Acts 17:17 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.

Acts 13:42 And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.

Because the New Testament was not yet written the early apostles had nothing in writing to show the first century Jews about the Good News, they had to reason Christ out of what was already available, the scrolls of the prophets and of Moses.

Imagine if you will that the Spirit of Truth shines the light of truth upon scriptures that have been seen and taught as legalistic ritual for thousands of years and then, in that moment, removed the chains of bondage and set them free. Christ was in those ancient parchments but was seen for the first time because for the first time they were spoken not by men of God but the Spirit of God Himself.

It is one thing to read the Word of God and yet a whole better thing to hear God. The blind could now see and the deaf could now hear for the first time ever, because the Spirit was now given unto men who accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The first traditions of that early church were oral. The Holy Spirit spoke to men thru men. It was in essence Logos Rhema, the Spirit of God spoken thru the voice of men. It would be decades before the first letters were written to men whom the apostles had already approached, spoken to directly and delivered the Gospel directly.

After Paul’s greeting to the people of Ephesus he writes in verse 16 “Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,” showing that the oral traditions had already been established and love abounded long before the epistles were written.

Have we gotten away from that oral tradition?

John15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

Here is a vital word, a logos, instructing Christians that the Holy Spirit is responsible for bringing us the message of what Jesus Christ said. I have found this to be exceedingly true and I keep this in the forefront of my mind as I read my bible or listen to sermons. The Spirit of Truth is the voice of truth.

Having said that, allow me to point out something that I have overlooked myself in the progression of Christian growth. The Gospel of John was the last gospel written and Christianity was well on its way towards its second century before it was penned. Let us look to the words of Luke to validate this idea.

Luke 1:1-2 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;

At the time of Luke’s gospel many writings had already been circulated within the Christian community, some of which came from those who had witnessed the life, death and resurrection as a first hand accounting. So the gospels were not the first logos given.

Scholars acknowledge that any chronological order given is difficult to validate considering that our present day Gregorian Calendar was revised in 1582 by Papal decree. The assertion being that it did not correctly indicate the birth of Christ because Julius Caesar replaced lunar calendars with solar calendars in the year 46 B.C. thus placing yet another shift in our historical time lines. Note that the Julian calendar started as 1 C.E. and was off by modern standards by two days every four years.

Given this, how did the first century church receive Logos, the Word of God?

By rhema, word of mouth.