by Rev. Canon Don Beatty                <--previous     next -->

Session 2
Introduction: The church is established
(Acts 1 and 2)

I believe the future of our church today lies in discovering what the life of the early church was all about and applying this learning to our church life in this 21st century. It is not copying it, but learning from it what it means to redefine ourselves in light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and learn to live in expectation and to know the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

The seed of the early church was established by Jesus with his disciples about 28 AD as He began his ministry. In 30 AD the church was born and it changed somewhat drastically after the Ascension of Jesus. His followers were left on their own. Leadership passes to Peter together with the other apostles.

The Acts of the Apostles covers the first forty years of church life. We may go a little beyond this time for the purposes of this course. This era can be divided into two major divisions, from 30 to 45 AD and 46-70 AD. There was a drastic change occurred in the life of the church about 45 AD which will be the subject of this course in the next few weeks. The Acts only covers the church's movement north and west. It must be remembered that the early church also moved south and west across the North African coast. And probably east as far as India. The Mar Thoma church in South India claims their origins from the apostle Thomas. If this is true, and there is often much truth to legends, then the church in south India would have been founded during these early years of the first century!

If you were a Christian from 30 to 45 AD, you would undoubtedly be a Jew and you may go to the Synagogue on Saturday and obey most of the traditional laws of Judaism. You would also gather with several like-minded people on Sunday to pray and sing some hymns, share a meal together, and hear the stories of Jesus from Peter and the others who were with him during his lifetime. There was very little structured liturgy, and very little organization. You could move from group to group and be accepted if they knew you as a Christian.

You would be a peasant, or working class, or a slave (with some notable exceptions).

In the very early days you would have lived in a Christian community, but this didn't seem to last very long, and soon disappeared. However, the Christian community continued to look after the widows and orphans. Actually anyone who had needs would be helped by their brother/sister Christian. There was a special bond of love that existed between Christians. (See how those Christians love one another) A sociologist studying the life of the early church pointed out that during the great plagues that spread through the world in the first three hundred years of church history actually helped the church to grow in percentage of the population. The church became legal in the Roman Empire in 311 AD. (In 300 AD approximately 10% of the population of the Roman empire was Christian. By 350 AD it was 56%!) During times of sickness the Christians would help one another, whereas the pagans would abandon their ill and leave them to die sometimes a rather hideous death for fear of catching this disease. Thus, many more Christians survived the great plagues than pagans. Often as many as one third of the population was wiped out in a local plague.

You would live in or near Jerusalem and more than 50% would be women. (Some things never change!) The church moved out from Jerusalem very slowly usually because things became too hot for the Christian leaders and they had to leave. We find elements of the house-church in some towns in Galilee and Samaria.

The church saw itself as the new Judaism. They went to great pains to elect a twelfth member of the apostolic band after the death of Judas. This represented the 12 tribes of Israel. The Roman conquerors had great tolerance for the Jews, and respected their religious faith. If they behaved themselves, they were usually left alone. The Romans saw the Christians as a Jewish sect and did not bother them if they did not cause any civil trouble. Remember it was the chief priests of Judaism who had Jesus put to death. The Romans only carried out the sentence because the Jewish hierarchy pushed Pilate into it.

The persecutions that came upon the early Church in the first twenty years was usually caused by the Jews. Remember also it was the priests of the temple who sent Paul to Damascus to arrest the Christians there!

To the temple priests these Christians were a constant thorn in their side. They should have disbanded when their leader was put to death. This is what usually happened. Many messiahs appeared in Israel in those days. They would raise up a group of followers and usually attack the Romans, which was a mistake. Their leader would be killed or put to death and that was the end of it. Somehow, these Christians were different. They only grew stronger and more determined when their leader was put to death. They thrived on persecution. The Jews had not heeded the words of one of their own great rabbi's, Gamaliel, who had said, "If this is not of God it will soon die away, but if it is of God you will not be able to stamp it out no matter what you do." ( Acts 5:34-40)

They would not call them Christians quite yet. This came somewhat later. They were called 'Followers of the Galilean' or 'Followers of the Way' and they were different.

What was this difference? Why did they survive when other similar groups didn't? Even the Essenes, who had many similar teachings to Christianity did not make it past 70 AD and were destroyed by the Romans. Something held these Christians together when according to the rules of the world they would have disbanded and gone home after the death of Jesus. Let's face it, most of them were even too scared to be seen with Jesus when he was on the cross, and we all know about Peter's betrayal after his suppertime boast. He denied that he even knew the man. Why were these Christians so different?

First and foremost their Messiah was real and not false. Jesus did rise from the dead. All the other pretenders to the Messianic title died and that was the end of their movement. Not so with Jesus. He rose on the third day. The resurrection of Jesus is fundamental to our faith. I cannot imagine Christianity without the bodily resurrection of Jesus. It just doesn't make sense. The resurrection was central to the life of the early church and to us today.

To understand the life in the early church we need to study in some depth the Book of Acts which is the history of the early church in action. I think it was J. B. Phillips who called this book 'The Young Church in Action'. It could have also been called 'The Holy Spirit in Action' or 'The Gospel of the Holy Spirit'.

The Acts of the Apostles is my favourite book in the whole of Scripture. Every time I read this book, I feel excited, elated and somehow closer to God. If you have not done so, I would recommend that you read through all 28 chapters of this book this week. Its exciting reading! We will cover most of this book in the next seven weeks. Some passages will be explored more intensively than others. Today we will look at chapters one and two.

The Acts was probably written between 65-70 AD. Some scholars suggest as late as 90. Paul, however, died about 68 to 70 AD and he is still alive at the end of the Acts. Also the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed between 68-70 AD and there is no mention of this momentous event. Thus, I would opt for the earlier dating. Luke wrote this as a theological treatise and was not overly concerned about chronological order. Sometimes he and the epistles don't quite agree on dating and order but this is not important. As we work our way through the Acts keep in mind that he is giving us a theology of the church and we need to articulate this theology and compare it with our church today.

