Community life
This week's study is on Acts 2:42-47:
These verses describe the golden age of the Christian church, inasmuch as something can be "golden" when people are being tortured and killed for their faith. The list of "church programs" seems to have been:
On the surface, it seems like a recipe for success, and the church has often made the mistake of treating it as a recipe. But at its core, it's not a recipe at all, but a list of what you could call product features for something else entirely. In order to figure out what that "something else" could be, we can look at each thing and think of what might cause people who hadn't read the Book of Acts to do those things. We can look at the second list as an overlay for the first list, so let's explore them together that way.
"Studying the Bible and living by the teachings of the church." Why might people study the Bible or try to do what it says? It could be a sense of religious obligation, but the church was fairly young at the time and there were more socially acceptable ways of getting religious validation. How about zeal? Maybe they actually believed in what they were being taught, and that it was important. Whatever the reason, it was clear that they were taking the whole Christianity thing seriously, both on a doctrinal level, in trying to understand what the truth was, but also on a practical level, in devoting themselves to living it out.
At the same time as people were devoting themselves to the teachings of the apostles, miracles were happening. So does that mean a good doctrinal foundation or a good life can produce miracles? Not necessarily, although that's no reason not to try. If we could consistently predict and produce miracles, they wouldn't be miracles anymore. Every corner pharmacy would have a chapel in it and the rest of the medical stuff would just be to tax stubborn atheists. But maybe miracles and zeal are linked somehow, not as cause and effect, but as two phenomena that accompany strong faith. It's something to consider, at least as far as it applies to your life or community.
"Fellowship." Fellowship is one of the most misused Christian words. Churches and denominations even put "fellowship" in their names, like some kind of totem or gris-gris to ensure authenticity. In the modern church, one can share a pizza with a couple strangers and talk about nothing but sports and politics and call it fellowship. And yet the word for fellowship in these verses means more of a commonality of life, mutual involvement, and shared relationships, not just shared pizzas.
Looking at the overlay, we see that people were selling valuable things and sharing it with one another. They held their possessions in common, almost like they were a hippie commune. You don't get that level of intimacy and trust by staring at a TV. You have to bare your soul and those you're baring it to need to be just as open and transparent. Ask yourself, who would you share your car with and sell your house to save? Some stranger you once sipped ice water with lemon next to in a bar? Or someone who you've gotten to know and love like a brother, who knows and loves you the same way?
But you can't just tell someone your worst fears, cry in front of them, and then expect them to hand you the keys to their car. It has to take place in the context of community. There needs to be a body of people who are in that same boat, not just you. These early Christians were rejected and persecuted by the world around them. There was no institutional church in those days. It was nerds all sitting at the table together in the corner, back to back, looking out for each other in ways people who live normal lives can't understand.
Do you see people in your church every day? (Do you even want to see the people in your church every day?) Jesus spent every day with his disciples. The reasons, I believe, are twofold: First of all, obviously, that is the way to build relationships. It's easy to put on a facade when you see people once a week, all dandied up in a suit you never wear anywhere else. It's quite another when you're seeing each other all of the time, weekdays and weekends. Eventually the honeymoon period wears off and the real you comes out for all to see.
But second of all, Jesus loved his disciples. He wanted to see them and hang out with them. It wasn't "ministry" in the sense of a performance or a task or a title. These were people he genuinely loved, and wanted to see grow and prosper, and who he wanted to share himself with fully. What is your attitude towards the church, not just your church, but even other Christians in other churches? Is it Christ's attitude, and the attitude of the first church, or are you role playing something else?
"Breaking bread." It's been said that sharing a meal with someone builds a human connection between you. People like to use meals for first dates, celebrations, and cementing the bond of a family. It's no surprise that Jesus used a meal as his way of expressing our bond to him and to each other. People celebrated it together in the public places, as well as in a more family-like setting in their private homes. They were public about their connection to each other, as well as authentic about it in their private lives. How do you call someone a brother who you've never shared a meal with? How do you call someone a brother who you won't admit in public to knowing? If you look at the church as the bride of Christ, what bride to be would be ashamed or afraid to admit to her relationship with her fiancé? Intimate relationships produce a certain fruit, and those were evident in the early church.
