Of the 12 Apostles appointed by Jesus, 10 of them died as martyrs. Judas, the traitor, took his own life. But the last Apostle to die, John, met a very different fate. Living nearly to the very end of the 1st century, he died of natural causes– and it was because of an amazing miracle.

Tradition says John was the author of the cryptic bookend of the New Testament, Revelation, as well as the three New Testament letters and Gospel that bear his name. In the latter, he’s described as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and is charged by Jesus on the cross to care for his mother Mary. He’s also believed to have been the youngest Apostle. This partially explains why scholars think he lived all the way until around A.D. 95.

But if Peter was crucified upside down, Thomas was impaled with a spear, and Jude Thaddeus was killed with arrows (just to list how a few of the Apostles were killed) – how in the world did John escape a similar fate for such a long time?

The answer: The authorities did try to kill John in a gruesome way – but God didn’t let them.

The story goes that after the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (for whom John was caring), John was arrested by the authorities and taken to Rome, where he was sentenced to death.

The prescribed method of execution? Being plunged into boiling hot oil in front of a crowd of spectators at the Colosseum.

The fires were set under the pot, the oil was boiling, and John was brought out. Guards picked him up and then forcibly plunged him into the scalding liquid.

That’s when something amazing happened. Rather than see a man be brutally boiled to death, the crowd witnessed a miracle: John stood in the oil completely unharmed!

Some versions of the story say that many or even all of the spectators converted because of what they saw. The Roman ruler, furious and embarrassed that he was unable to kill John, decided instead to have him banished to the small Greek island of Patmos.

But God redeemed even John’s banishment: it was there on Patmos that John received the vision he transcribed in the New Testament book of Revelation.

At some point, John was able to leave Patmos and travel back to Ephesus, where he died of natural causes. Given all that had happened, it was truly miraculous that he did.
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Following is a very brief history of early Christianity.  Take it with a grain of salt.  Found on wikipedia, it is written with bias.  But, it does provide the basic timeline and events.
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Spread_of_Christianity –wikipedia

Origins

Christianity “emerged as a sect of Judaism in Roman Palestine”^[1] in the syncretistic Hellenistic world of the first century AD, which was dominated by Roman law and Greek culture.^[2] It started with the ministry of Jesus, who proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God.^{[3][web 1]} After his death by crucifixion, some of his followers are said to have seen Jesus, and proclaimed him to be alive and resurrected by God.^{[4][5][6][7][8]} The resurrection of Jesus “signaled for earliest believers that the days of eschatological fulfillment were at hand,”^{[web 2]} and gave the impetus in certain Christian sects to the exaltation of Jesus to the status of divine Son and Lord of God’s Kingdom^{[9][web 2]} and the resumption of their missionary activity.^[10][11]

Apostolic Age[edit]

Traditionally, the years following Jesus until the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles is called the Apostolic Age, after the missionary activities of the apostles.^[13] According to the Acts of the Apostles  the Jerusalem church began at Pentecost with some 120 believers,^[14] in an “upper room,” believed by some to be the Cenacle, where the apostles received the Holy Spirit and emerged from hiding following the death and resurrection of Jesus to preach and spread his message.^[15][16]

The New Testament writings depict what orthodox Christian churches call the Great Commission, an event where they describe the resurrected Jesus Christ instructing his disciples to spread his eschatological message of the coming of the Kingdom of God to all the nations of the world.The most famous version of the Great Commission is in Matthew 28:16–20, where on a mountain in Galilee Jesus calls on his followers to make disciples of and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s conversion on the Road to Damascus is first recorded in Acts 9:13–16. Peter baptized the Roman centurion Cornelius, traditionally considered the first Gentile convert to Christianity, in Acts 10. Based on this, the Antioch church was founded. It is also believed that it was there that the term Christian was coined.^[17]

Missionary activity

After the death of Jesus, Christianity first emerged as a sect of Judaism as practiced in the Roman province of Judea.^[1] The first Christians were all Jews, who constituted a Second Temple Jewish sect with an apocalypticeschatology.^[18][19]

