In a Jewish cultural environment (30-70 AD)
The early believers formed a community in Jerusalem and lived as a community with all their belongings in common. ( Acts 2:44； Acts 4:34-37） As a result of their courageous witness and preaching, many Jews began to accept Jesus as the Messiah. As a result, Judaism persecuted the early church brutally. The most prominent witness and preacher at that time was Deacon Stephen. He quoted from the Old Testament to prove that Jesus Christ was the Messiah that the Jewish people and their ancestors were expecting. His preaching aroused the anger of the Sanhedrin and the crowd, making him the first martyr of the early church. ( Acts 6:8-15； Acts 7:1-60）
As a result of the Jewish persecution of Christ's followers, ( Acts 4:1-2； Acts 5:17, 24； Acts 12:1）， the church spread northward from Jerusalem to Samaria, ( Acts 8:5-17）， Antioch, ( Acts 11:20）， and southward to Alexandria in Egypt, reaching out to Jews, Jews abroad and Gentiles outside Jerusalem. ( Acts 10:22）
The main message that the apostles proclaimed to the Jews was that the Messiah, foretold by the prophets and expected by the Jews, had come, and that He was Jesus, known to the apostles, who was crucified by the powers, and that God had raised Him from the dead and made Him Lord, the Messiah, and that the apostles were His witnesses. The Holy Spirit sent by Jesus will be with them always, until the end of the age. And then, He will come again in glory.

For the Jews, the coming of the Messiah will bring the day of fullness for the whole nation. The apostles saw this fullness in the resurrected Jesus. Although Jesus had just been crucified, and the whole nation was still under Gentile rule, they proclaimed that Jesus had risen. By proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus, they were affirming that the kingdom of heaven that Jesus proclaimed was at hand. The focus of their proclamation was Jesus, not the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus proclaimed.

On the surface, they seemed not to accept Jesus’ proclamation, but in fact, they not only accepted it, they further affirmed that Jesus, who proclaimed the kingdom of heaven, was himself the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, they called out loudly and told the Jews that to accept Jesus as the Messiah was to accept the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Jews who accepted Jesus as their Messiah did not have to give up their Jewish traditions, culture, and ways of life, such as the observance of the Law of Moses, ( Acts 21:20） the Sabbath, ( Hebrews 4:9), the rite of circumcision, ( Acts 16:1-3), the rite of cleansing, ( Acts 21:24), the practice of prayer, ( Acts 2:46， Acts 3:1), and attendance at synagogue meetings. ( Acts 9:20， 18:26） They looked at the history and values of the Jewish people with a heart embracing the entire mankind.

The Church that developed from Jerusalem (70-135 AD)
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When Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, the church, which was largely Jewish, was fully committed to the world outside of Jewish culture and quickly expanded to the major cities around the Mediterranean at that time, especially Antioch, Alexandria and Rome. In fact, many non-Jews had already joined the church before 70 AD. As a result, disputes arose between Jewish and non-Jewish Christians within the church, especially in the Church of Antioch, where non-Jewish Christians were in the majority. ( Acts 15:1-35） The reasons for the rapid spread of the church in the major cities at that time were: under the Roman rule, the transportation was easy and safe; secondly, there were Jews living in the major cities, and as long as one knew Greek, one could preach everywhere in the Roman Empire; furthermore, as the polytheism in Greece and Rome began to decline at that time, the Christian community was admired for its faithful service.

The Church of the Martyrs (64-313 AD)
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The most important factor in the persecution of the Church was its deviation from the permissible scope of religious activity and its emergence as a social force, shaking the political system and the spirit of Rome. During the period of persecution, the Church was in a position of hostility and rumors of vilification of Christians were persistent. Some of the intellectuals who had joined the Church at that time, such as: Justin (100-165 AD), Tertullian (160-220 AD), Irenaeus (130-220 AD), Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-215 AD), Polycarp (69-155 AD), Hippolytus (160-236 AD), Cyprian (200-258 AD), Origen (AD 185-254), etc., came forward to defend the moral integrity of Christians and to explain the procedures and meaning of the Christian gatherings; on the other hand, they repeatedly affirmed that the Gospel of Jesus had brought out the highest ideals and wisdom of Greek culture. During the years 197-311 AD, there were many persecutions and many nameless Christians gladly gave their lives in persecution, bearing witness to the Christian faith by their martyrdom.

The Church of the Monks (310-410 AD)
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Following Constantine the Great's proclamation of the Christian faith as the state religion in 310 AD, the Church went from being persecuted to being recognized and finally becoming the state religion of the Empire. During this progressive process, the Church underwent significant changes. The Church slowly gained power, status, and wealth, and even became involved with the regime. The church had become a place of power and profit; the spiritual life had become increasingly corrupt and extravagant. It was difficult for the lower classes or uneducated Christians to join the church. Some who were willing to take the Christian life seriously left the cities and preached their faith in the form of hermitages in the desert. They express a bloodless martyrdom through solitude, asceticism, and daily meditation. Gradually, the enthusiasm of the early church for preaching to non-Christians shifted to the pursuit of the fullness of spiritual perfection. During this period, the exemplars in the Church were: Anthony of Egypt (251-356 AD), Jerome (347-419 AD), Basil of Caesarea (330-379 AD) etc.

Defending the traditional church (140-500 AD)
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In the early church, the apostles were the core of the church body. When the last apostle died around 100 AD, the early church naturally lost its unified leadership. On the other hand, by that time the Church had grown from the Hebrew culture of Jerusalem to the Greek culture of Syria, Antioch, Alexandria, and the Roman culture of Africa and Rome.

In different cultural contexts, believers asked various questions about the risen Christ, such as: Is Christ true man? Christ as the Son of God is He true God? How can Christ be both man and God at the same time? How can Christ redeem man? The number of answers to these questions was so great that it created a state of great confusion. At this time, the Church was prompted to reorder itself by certain standards for two reasons: first, the believers’ anticipation of Christ's imminent return had cooled somewhat; and second, Constantine the Great (313) wanted religious unity for his administration.

As a result, the Church promptly set up certain ministries to carry out the work, fixed the canon of the New Testament, and established the articles of faith (the Creed). The good news that the Apostles first proclaimed, “God has raised Jesus of Nazareth and made him Lord,” had lost its freshness by this time. The attention of the believers was focused on the elaborate definitions that had been debated and analyzed.

In this period, “preaching” became a careful interpretation of the creeds in order to teach the set of doctrines’ orthodoxy. For example, in 325, the Council of Nicaea, convened by Constantine the Great, decided, after much debate, to use the word “Homo-ousios” to express the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Father.

In 431, a special ecumenical council was held in Ephesus to establish the legitimacy of the title Theotokos (Mother of God) for the mother of Jesus. In 451, an ecumenical council held in Chalcedon, attended by more than 500 bishops, solemnly declared the union of the divinity and humanity nature of Jesus into a “Prosopon” (person) and a “Hypostasis” (substance).

At this point, “preaching” became a rigid collection of theological terminology and interpretation, which had lost its original vitality, although the terminology was indeed embedded in the culture of the time and were analyzed with great precision and clarity.