After Jerusalem fell ( 1 of 2 )
Wording of this Handout:
What Happened After That
You may have heard of Jesus. You may already know that he lived in a land called Palestine about 2000years ago, and that he was crucified. He was buried and left in a tomb for three days and three nights, then suddenly he was alive again! After that he spent a few weeks visiting his friends, then he rose up into the sky and went back to heaven where he had come from.
But do you know what happened after that?
The Christians who were left behind in Palestine started to get together into small groups, called churches, and many more people became Christians too, but not everybody. There were still plenty of people who hated Jesus, and the turned their attention on the Christians. Well obviously they couldn't get a Jesus any more!
The years went by, and the number of Christians grew. In fact, it seemed that the harder some people tried to stamp the Christians out, the more of them there were.... and soon they became a nuisance to the whole Roman Empire!
The reason for this is quite strange. You'd think to be a nuisance you need to be naughty, or bad, but the Christians were not bad, or mean at all. they were kind, forgiving, and helpful. They paid their taxes and they kept the law of the land. They were some of the best citizens Rome ever had. For example, if a Roman soldier told a Christian to carry a load for him for one mile, (something he was allowed to do), the Christian would offer to carry it two miles, which meant the poor man had to walk three miles for nothing. And if a Christian was robbed or beaten up, he just forgave whoever did the deed and carried on as if nothing had happened. In business the Christians were honest and hard working. They cared for their families and stayed away from drugs and other vices. Rome should have been very happy to have Christians about, but it wasn't. This sort of sweet, kind, lovely behaviors started to get on everyone's nerves. The good Christians made the bad people realize they were bad, and they didn't like that. Having Christians around was like having Jesus back again.