The first days of the church in Jerusalem have very little to do with the picture (Yes, it is blurred. That is about a half second exposure, hand-held, but it is a colonial period Anglican church, in a storm, at dusk). Many within the Protestant branch of the faith want to return to this apostolic period, when all was good. This moves beyond a return to the source documents and founding period — which is part of scholarship, to a primitivism, where all doctrine and tradition is discarded.
Except Acts is too honest. It describes the conflicts and the difficulties that people had. The church was basically poor and people were praising God in the temple. Those who could provide sold what they had. Within a three decades, Paul was collecting monies for the Church in Jerusalem, for there was a famine. Within four decades if not five, there was no temple.
And the first church saw their age as corrupt, and ending. Concentration on the apostles teaching was rational in a society heading to destruction.
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
The Fellowship of the Believers
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.
(Acts 2:37-47 ESV)
The question is then should we be as this church? Many people have tried, and failed: and there are reasons for this. The first is that this church was a seed that would be scattered. The believers needed teaching and the Apostles were working — when not being arrested or killed — but before Paul was converted the first organized persecution of this group led to them scattering throughout Palestine and the Levant.
And there they had to pick up their trades again.
Secondly, there is clear teaching from Paul that we should work. He was blunt — saying those who do not work should not eat, and knowing that idle hands lead to gossip or worse encouraging women under sixty to remarry and care for their husbands and children if widowed. We can share and we should share, because the church is our true family — from the sermon yesterday, the proverb “blood is thicker than water” is correct, for we cannot deny our families, but the blood of Christ is thicker still. Again there are limits. One is supposed to provide for your own family, so that they do not leech of the welfare roll.
It is going to be exploited by wastrels anyway. Let the pagans come to church for food: (what was called in the Irish Famine “Souperism”) they may be saved.
Finally, the Apostles died. The church exploded during their lives from a group of Jews, worshiping in the temple to being from many cultures, many cities: people who were enemies historically — The Greeks (go read Maccabees) and the Romans were coming to faith.
And the church had lost many of its original meeting places because they were too big or the buildings had been razed.
So we cannot go back to Jerusalem and imitate them. We have to adapt. Locally, it means that the older, wooden structures such as this country church are more useful than the brick buildings that followed them (or the modern buildings, of concrete slabs) because the wooden buildings shake during earthquakes but do not collapse. Besides, NZ is wet: I was getting soaked taking that photo.
What we can take from this is the need to care for each other, to be one, and to listen to the teaching of the apostles. Which we have: Christians have many faults, but illiteracy and neglect of scholarship have generally not been among them.
And when a church decides that they will no longer study, but rely on the spirit alone, they are falling into error.
