This Sunday, May 20th, is
Pentecost Sunday: the Sunday when we remember
and celebrate the birth of the Christian Church. The story of the Church’s formation is
recorded in the Bible in Acts, chapter 2.
Prior to his Crucifixion and Resurrection, Jesus had promised the
disciples that after he was gone, God would send the Holy Spirit to be with
them and continue teaching them. So,
Acts 2 opens with the disciples and other followers experiencing the fulfillment
of Christ’s promise that God would send the Holy Spirit. The first Christians experienced the Holy
Spirit as a “tongue of fire” coming upon each of them. They began to laugh and shout and speak with
great joy.
Apparently
the disciples caused quite a commotion because they attracted a large crowd of
curious onlookers. In trying to
understand what was going on, some of the onlookers speculated that the
Christians were intoxicated. So, the
Apostle Peter stood up and delivered the first Christian sermon. At the end of his sermon, 3,000 onlookers
were baptized and became Christians.
These first Christians felt that their lives had been transformed. They were no longer the same. Then, the writer of Acts records this account
of the first Church:
“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 [together, with each other] 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.”
Have you ever wondered what it must have
been like to be part of that first 3,000 people, who converted to the Christian
faith? How would it have been different
than being in our church today?
To be sure, there are many important
similarities between the first Church described in Acts and the contemporary
American Church. Here are three of the
most important similarities:
1.
Studying the teachings of the
scriptures. In several passages in Acts, the early
Christians are described as devoting “themselves to the apostles’ teaching…”
(v. 42). Of course, the apostles have
long since died, but most contemporary churches still offer many opportunities
to study the scriptures, including what the apostles wrote, in Sunday-School,
as well as in Bible studies at other times during the week.
2.
Devoting themselves to prayer and
worship. Acts reports that the first Christians spent
much time in prayer and worship. At that
point in time, the first Christians were more of a spiritual reform movement
within Judaism, rather than being a separate religious faith. Since they lived in Jerusalem, “they spent
much time in the temple” (v.46).
Similarly, contemporary Christians spend time in prayer and worship in
their churches.
3.
Sharing in food and fellowship with one
another. One of the
common denominators of most contemporary churches is that we really like to eat
together and spend time with one another.
If you want to gather a large group of church people, then it helps to
have a potluck dinner as part of the program.
Food and fellowship. Similarly,
we learn from Acts that the first Christians really enjoyed eating and spending
time together. In our scripture reading
above, Luke, the writer of Acts, notes that the first Christians “broke bread …
and ate their food with glad and generous hearts” (v. 46).
These are clearly very significant similarities which we
share today with those early Christian converts in the first Christian
church. At the same time, there was one
huge difference between the first church and our contemporary churches. This major difference concerns financial
support for the church.
In his description of finances within the first church, Luke,
the writer of Acts, essentially describes a religious commune. He says that the early Christian converts
would sell all of their possessions and goods.
Then, they would bring the proceeds from their sale and give this money
to the first church, so that they could use the funds to care for everyone who
had financial needs. As the first church
grew, it soon became necessary to designate a finance committee to oversee the
fair distribution of these offerings (see Acts 6:1-7).
In the twenty-first century, most of us do not live as a
religious commune. Of course, many of us
do contribute financially to our church.
However, most of us do not contribute very much money in proportion to
our wealth. Some of us do not contribute
any money at all to our church, even though we expect our church to support us
when there is a crisis in our lives. I
think that’s the major difference between then and now.
The first Christians gave sacrificially and extravagantly to
support their church. They literally
sold all that they had and gave it to their church. Then, they trusted that their church would
support and take care of them. By
contrast, American Christians give a minuscule amount of money in
comparison. Even someone who tithes—that
is, gives 10% of their income—is making a small contribution in comparison to
the early Christians who gave everything which they owned to the church.
Why did they do that?
Why did the first Christians give so much more generously to the
church? After studying this scripture, I
think that there were two reasons why the first Christians were so much more
generous, than we are in the twenty-first century:
a. Sacrificial Giving. They deeply loved their friends
in the first church and they knew that their contributions would be used to
take care of the physical needs of their dear friends. In this regard, biblical scholar Robert Wall
makes an interesting observation about attitudes within the first church. He notes that they saw themselves as a
fellowship of believers: “a fellowship
of believers shares more than common beliefs and core values; they display a
profound regard for one another’s spiritual and physical well-being as a
community of friends.”[1] They were willing to give sacrificially
because they wanted to serve God and help their friends. They knew that their contributions would be used
to help their friends and do good in the world, so they gave sacrificially—they
gave everything they had.
b. They had stopped trusting in themselves
and their own financial resources.
Instead, they had learned to trust completely in God. It is part of
human nature to rely upon oneself for the resources which we need in order to
survive and even flourish. We tend to
trust ourselves above all else. That’s
what makes financial giving to our church so difficult. When we give to the church, then we retain correspondingly
less money to take care of our own needs—and wants. Within each of our minds, there is this
persistent question: “What happens if I
give this money and then, sometime down-the-road, I have an emergency and need extra
money to avert financial disaster?” The
first Christians did not worry about this question. They already knew the answer, “God will
provide.” Whenever a Christian—from any
era—learns to trust God completely, then they are freed to give more
generously. The first Christians had a
deep faith and they were growing even more in their faith. Therefore, they were willing to give generously.
There
is much that we can learn from this difference with those first Christians when
it comes to how we financially support our church. Perhaps we need to study the first Christians
more, in terms of how they used their financial resources and what their
attitudes were about money.
If
you live in the Lincoln, Nebraska area and do not have a place of worship, then
I invite you to come and join us at Christ United Methodist Church this Sunday,
May 20th, as we remember and celebrate the birth of the first church in
Jerusalem. Consider wearing red to our
service this week because red is the liturgical color of Pentecost. Christ UMC is located at 4530 “A” Street in
Lincoln, Nebraska. Our two traditional
Worship Services are at 8:30 and 11:00 on Sunday morning.
Come, join us. Everyone is
welcome and accepted because God loves us all.
[1] Robert W. Wall, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles
in the New Interpreter’s Bible, vol
10, (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2002), CD-ROM Edition.
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