snapshot of a church reborn

Several weeks ago, we put out a schedule for reading through the book of Acts. If you have been following along with that schedule, we are through 20 chapters now with only 9 more to go. At this point, those of us who are reading though these adventures of the New Testament church can start to see common themes stretch across from one story to the next. It’s my hope that I can encourage as many of us as possible to keep with this reading of the bible together. If you missed the opportunity to start this reading through Acts with us, I don’t want this to sound overwhelming, because it is not. If you find it hard to keep up with a daily reading schedule like we made available, it is not at all hard to read the entire book of Acts in one shot. Even at a slow reading pace, you can read all of Acts in about two hours. That’s the time it takes to sit and watch a movie or see a football game. It is completely feasible and within reach for any of us.

I realize that I press on this idea of regular Bible reading quite often. It is intentional that one of the primary things I do as a pastor is encourage and provide opportunities for people to be in the Word of God. It is the primary way that we know who God is and come to also know who we are as people created in his image and called to be his disciples. In particular the book of Acts takes us on a journey along with the church as it bursts forth from Judea and Israel into the gentile regions of the Roman Empire during the first century. We see in Acts a snapshot of what the church is and who the church is supposed to be. We catch a glimpse of what the church is doing and where the church is going. In this snapshot, we see something of who we are supposed to be as God’s church yet today. Let’s start with this short description of the church’s activity in Acts 2. From there we will trace this activity forward into the proceeding chapters of Acts, and draw some conclusions about what it means for us to be the church today.

Acts 2:42–47 (NIV)

Acts 2:42–47 NIV

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 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, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

My family is not particularly into athletics. Sports were something we mostly just did purely for the fun of it, and not at all with any intention of developing skill or technique. So, when my kids were very young and we would play whiffle ball in the yard, they would do things like run the bases out of order, or skip bases altogether, or play no-foul (any hit counted as a fair ball). There was no agreement or understanding on the basic rules of the game. We kind of just made things up as we went along. For kids having fun in the back yard that’s okay. But could you imagine a professional sports competition taking place in which there were no rules—each competitor has a completely different idea in their head of what the game even is. You can imagine it would be pretty hard to be on a team if every person on the team had a different idea of what game they were playing.

snapshot we see of the early church helps to get the team all back on the same page

I wonder sometimes if the church today struggles with staying together on the same game. There is certainly a sense of being on the same team, but people in the church might be having completely different ideas of what the church is, what it means to be the church, and what the church is supposed to do. Reading through the book of Acts is helpful. The snapshot we see of the early church helps to get the team all back on the same page. It reminds us of what it really means for us to be a church together. It reminds us that the church is not really a building; the church is not really programs; the church is not commercial (marketing a spiritual product to consumers); the church is not a business seeking to exist as an established enterprise.

It is a good reminder, because I think that sometimes we on the same team can lose our way by wandering down some of these incorrect notions of what it means to be in the church. Sometimes without thinking about it, there may be a few of us who see the church as a business enterprise, and there may be a few of us who see the church as a collection of marketed programs, and there may be a few of us who see the church as a building run by religious people, and there may be a few of us who see church as producing a weekly performance called ‘worship’ trying to draw in an audience, and there may be a few of us who see church as a welfare agency, trying to provide needed social services and support to those who need help. I can certainly see that there is a dimension of all these things that take place here. But are any of these activities really the thing that defines us as the church?

the church is first and foremost a community

Here is what we see in the book of Acts; that the church is first and foremost a community. It is the gathering of people united together in Christ that shapes the foundation of what it means to be the church. I, along with many biblical theologians, would argue that the church goes back further than the New Testament. The Bible tells us in the gospel of John the Jesus—the Word become flesh—was present as part of the Trinity from before the very founding of the creation. The calling and gathering of God’s people into a community is something we see all the way back to the very beginning already in the book of Genesis. The church was not born as something brand new in the book of Acts. It would be more appropriate to say that the church was reborn in the book of Acts. The resurrection of Jesus and outpouring of the Holy Spirit reshaped and redirected the church as the community of God’s people. That’s what Acts is about. And we today continue to live in that same reshaped, redirected, and reborn community of God’s people called the church.

A community that is gathering

exact place was not nearly as important as the community itself

Today I want to spend just a few minutes considering three qualities, or characteristics, we see about this community of believers in Acts. First, the church is a community that is gathering. It strikes me how all throughout the stories in Acts the setting for community gathering does not seem to be crucial. In the words we see today in chapter 2, the believers met in their homes and in the temple courtyard. The exact place was not nearly as important as the community itself. As Paul and Barnabas traveled on their missionary journey, Acts tells us that they often began by seeking out a local synagogue if there was one. But from there they would meet people and be invited into homes and stay as guests. They would get together for meals; they would get together for prayer; they would get together to worship; they would get together to teach and learn. They became something of a family together.

there needs to be a community at the heart of all our religious activities

It seems that Acts is quite intentional to describe for us the gathering as an essential quality of God’s community. Sure, I know people can pray by themselves, and people can eat meals by themselves, and people can sing worship songs without anybody else around, and people can read a Bible and do devotions in solitude. But none of that counts as being church. Only when those things take place in a gathered community does it count as church. You can be a believer who has all the right answers and believes all the right things and checks off all the boxes of spiritual habits, but unless there is also a community of relationships at the heart of these activities, we cannot call it church.

