As if their very lives depended on it...
How the early church's grasp of the new reality in Jesus lead to a radically transformed way of living.
In Acts 2 and again in chapter 4, we are given a picture of the early believers that is almost too much for us to comprehend. It’s mind-blowing. What on earth could those early believers have experienced that caused all of them to suddenly upend their entire lives? Both the wealthy and the destitute were suddenly sharing everything they had with one another. They couldn’t get enough of being together. They saw each other every day. Sometimes out in public places, in the midst of their regular comings and goings, but daily in each others homes, eating together and talking about their new lives and what it all meant. They couldn’t stop thinking about, talking about and trying to better understand the apostles’ teaching. They were chasing that uderstanding with full-throttled devotion.
What did they see? What did they discover? What happened that so transformed them, that their neighbors, coworkers, friends, and extended family couldn’t help but notice… and many of them decided to join in?
They must have understood something that many of us today haven’t yet grasped.
I think it was a clear understanding that everything had changed. They realized that what Jesus had done flattened the world and then filled it again with new meaning. Everything was literally new. All the old ideas, concepts and philosophies that had formed their previous perspective had been captured by Christ and the world around them was infused with the meaning of life in the Messiah. Their entire lives, everything they did now had new meaning and purpose. They weren’t just scraping by, or thinking about how to gain influence or power in some social ladder-climbing scheme. Jesus had already given them prominent status as citizens of the new creation, and they began to live according to the economy of that new creation, even in the midst of the old broken one. They weren’t drudging on under the rules of the old system. They were free now. The gospel made them completely free from an old version of reality, and they could now, together, use the gospel to make decisions, build out new plans and habits, and live like the old things don’t matter, because they don’t… not any longer. It was transcendent, but also immanent. They began to understand this new reality (which infused everything around them with new meaning), but they also realized they had to intentionally engage in that transformation process, taking the everyday things, the patterns of their lives, and the ideas that had governed them for so long, and turning them into ways of thinking and living that overflowed from a love of Jesus into a love of one another, and love for everyone they came in contact with. Knowing that whatever might happen to them (pain, difficulty, and even death), would most certainly be set right by Jesus one day in the future.
What might it look like if we were to intentionally engage in that sort of thinking and living? How long would it take for us to become transformed communities? How long until Jesus’ Spirit was once again unleashed, as He was then, and our friends, neighbors, coworkers and extended family take notice of the radical way that our lives have been turned upside down? The kind of upside down that can’t be ignored and begs to be joined.
Photo by Regina Victorica on Unsplash
"They must have understood something that many of us today haven’t yet grasped."
Perhaps--but it seems unlikely that the 3000+ people of various backgrounds who kickstarted the church in Jerusalem all understood one thing exactly the same and so behaved so radically different.
I'm definitely on board with the condemnation of outsourcing our obedience and have spoken out against this myself. I take it a theological step further and say that when we outsource our obedience we make grave, practical theological errors that we otherwise denounce intellectually.
I think the one thing that changed this first generation of believers (which you mention) is that they have their eyes opened to reality--not a new reality, but reality as it has always been; a reality I attest to being only seen in love. When we have our eyes opened like that we cease to behave as if our systems and governments and other of what I call Secondary Interfaces matter to the point of action. It's a knowing that surpasses intellectual assent (which is a massive road block to us Western Christians). It is Paul saying that we do not know as we ought to know bearing forth love.
These people saw each other for who they really were; flesh and blood people whom Jesus gave his life to and for inspiring the kind of love, faith and hope in Jesus to do the same every day of the week. The reason I say that they didn't all understand the same thing is that Jesus gave them revelation to see their own circumstances in the light of love which casts out all darkness. For example, the rich saw their humbled state while the poor saw their lifting up in the world both knowing that the God who saved them renders their former value defunct in the light of His love. The first shall be last and the last shall be first.
Love, then, is what we are missing; to see one another clearly for who and what we are, and to reckon with the fact that Jesus died for the whole world because He loved them; saw them how the Father saw them and pitied them and did not give them what they deserved but gave them mercy. We are the people of God who have received mercy ; so let's give it out more freely shall we?
JESUS’ NEW COMMUNITY WAS TRANSFORMED BY HIS RESURRECTION. NOW THERE WAS AND IS A NEW WAY TO LIVE…IN HIS LOVE, EVEN FOR ENEMIES. WE ARE TO REMEMBER THAT WHATEVER OUR ENEMIES, THOSE WHO HATE GOD, WE ARE ULTIMATELY SAFE. WE ARE TO RESPOND TO THEM IN LOVE, PRAY FOR THEM AND LET GOD DEAL WITH THEM. I HAVE TO THINK THIS WAY WHENEVER I BECOME ANGRY OVER WHAT OUR LEADERS DO AND SAY. THEY NEED TO BE TRANSFORMED, TOO.