OUR CHURCH’S ONE FOUNDATION
Richard Harris
Today’s Scripture: “And the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had.” Acts 2:44, NLT
Theme: The Church is not the service you take in; the Church is the gathering of God’s people.
A GATHERING OF BELIEVERS
To many, in today’s culture, “church” is a weekend commitment. Get dressed in your finest. Hop in the car. Drive to church and try to get a parking place close to the exit. Walk in, and hope nobody has taken your usual seat (or pew). We do have our routines, don’t we? The above represents the perspective of a lot of our 21st Century U.S. Christian churchgoers.
Being a participant within a Men’s Bible Study Life Group, I am learning to maintain a perspective above my own. One of the Life Group gentlemen made a statement recently that struck me as a unique way of studying the Word. He asked if we could actually place ourselves into the historical timeframe of when the Gospel was written. Most American Christians place our words and actions into modern context. Martin Luther professed that the Bible be preached with an understanding of the events of the time. Let’s take ourselves back to the time of the early Christians.
When Luke wrote Acts 2, between the years 63 and 70 AD, most of the known world was still under the rule of Rome and Nero. The Jewish and Roman wars were being fought over taxation. Jerusalem was under siege. The Temple was captured and plundered. Thousands of Jews were captured, imprisoned, and even crucified. Around this time, the Apostles Peter and Paul were probably killed, as most perceived opposition leaders were. The first generation of Christians were mostly Jewish-Christians. The Christians did not want to fight. The Jews started to distance themselves from these Christ-following people and stopped letting them into their synagogues. Instead, the believers fled to all parts of the known world, in an exodus known as the diaspora, and God used that to spread the Gospel. The Christians were viewed as rebels, as they dropped their Jewish theology and shifted to the Greek philosophical system. The freedom of dressing in your finest, and getting to church to take your usual seat, did not exist then. When reading Acts 2:44 now, I place myself into a time of a different need.
DO CHURCH HIS WAY
The gathering of believers, today, need not be church walls, one designated day a week, good clothes, good transportation, or even biblical literacy … as was the case in the first century. Just like back then, all we need today is that same hunger to know the Truth of the Gospel. Our church only needs the Apostolic doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer. There is nothing in all that about walls, a parking space, even comfortable chairs in which to sit. The early Christians shared everything they had, because it was an act of survival, kindness, joy and love. From that spiritual milk, may we grow up into salvation. With these as God’s guiding principles, He desires that we do church His way.
Make it personal: A shout out to Danny, who now has me researching the history of the biblical world and how it influenced the thoughts and actions of the time. Christ’s influence has made a difference in this world since that time of early Christian growth.
Pray: LORD. Thank You for Your powerful words, like a hammer that breaks rock into pieces, that remind us of the foundational fundamentals of our Church. May we always be appreciative of the lineage of sacrifices made for our sake and let us ever remember the One who paid the price for our sins … our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Read: Luke 9:23; 1 Peter 2:2; Jeremiah 23:29; Romans 12: 4-5; Ephesians 2:20
Weekly Memory Verse: “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” Hebrews 10:25, NLT