I know in today’s world of technology there are ways we can help with community when physical gathering might not be possible. I know there are some in our congregation who, because of older age or transportation and mobility issues, join us most often on the livestream for worship. Instead of community gathering in face-to-face conversations, we stay in touch by occasional visits, phone calls, and notes. I have heard some of them express the lament that they no longer have the health to physically join us in our regular community gatherings, but at the same time they are grateful for the various other ways we can still be in touch and maintain relationship. The gathering of God’s community can take many forms that way—even when face-to-face is no possible—but is it still a basic characteristic of God’s church that we are gathered as a community of believers.

A community that is growing

numbers in Acts measures how many new believers are converting to Christianity and being baptized

The second thing we see about the church in Acts is that it is a community that is growing. This takes shape in multiple ways in Acts. On the one hand it is literal. New believers were being added to their community. I want to be specific about that as a quality of the church. The parts of Acts that talk about numbers are not measuring how many people belong to the church, they are numbers measuring how many new believers are converting to Christianity and being baptized and added to the church. It shows us a picture of a church that would go out of their way to share this gospel message with others who were apart from Jesus.

the church grew amid sacrifice and persecution

Let’s also be honest about what we see in Acts when that happens. There are people who hear the message and receive it and turn to Christ. But when you read through Acts we also see plenty of examples in which the message is rejected, sometimes violently. Both the apostle Paul and Peter are put in prison, Stephen is executed by having large rocks thrown at him until he is dead. Paul is stoned too and left for dead (except he survives and gets away). There is also a time when Paul has to escape a city by being lowered over the city wall in a large basket because a mob is waiting by the city gate to kill him. Make no mistake; even though Acts shows us a church community that is growing, it is hardly categorized as glorious success story filled with triumph. There was sacrifice along the way; it came at a cost.

church was growing in knowledge and faith together as well

I think Acts shows us growth in other ways too. It is not just the addition of new believers into the community of faith; it is also a spiritual growth. The church was growing in knowledge and faith together as well. Those who were blessed with wealth and possessions shared freely with those in need. Acts 2 tells us that they had everything in common. That does not mean they were all alike. Indeed, other parts of Acts show us the great diversity of people in the church. When Luke writes in Acts 2 that they had everything in common, he is referring to their possessions. They understand that all of their blessings come from God and are meant to be shared among one another. At the risk of using a label that many in this country would consider undesirable, they were communists. Of course, not communists in the political sense that Karl Marx embraced. It is not government-owned or state-owned property. Rather, it is God-owned property—they understood themselves to be stewards of God’s blessings.

as their faith grew to become more dependent upon God, their relationships grew to become more interdependent with one another

What we see here, then, is a community that is growing in interdependence. As their faith grew to become more dependent upon God, their relationships grew to become more interdependent with one another. They grew to understand that they needed each other, and that God himself was providing for them through their sharing of blessings with each other. The church is a community that grows in faith as they grow in relationship together.

A community that is going

church did not remain in their own walls

And the third thing we see about the church in Acts is that it is a community that is going. They did not remain within their own walls, but they reached out around them. Paul and Barnabas set out to travel and establish new church communities in other towns. Later Barnabas takes John Mark and heads off on a separate missionary journey, and Paul takes Silas and revisits the new churches in order to strengthen and encourage them.

believers in Antioch collected aid and sent workers where needed

being sent forth, the church understood that where the Holy Spirit of God was leading, then that was where they were going

But consider also they ways that everyone in the church was actively a part of this going forth. We get the sense in Acts that the northern city of Antioch quickly became a hub in the early church community. The believers in Antioch collected aid and sent workers where needed. It was from Antioch that Paul was supported as a missionary in his journeys. It was the community of believers in Antioch who sent aid to the apostles in Jerusalem when persecution broke out there. It is a community that understands they are sent forth. And in being sent forth, the church understood that where the Holy Spirit of God was leading, then that was where they were going.

just as the Holy Spirit equipped God’s people to be the church back in the time of Acts, the Holy Spirit continues to equip God’s people to be the church yet today

The church is a community that is gathering, growing, and going. It remains true for us in the church today as well. And just as the Holy Spirit equipped God’s people to be the church back in the time of Acts, the Holy Spirit continues to equip God’s people to be the church yet today. Be a part of this community of God’s people together with us. Take that step forward into a Bible study or small group or ministry gathering where relationships can flourish. Take a look around at the community and see where God is already at work and already moving. Take a step of faith and see what God will do with it. We are not alone; this community of God’s people is a gift from God.