The Emergence of the Church: Context, Growth, Leadership and Worship

"Dr Patzia teaches New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary California and it would appear that this book is a spin-off of his courses there. The style is extremely clear and didactic, replete with references to the biblical text which help to anchor Dr Patzia's assertions in the available evidence.

"The rest of his text is a careful explanation of how the church developed from its Palestinian roots to the emerging worldwide organisation which appears at the end of the first century. He seldom strays from the New Testament itself, and allows its later books to set the cut-off point for his study.

"Most of what he says about the establishment of the first Christian communities is uncontroversial, and his debt to the scholarly work of Dr N. T. Wright, Professor James Dunn and the late Professor Raymond Brown is obvious throughout. Of particular significance is his quotation from the last of these (a Roman Catholic) to the effect that the apostle Peter had nothing to do with the founding of the Roman church and may never have exercised any ministry in the capital city at all ... Dr Patzia is also very careful about the way in which he explains the role of women in the early church. He recognizes that they had important ministries, but stops short of claiming that they were apostles or preachers on a par with men since the evidence clearly does not support such a conclusion."

Gerald Bray, Churchman