"Prayer." People dedicated themselves to prayer in the first church. It's not clear to me whether that just meant group prayer, or whether it also meant a "many times daily" sort of prayer that was popular amongst the Jews of that time. Whichever it was, they took it seriously. And how can you not, if you believe you have personal access to the creator of the universe who has the power to change anything? How many people do you know that you could say dedicate themselves to prayer? Jesus dedicated himself to prayer. (Quick quiz: If you want to be like Jesus, what is something you might start doing?)
"The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." This seems to be the one the modern church likes the best. They want to be huuuuuge! More people means more donations, which means better furniture and Christian swag, and more staff positions, and more pay for those staff positions, and more customers for their worship albums and ministry materials, which means bigger budgets and bigger buildings and bigger fame. I'm not saying that's the motivation behind all big churches, but it does seem to be a danger in some. And who can blame them with all of the modern pressure to be big and rich and famous?
So while a big church doesn't necessarily mean an ideal church, an ideal church does seem to result in a big Christian community of some kind. And that makes sense, because people are praying for each other and those they love, miracles are happening, and the love of God is being demonstrated, not necessarily all in that order. It's not a testimony to the ministry skills or leadership program of the apostles, but to the power and charisma of God himself who was present in their midst. The only thing they had to sell the product was the product itself in its purest form.
And what a great testimony that is, for the church to grow amidst persecution. How many things can you think of, other than incredibly addictive drugs, where someone would risk losing their friends, their business, or even their life to have more of it? And yet that's the environment in which the early church was growing.
So what we can see by reading between the lines was that:
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
These verses describe the golden age of the Christian church, inasmuch as something can be "golden" when people are being tortured and killed for their faith. The list of "church programs" seems to have been:
- Bible study and living by what the church was teaching
- Sharing life together
- Eating and having communion together
- Praying together
- Miracles were happening and God was getting the credit.
- People shared things with each other, even selling stuff to help each other out.
- People found a way to hang out with each other every day, even in public in the eyes of their persecutors, as well as in the intimacy of their private homes.
- The number of Christians continued to increase.
On the surface, it seems like a recipe for success, and the church has often made the mistake of treating it as a recipe. But at its core, it's not a recipe at all, but a list of what you could call product features for something else entirely. In order to figure out what that "something else" could be, we can look at each thing and think of what might cause people who hadn't read the Book of Acts to do those things. We can look at the second list as an overlay for the first list, so let's explore them together that way.
"Studying the Bible and living by the teachings of the church." Why might people study the Bible or try to do what it says? It could be a sense of religious obligation, but the church was fairly young at the time and there were more socially acceptable ways of getting religious validation. How about zeal? Maybe they actually believed in what they were being taught, and that it was important. Whatever the reason, it was clear that they were taking the whole Christianity thing seriously, both on a doctrinal level, in trying to understand what the truth was, but also on a practical level, in devoting themselves to living it out.
At the same time as people were devoting themselves to the teachings of the apostles, miracles were happening. So does that mean a good doctrinal foundation or a good life can produce miracles? Not necessarily, although that's no reason not to try. If we could consistently predict and produce miracles, they wouldn't be miracles anymore. Every corner pharmacy would have a chapel in it and the rest of the medical stuff would just be to tax stubborn atheists. But maybe miracles and zeal are linked somehow, not as cause and effect, but as two phenomena that accompany strong faith. It's something to consider, at least as far as it applies to your life or community.
"Fellowship." Fellowship is one of the most misused Christian words. Churches and denominations even put "fellowship" in their names, like some kind of totem or gris-gris to ensure authenticity. In the modern church, one can share a pizza with a couple strangers and talk about nothing but sports and politics and call it fellowship. And yet the word for fellowship in these verses means more of a commonality of life, mutual involvement, and shared relationships, not just shared pizzas.
