Acts 2: 42-47: Life among the Believers
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”
This passage comes shortly after Pentecost. Just a few verses before the people who heard the Apostles preaching in multiple languages and 3,000 of them were baptized. The church had begun to grow. The early Christians lived a communal life, providing for one another.
Here are a couple of questions for reflection:
What do you devote yourself to daily? What activities make your “must do daily list”?
How is our church life today like and unlike the one described here? How could church today be more like this?
What keeps the church from experiencing this kind of fellowship now?
There are significant differences between our lives today and that time. These first Christians believed that Jesus would return immediately, and that changed the urgency of their beliefs and practices. It is not so today. Yet we still believe that Jesus is coming to fulfill all things and make creation new again. So we may need to look more like this church in the Book of Acts than we have in some of the intervening centuries.