The Church that held everything in Common
Part One: A realistic look at the Church in Jerusalem
Written by Dan McDonald
The following words from
the Revised English Version translation describe a different church experience
than many of us have experienced:
A sense of awe was felt by
everyone, and many portents and signs were brought about through the
apostles. All the believers agreed to
hold everything in common: they began to sell their property and possessions
and distribute to everyone according to his need. One and all they kept up their daily
attendance at the temple, and, breaking bread in their homes, they shared their
meals with unaffected joy, as they praised God and enjoyed the favor of the
whole people. And day by day the Lord
added new converts to their number.” (Acts 2:43-47)
This
description seems idyllic. But I suspect
St. Luke in presenting these words wanted to give us this description of the
growth in grace taking place in a church that also had its share of problems. The church in Jerusalem, described by these
words, was a church where people with a legalistic approach to the Christian
life were influential, and was also a church where Greek believers had to lodge
a complaint about being treated like second-class people. We might easily surmise that these differing
kinds of descriptions of the life of this church don’t calculate. But in all reality this is most often the
reality we discover in Christian churches.
The reality is that we are people who bring a lot of remaining sin
baggage when we come into the church, and we are people who face real
temptations and flounder at times. But
there is also among the people of God with such sin problems real hunger and
desire for growth in grace. So we do see
problem churches where the people can be described behaving in an Acts 2:43-47
way of living.
Maybe
a poem could be written about the paradox we discover in our Christian churches
that would sound a lot like one of George Herbert’s poems about the Christian
life. Maybe Christian churches and
Christian lives are meant to look like the best and the worst of human
experiences. Maybe sometimes our poems
and prayers read like this:
Bitter-Sweet
|
By George Herbert (1593–1633)
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I will be away from writing
for several days, but I am leaving this post behind and hope to follow up on it
in a couple of weeks. In the meantime,
perhaps you would like to comment on this post.
I would like to hear about the sort of things that you do to bring to
life the principles you see described in Acts 2:43-47. I personally don’t think we are called to try
to create an identical reproduction of what these Jerusalem Christians did in
the first century. But I do think we are
meant to contemplate and consider how we might bring the enduring principles of
this passage to life in our lives and churches.
I don’t believe the
response of the Jerusalem believers was a matter of simply obeying commands
issued by the Apostles. St. Peter would have
addressed Ananias and Sapphira differently had they been commanded to sell
their entire property and give it to the church. Their sin was not in keeping some of the
proceeds for themselves but in lying to the church and the Holy Spirit as they
claimed to have given everything from the sale of their property. So it seems likely that something other than
commands from the Apostles were motivating Christians to sell their property
and give everything to the Church that the Church might distribute what was
needed by people within the church as they had need.
I suspect that their
motivation was connected to their frequent breaking of bread. The Lord’s Supper ceremony invites us to
partake of Christ whether that partaking is in reality or a symbolic ritual. The Supper is given so we might actively
remember Christ. It also reminds us that
we who partake of the one body and blood, one loaf and cup are ourselves one earthly
body of Christ. As Christians partook of
Christ in the Supper they were reminded they had been purchased and freed from
sin by the precious blood of Christ.
They also were reminded that their brothers and sisters in Christ were
the body of Christ. This reminded them
that whenever a brother or sister had a need, that Christ regarded that need as
his own need. Therefore it was a simple
step from taking the Eucharist to seeing that Christ has purchased our property
in purchasing us. It was also a simple
step to seeing that God has blessed us with plenty to see that he has given us
an opportunity in blessing us to give to those in our midst who are in need,
because we are one in Christ. Both our
blessing and our need belong to Christ who has often provided within the church
the supply for the poor brother in the abundance of the rich brother. For we have been made one in Christ.
Again I would love to hear
your comments about how this passage might have played a role in your life.
1 comment:
Excellent post, Dan!
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