Organic Christianity: Devoted to the Fellowship

Go ahead and turn your Bibles if you have them to .

Today we come to our second lesson in our series titled “Organic Christianity.” Our goal in this series is to examine the first century church and to see what Christianity looks like without manmade additives and changes, with the goal hopefully, to follow in their steps. Being “organic” – whether this is in reference to being Christians or a local church as God designed them to be, I believe, must be what we aim for if we have devoted ourselves to the Apostles doctrine as we talked about in our last lesson. Our goal; our aim as Christians, is to be pleasing to God, and we know that the Christians in the book of Acts, as they followed the direction given to them by the Apostles of the Lord Jesus, were pleasing to God.

As we begin our lesson for today, let’s once again read the passage that our series is based on – :

“So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” ( ESV).

As we talked about last Lord’s day, this is a great passage to go to in order to see what the early church under the direction of the Apostles devoted themselves to. They gave their lives over to the things described in , and this is seen throughout the rest of the section we read, as well as through the book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament.

We began our study last week in verse 42 by examining what is meant when this passage says that the Christians devoted themselves to the Apostles doctrine. For our lesson today, I would like to examine the second phrase in this verse. We are told that the “organic church” devoted themselves to the fellowship (or to fellowship). They gave their lives to the cause of “the fellowship”. In your translation of v42, it may not have the definite article before fellowship. Your version may say they “devoted themselves to fellowship.” I believe the best evidence backs including the word “the” before fellowship and prayers in verse 32. This changes the meaning of what is being said slightly… but not much though in my judgment.

Let’s think about for a moment what this idea of “fellowship” means. The word is thrown around a lot in reference to a lot of different things, but it is often not defined… Our English word ‘fellowship’ means “to be bound together in a certain cause” or “a group of people who come together to meet a certain goal or aim. I believe the definition of the greek word is very similar to our English use of the word. The greek word that is used here that our versions translate as “fellowship” is ‘koinōnia’. It primarily means to have partnership, relationship, or sharing together of something; or to have participation with others in a cause. The word is used this way for instance in , where John says:

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ

John is using the word fellowship in the sense of partnership/relationship here. Because I, through the teachings of the Apostles, have fellowship with Christ, I can have a relationship/partnership/fellowship with others who also have fellowship with Christ and devote themselves to the Apostles teaching. John is talking about the common relationship that we share together in Christ.

The word is also used to refer to some things that Christians do to strengthen this common bond/relationship that they have in Christ. The word ‘koinōnia’ is used elsewhere to refer to the Lord’s Supper, where it is translated in those instances as ‘communion’, and it is also used to refer to contributions that are shared with other Christians in the New Testament, given either by individuals or by collections of individuals to meet the needs of Christians or to support preachers/teachers of the Gospel. Paul says, for instance, in that he was thankful to God for the fellowship in the Gospel he had with the Philippians. This includes both the relationship they have, but also included the sharing of funds that the Philippians sent to Paul time and again.

These are how the word ‘koinōnia’ is used in the New Testament. It is talking about the relationship we share in Christ and some of the things we do to share in what the Lord has done for us. The question is, “what is Luke referring to whenever he says that the early Christians were devoting themselves to the fellowship?”

The definite article would give the impression that Luke is saying the Christians were devoted to those who they had a spiritual relationship w/ in Christ… but If the definite article (The) does not belong, then Luke would be saying that they devoted themselves to sharing w/ one another to encourage and help each other… Either way, both ideas are here in the context. They showed their devotion to those they had a spiritual relationship with in Christ by devoting themselves to sharing with one another. It really is not possible to be devoted to sharing with your brothers and sisters unless you first are devoted to caring for and helping them.

From the very beginning in , you see this sense of “togetherness” and unity of spirit among those who came to Christ. They devoted themselves to their brothers and sisters in Christ as the most important family relationship they had. Let’s look at some examples of how they did this…

First, we see this in the amount of time that they were spending together. I don’t think anything shows how devoted we are to something than how much time we spend doing that thing. In 2:46, we are told “day by day” or continuing daily in the temple and going from house to house. We are told the same thing in ch5. In 5:42 we are told that they taught in the temple and from house to house daily. There were daily opportunities to spend time with fellow believers learning God’s will, praying, and worshipping God. Can we say that we are devoted to our family in Christ if the only time we spend time with them is during worship services twice per week and the only time we really have to talk about each other’s lives and what we are dealing with is 5-10 minutes before or after services? We are just too busy to work with each other and help our brothers and sisters other times during the week. I am not going to say that you have to spend time with your brothers and sisters every day, but it is probably the case that you and I need to make more time to spend with brethren. In , the Spirit says, “But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (). This is what we will do if we love one another. We will look for opportunities to help one another with sin, even on a daily basis. This world is dangerous to our spiritual health… And we need each other’s help to make sure that world and its appeal does not take our hearts away from God. If it is the case that we feel like the time we spend with each other in the 4 walls of the church building is enough for us, it may already be the case that our hearts have been deceived, hardened, and calloused by sin and worldliness.

And to facilitate spending more time with one another, our brothers and sisters in opened up their homes to one another. We are told that they day by day went from house to house and were eating together with glad and generous hearts. They opened them up for meals and so God’s word could be taught to their families and to their brothers and sisters in Christ. This is just one of the many things that we are commanded to do in order to show love to our family in Christ. Both Peter and Paul in their letters command God’s people to be hospitable to one another and to use their homes to serve. Let’s look at these passages:

- “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”

Seek to show hospitality… The Greek word that Paul uses here for seek is interesting… Other translations translate the verb “given over to”, or “pursue.” This shows that this is something we need to make part of our lives. Our homes are given to us by God to diligently serve our spiritual family.

(ESV) Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

We see in these verses that hospitality is not just something that is done when a visiting preacher is in for a Gospel meeting. It is something we should be willing to joyfully do often.

Another thing our early brethren did to show their devotion to the fellowship was sharing with one another as brethren were in need. If any of these points make us uncomfortable, this is the one! You see such a different way of looking at the things of this world than we are used to. We see multiple times in the book of Acts such generosity among the brethren. If a family member in Christ was need, they would sacrificially give to meet the need and to encourage their brethren. If they didn’t have money to give, they would sell possessions or land in order to be able to give. You see here that they looked at their stuff as being at the disposal of God for the service of His people. In it says, “they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” There was great need here at this point in Jerusalem. So many new disciples staying in Jerusalem after the feast of Pentecost to be able to learn more about Jesus from His Apostles… They left their land and their work, and needed help. And God’s people stood up and met any need that came about.

And their mindset behind their giving is given to us in , “And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them.” They took seriously the while, “what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine” mentality. There was a mindset that this thing that I own is for the common good. They believed that they received God’s generosity in order to show it to others.

CONCLUSION

Are you devoted to the fellowship? Or are you devoted to the world and what it offers? Usually our lack of showing our love and concern for one another happens because we are so devoted to what the world offers us. We have trained ourselves to fill our time up so much with other things that we just don’t have time to be devoted to God’s people outside of our assemblies. Ask yourself these questions:

· How much time do you spend with Christians?

· How often do you share with God’s people?

· How often do you open your home to God’s people?

If you and I want to be organic in our Christianity; if we want to be like the early Christians and say we are a church like the one in the Bible, showing this kind of devotion to God’s people is something that we need to be working on.