Desire Of All Nations
Well-Known Member
You are 100% wrong. Nero's persecution was only the beginning of significantly more ruthless waves of persecution that were carried out by the emperors who came after him. By the last 2 decades of the 1st century, the emperors weren't just satisfied in expunging Christianity from Rome. The dragnet spread throughout the entirety of the empire, because it was at this point that Christians had started to be treated as traitors of the state and not just a Jewish cult.Exactly, John was much more likely to be in tribulation by Rome in the 60s rather than in the 90s
As hard is it was being a Christian in the 60's A.D., being a Christian in 80-100 A.D. was significantly more difficult because the Roman emperors began cracking down harder on Christianity and people within the Church began mixing the Roman religion with Christianity so the emperor wouldn't view them as people who were practicing a Jewish religion. That's when the modern idea that Gentiles aren't supposed to live by the Law started becoming mainstream theology, as well as the "Christianizing" of heathen customs and beliefs like the trinity, Easter, and Sunday keeping, and rejecting the commanded Sabbaths as "Jewish".
It is for this reason John can be seen teaching against against the trinity doctrine and antinomianism throughout his gospel account, his epistles, and Revelation. All of those works were clearly written within the time frame John was on Patmos since he mentions in 3 Jhn that he wasn't able to personally deal with Diotrephes kicking Christians out of the church for being loyal to what John taught them.