Looking at the overlay, we see that people were selling valuable things and sharing it with one another. They held their possessions in common, almost like they were a hippie commune. You don't get that level of intimacy and trust by staring at a TV. You have to bare your soul and those you're baring it to need to be just as open and transparent. Ask yourself, who would you share your car with and sell your house to save? Some stranger you once sipped ice water with lemon next to in a bar? Or someone who you've gotten to know and love like a brother, who knows and loves you the same way?
But you can't just tell someone your worst fears, cry in front of them, and then expect them to hand you the keys to their car. It has to take place in the context of community. There needs to be a body of people who are in that same boat, not just you. These early Christians were rejected and persecuted by the world around them. There was no institutional church in those days. It was nerds all sitting at the table together in the corner, back to back, looking out for each other in ways people who live normal lives can't understand.
Do you see people in your church every day? (Do you even want to see the people in your church every day?) Jesus spent every day with his disciples. The reasons, I believe, are twofold: First of all, obviously, that is the way to build relationships. It's easy to put on a facade when you see people once a week, all dandied up in a suit you never wear anywhere else. It's quite another when you're seeing each other all of the time, weekdays and weekends. Eventually the honeymoon period wears off and the real you comes out for all to see.
But second of all, Jesus loved his disciples. He wanted to see them and hang out with them. It wasn't "ministry" in the sense of a performance or a task or a title. These were people he genuinely loved, and wanted to see grow and prosper, and who he wanted to share himself with fully. What is your attitude towards the church, not just your church, but even other Christians in other churches? Is it Christ's attitude, and the attitude of the first church, or are you role playing something else?
"Breaking bread." It's been said that sharing a meal with someone builds a human connection between you. People like to use meals for first dates, celebrations, and cementing the bond of a family. It's no surprise that Jesus used a meal as his way of expressing our bond to him and to each other. People celebrated it together in the public places, as well as in a more family-like setting in their private homes. They were public about their connection to each other, as well as authentic about it in their private lives. How do you call someone a brother who you've never shared a meal with? How do you call someone a brother who you won't admit in public to knowing? If you look at the church as the bride of Christ, what bride to be would be ashamed or afraid to admit to her relationship with her fiancé? Intimate relationships produce a certain fruit, and those were evident in the early church.
"Prayer." People dedicated themselves to prayer in the first church. It's not clear to me whether that just meant group prayer, or whether it also meant a "many times daily" sort of prayer that was popular amongst the Jews of that time. Whichever it was, they took it seriously. And how can you not, if you believe you have personal access to the creator of the universe who has the power to change anything? How many people do you know that you could say dedicate themselves to prayer? Jesus dedicated himself to prayer. (Quick quiz: If you want to be like Jesus, what is something you might start doing?)
"The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." This seems to be the one the modern church likes the best. They want to be huuuuuge! More people means more donations, which means better furniture and Christian swag, and more staff positions, and more pay for those staff positions, and more customers for their worship albums and ministry materials, which means bigger budgets and bigger buildings and bigger fame. I'm not saying that's the motivation behind all big churches, but it does seem to be a danger in some. And who can blame them with all of the modern pressure to be big and rich and famous?
So while a big church doesn't necessarily mean an ideal church, an ideal church does seem to result in a big Christian community of some kind. And that makes sense, because people are praying for each other and those they love, miracles are happening, and the love of God is being demonstrated, not necessarily all in that order. It's not a testimony to the ministry skills or leadership program of the apostles, but to the power and charisma of God himself who was present in their midst. The only thing they had to sell the product was the product itself in its purest form.
And what a great testimony that is, for the church to grow amidst persecution. How many things can you think of, other than incredibly addictive drugs, where someone would risk losing their friends, their business, or even their life to have more of it? And yet that's the environment in which the early church was growing.
So what we can see by reading between the lines was that:
- People took their faith very seriously.
- People loved each other the way Christ loved.
- People did what it would take to build relationships, even at great personal cost.
- People maintained such a connection to God through prayer that the community around them was affected.
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