Christian missionary activity spread “the Way” and slowly created early centers of Christianity with Gentile adherents in the predominantlyGreek-speaking eastern half of the Roman Empire, and then throughout the Hellenistic world and even beyond the Roman Empire.^{[15][23][24][25][note 2]} Early Christian beliefs were proclaimed in kerygma (preaching), some of which are preserved in New Testament scripture. The early Gospel message spread orally, probably originally in Aramaic,^[27] but almost immediately also in Greek.^[28]

The scope of the Jewish-Christian mission expanded over time. While Jesus limited his message to a Jewish audience in Galilea and Judea, after his death his followers extended their outreach to all of Israel, and eventually the whole Jewish diaspora, believing that the Second Coming would only happen when all Jews had received the Gospel.^[29] Apostles and preachers traveled to Jewish communities around the Mediterranean Sea, and initially attracted Jewish converts.^[24] Within 10 years of the death of Jesus, apostles had attracted enthusiasts for “the Way”  from  Jerusalem  to Antioch,  Ephesus,  Corinth,  Thessalonica,  Cyprus, Crete, Alexandria and Rome.^{[30][15][23][31]} Over 40 churches were established by 100 A.D.,^[23][31] most in Asia Minor, such as the seven churches of Asia, and some in Greece and Italy.

According to Fredriksen, when missionary early Christians broadened their missionary efforts, they attracted many Gentiles to what started from the Jewish religio, bringing “all nations” into the house of God.^[29]

The “Hellenists,” Greek-speaking diaspora Jews belonging to the early Jerusalem Jesus-movement, played an important role in reaching a Gentile, Greek audience, notably at Antioch, which had a large Jewish community and significant numbers of Gentile “God-fearers.”^[21] From Antioch, the mission to the Gentiles started (NO, the mission to the Gentiles began with Christ in Jeruslem and was polluted in Antioch) which would fundamentally change the character of the early Christian movement, eventually turning it into a new, Gentile religion.^[32] According to Dunn, within ten years after Jesus’ death, “the new messianic movement focused on Jesus began to modulate into something different … it was at Antioch that we can begin to speak of the new movement as ‘Christianity‘.”^[33]

Paul and the inclusion of Gentiles

Saint Paul, by El Greco

Paul was responsible for bringing Christianity to Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi, and Thessalonica.^{[34][better source needed]} According to Larry Hurtado, “Paul saw Jesus’ resurrection as ushering in the eschatological time foretold by biblical prophets in which the pagan ‘Gentile’ nations would turn from their idols and embrace the one true God of Israel(e.g., Zechariah 8:20–23), and Paul saw himself as specially called by God to declare God’s eschatological acceptance of the Gentiles and summon them to turn to God.“^{[web 3]} According to Krister Stendahl, the main concern of Paul’s writings on Jesus’ role and salvation by faith is not the individual conscience of human sinners and their doubts about being chosen by God or not, but the main concern is the problem of the inclusion of Gentile (Greek) Torah-observers into God’s covenant.^{[35][36][37][web 4]} “Hebrew” Jewish Christians opposed Paul’s interpretations,^[38] as exemplified by the Ebionites. The relaxing of requirements in Pauline Christianity opened the way for a much larger Christian Church, extending far beyond the Jewish community. The inclusion of Gentiles is reflected in Luke-Acts, which is an attempt to answer a theological problem, namely how the Messiah of the Jews came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church; the answer it provides, and its central theme, is that the message of Christ was sent to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected it.^[39]

This is an error, caused by humanity’s failure to under stand that the scripture from the beginning was a promise to ALL MANKIND.  God’s plan to restore humanity to right standing.  God knew that this would happen, and His word says that this is so that the Jews will be stirred to jealousy.  The plan of GOD will be revealed in the end.  It was from the beginning that Christ would restore ALL mankind to right standing with HIM.  Including the Jews who had to be blind to the Messiah in order for the Gentiles to experience all the same trials as the Hebrews.  

