can’t help but feel strengthened by remembering theirs. My pain may look different, but the same Jesus who sustained them sustains me. The same Spirit who gave them courage gives me comfort. And the same hope of resurrection they clung to is the one I am called to anchor my heart in today.

Clement of Rome, writing at the end of the first century to encourage believers, said:

“Let us set before our eyes the noble examples which belong to our generation… because of jealousy and envy, the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church have been persecuted and contended even unto death.” (1 Clement, 5)

If the first generations of Christians needed to be reminded to look back and remember, then surely we do too.

Because when we rediscover the roots of our faith when we hear the voices of those who came before us, we don’t just learn history. We learn how to stand today. We learn that suffering is not meaningless. We learn that following Christ is worth it, no matter the cost.

Why This Still Matters

Suffering for the faith isn’t just ancient history. Right now, in parts of the world, Christians are still imprisoned, beaten, or killed for their allegiance to Jesus. Underground churches in China, house churches in Iran, believers in North Korea - all of them carry forward the same testimony as Ignatius, Polycarp, and Perpetua.

Their stories remind us that comfort was never the goal. Christ was.

And just like the early church, we can face whatever comes, not because we are strong, but because He is.

Because suffering isn’t the end of the story. For the early church, it never was. And for us, it never will be either.