Christian's today may think the wafer in the plastic cup on top of juice is how the Christian's partook of the Lord's Supper. That examining oneself before coming to the Lord's Supper means to feel really bad before you eat and drink. Baptism is sprinkling a baby on the head or an adult taking classes for 3 years before being dunked. The church to some is in a gym or it needs to be in a place with the stations of the cross. The church they go to is googled and must meet certain doctrinal or practical considerations and driving an hour may be the new norm. Living the life is VBS in the summer and filling some food in a bag on a Saturday. In Nijay Gupta's new book those 21st century North American ideas of what church is and was becomes corrected.

Gupta paints the picture of the cost it took to become a Christian, the content of what was believed, the worship practices enacted, and the lived. smack dab in the middle of the Roman empire. Read this to become familiar with the past and remember the differences and the similarities don't change the fact they Christ's Christians had the Spirit as much as a church in LA does and they were united to Christ in the same way as a church in Las Vegas is.