Split with Judaism

There was a slowly growing chasm between Gentile Christians, and Jews and Jewish Christians, rather than a sudden split. Even though it is commonly thought (incorrectly)that Paul established a Gentile church, it took centuries for a complete break to manifest. Growing tensions led to a starker separation that was virtually complete by the time Jewish Christians refused to join in the Bar Khokba Jewish revolt of 132 A.D..^[40] Certain events are perceived as pivotal in the growing rift between Christianity and Judaism.

Ante-Nicene period (2nd-3rd century)

Roman Empire

Christianity spread to Aramaic-speaking peoples along the Mediterranean coast and also to the inland parts of the Roman Empire,^[41] and beyond that into the Parthian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire, including Mesopotamia, which was dominated at different times and to varying extents by these empires. In AD 301, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to declare Christianity as its state religion, following the conversion of the Royal House of the Arsacids in Armenia. With Christianity the dominant faith in some urban centers, Christians accounted for approximately 10% of the Roman population by 300, according to some estimates.^[42]

By the latter half of the second century, Christianity had spread west throughout Media, Persia, Parthia, and Bactria. The twenty bishops and many presbyters were more of the order of itinerant missionaries, passing from place to place as Paul did and supplying their needs with such occupations as merchant or craftsman.

Various theories attempt to explain how Christianity managed to spread so successfully prior to the Edict of Milan (313). In The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark argues that Christianity replaced paganism chiefly because it improved the lives of its adherents in various ways.^[43] Dag Øistein Endsjø argues that Christianity was helped by its promise of a general resurrection of the dead at the end of the worldwhich was compatible with the traditional Greek belief that true immortality depended on the survival of the body.^[44] According to Will Durant, the Christian Church prevailed over paganism because it offered a much more attractive doctrine, and because the church leaders addressed human needs better than their rivals.^[45]

Bart D. Ehrman attributes the rapid spread of Christianity to five factors:

(1) the promise of salvation and eternal life for everyone was an attractive alternative to Roman religions;  (he does not explain what it was from which they were exited to be saved. Only Christ could offer them salvation, and for the first time the people were given an understanding that they were slaves to sin and death without a savior.)
(2) stories of miracles and healings purportedly showed that the one Christian God was more powerful than the many Roman gods; (absolutely, Even Pharoah had to say Moses God is God!)
(3) Christianity began as a grassroots movement providing hope of a better future in the next life for the lower classes; (Faith in Christ offers much more than the promise of heaven.  Faith in Christ promises freedom and peace in this life, it promises victory over sin and death in this world.)
(4) Christianity took worshipers away from other religions since converts were expected to give up the worship of other gods, unusual in antiquity where worship of many gods was common;  (People were happy to be free of their old gods who ruled over them and demanded so much, including sacrifices often of humans. They were rejoicing in the peace and joy that comes with faith in Christ.)
(5) in the Roman world, converting one person often meant converting the whole household—if the head of the household was converted, he decided the religion of his wife, children and slaves.  (True enough, but as we know, true faith in Christ cannot come second hand.  If one believes only because their family believes their faith will fail them.  Each must come to their own faith, they must find Christ for themselves. That is why those the Romans forced into Christianity, were not true converts.  They had no toot. That is how many Christians are now Christians by name only.)

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We have seen that it did not take long for influences of Greece and Rome to infiltrate The Way and create a “NEW RELGION” called “Christianity”.  Rome forced a division between the Jews and the Gentiles, causing each to create clear distinctions between the two and to put up walls between them.  This again was foreseen by God and His plan will resolve all that.

I state that here because the Christians for a long time rejected all of the Old Testament and saw themselves as the replacement of the Jews who they claimed rejected Christ and Killed him.  Which both accusations are really only partial truths.  Yes, many Jews rejected Christ…but that was God’s plan.  He kept them blinded for our sake.  Yes, it is true the Jews were the ones who had Christ crucified… again God’s plan.  Even Jesus himself said “No One Takes My Life, I Lay It Down.”

Now as we move forward in history, remember that the ROMAN Catholic Church was in control at the time.  They did their best to withhold the Word of God from the people.  That is why they only allowed the Latin version to be read in Church and then be explained to the people by the Priests because most people could not read, let alone read Latin. 

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