With their Messiah executed, their dreams crushed, and their cause deemed subversive by the strongest empire the world had ever seen, Jesus' followers faced a bleak future. Their movement seemed destined for extinction. Incredibly, though, Jesus' survivors turned defeat to victory; devastation to jubilation.

Spread outside Judea by missionaries like Peter and Paul, the Jesus movement caught on quickly among Jews and non-Jews around the Roman Empire. With success, however, came challenges: challenges from hostile locals; challenges from imperial forces; and challenges from conflicting ideas within the movement itself.