In the early church, it was a time of emerging faith, of new energy, the belief, and experience of the spirit. A time of preaching, a time of conversion, a time of wonder and newness. It was also a time of persecution. A time of repression and oppression, a time of pushback from Jewish authorities in the synagogue who were threatened by this new form of worship, and a pushback from the empire of Rome who started to see it as a threat to loyalty to the empire.