Dave's Diary

Daily Reading: Acts 2:42-47

“⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.”

This passage describes the earliest Christian Community, freshly filled with the Holy Spirit. The word “Christian” had not yet been created (that only came later in Antioch – see Acts 11:26). At the time they were described as “followers of the Way”, with reference to the fact that they followed Jesus, who had described Himself as “the Way, the Truth and the Life”; and with reference to the fact that they lived according to the Way of Life Jesus had modelled for them.

That Way of Life was best lived in the sort of community described in today’s passage. Every day they met (most likely at the regular Jewish time of evening prayer) in a huge gathering in the temple courts for public worship, teaching, prayer, and power ministry led by the apostles. Often they gathered in their “house churches” in one another’s homes (possibly also daily when they left the temple courts) for the sharing of ordinary meals, the Lord’s Supper and fellowship.

This Community was one of extreme love and liberty – in the true Christian sense of those words. Ordinary people in this community had been radically liberated from the power of selfishness, greed and pride. In their freedom they made the welf-giving love of God manifest. They represented a colony of the Kingdom of Christ, of Kingdom truth and Kingdom living, of Kingdom kindness, love in action and care, of Kingdom presence, prayer and praise. As we read the description of this miraculous Way of living in Acts 2:42-47, we can only marvel at the miracle of this kind of community ever being present in a world of selfishness, consumerism, entertainment, individualism and greedy materialsm. It seems an absolute impossibility that we could ever aspire to be this kind of community in 2023.

But the Holy Spirit is still alive and active, and we believe He can still do it. In 2023, it would have a different expression, but the heart would remain. Would you join me in praying that the Lord Jesus Christ will fashion your/our local church community into a Kingdom Colony that looks and sounds and feels like this? And to your prayers I say, Amen!