Scholars are universally agreed that this book together with the Gospel of Luke were written by the same author, probably Luke who was a doctor, converted by Paul at Antioch during his second missionary journey about 52 AD. He is the only gentile writer in the New Testament and he obviously was not there at the beginning of the church in Jerusalem. In fact most of the first 16 chapters of the Acts were written by Luke after hearing the stories probably from the early followers like Peter, James, John and even Mary herself, especially the birth stories. The so called >we' passages begin in Acts 16:10 when Luke was present with Paul on the second and third journeys and his trip to Rome. In Luke 1:1-4 he tells us a little bit about why and how he wrote these two books. It was the stories from eyewitnesses. He carefully investigated them to be sure they were true. Then he wrote an orderly account especially for someone called Theophilus.

Both Luke and Acts are ascribed to Theophilus. (See Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1-4) We have no idea who he is. His name means 'lover of God' and Luke in his gospel suggests that he is 'most excellent'. He may have been a Roman official or someone in authority. Although the Jewish church appealed to peasants, the missionary church appealed to many in the upper classes as well. We will talk about this later in the course.

The first chapter is rather significant. It is here that we find the timetable for the resurrection appearances. Luke suggests that it was forty days. The feast of Pentecost was fifty days after Easter hence the timing of our church seasons. It is in the first chapter that the disciples are given the great commandment to preach the gospel into all the world, but they are also told to wait until they have been given the Holy Spirit to empower them for this task.

The Jews did not like to proselytize. This was foreign to their very nature. With some notable exceptions it was almost fifteen years before they really took this command seriously. They shared the story among their own people but it was Paul who took this to heart and became the apostle to the Gentiles. Remember Paul was a Jew.

Note in Acts 1:6, they ask Jesus when he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. They believed that Jesus was the completion of the Old Testament. He was the climax of history for the Jews and brought in the new Israel. This is the same theme that recurs throughout the synoptic gospels. If this is true, you can begin to understand why they insisted on electing someone to replace Judas. (See Acts 1:23). Note that a mark of an apostle was 'to have been a witness to the resurrection'. Matthias is elected and becomes the 12th apostle, maintaining this number of twelve which represented the twelve tribes of Israel.

In Acts 1:9 we see the ascension. Again notice that a cloud took Jesus from their sight. This is the shekinah. God appeared to the Jews in a mist or cloud. You could never see his face but you may hear his voice coming out of the cloud. Jesus disappears into a cloud. He is like God and indeed he is God! The Shekinah was also present at the Baptism of Jesus and again, at the Transfiguration.

It is evident from Acts that Peter is the accepted leader of the early church although James, the brother of Jesus, has now joined them. (Acts 1:14) Later James would become the head of the church in Jerusalem, but not yet. It was Peter who suggested that they elect Matthias. Luke also tells us that there are 120 believers in those early days following the Ascension. The number 120 is significant because that was the number of men needed to establish a synagogue with its own governing council. Jesus had established this body of his church, which was to replace his earthly body.

In verse eleven we see the promise of the second coming. This event dominated much of the life of the early church. They were waiting upon the Lord's return. It was thought to be immanent. Even Paul in the beginning felt this was true. It only much later in the first century, when most of the early disciples were dying off that they realized the second coming was not going to happen in their lifetime and we see a subtle shift in the later epistles of Paul in his thoughts about the end times. Then they were reminded of some of the sayings of Jesus, "it is not for you to know the day or the hour," and this is still true today.

Chapter two is the central theme of this book. Here we see the first feast of Pentecost, the beginning of the church and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Let's read this passage shall we?

Read Acts 2:

Here it all begins. Actually, it had begun about three years before with Jesus calling the 12 disciples, and spending time with them training them for this moment. He tried to prepare them for his death and resurrection, and then the Holy Spirit was sent to continue to lead them into all truth. That is the purpose of the Holy Spirit, to empower us for holy living and to lead us into all truth by continuing to reveal Jesus to us.

This Pentecostal experience is a recurring theme throughout the Acts. As we look at this book over the next several weeks, remember this event. It is fundamental to the early church.

The 120 had gathered in Jerusalem where they waited for something to happen and when it did it almost blew their minds. The Jew knew the Holy Spirit. He was evident in the Old Testament, appearing to individuals at specific times and for specific events in their lives. Here the Spirit was being poured out on everyone, on all who believed. That must have been a bit scary, but also exciting. The house starts to shake with the wind and then tongues of fire appear out of nowhere and descend upon the heads of the disciples. What is the first thing they do? They burst out of the house and speak in tongues exclaiming in utter ecstasy the wonderful mystery of God in Jesus Christ. The people gathered to hear them and began to hear their words in their own native tongues. The barriers to communication were being broken down and the faith of Christ was being proclaimed to all who would hear. Remember though, the listeners in Acts 2 were all Jews.

Then Peter gets up and preaches the first Christian sermon. And it was so powerful that 3000 were converted that day and are baptized by the 120. (That is only 25 each!)

Now it all begins. The church of Jesus Christ is born and comes into its own. It starts to reach out to other Jews. Other non-Jews are welcomed into the faith but not actively pursued. They are not organized as we think of the church today. There is very little liturgy; no church buildings; they usually met in private homes and often in secret. The meal they share is a kind of Eucharist but it may be different in different places, sometimes it would be bread and fish! But there was a special bond of fellowship and love within the Christian community. This community was essential. One would not consider being a Christian by oneself. Although Peter is considered the head of the church, he has very little authority. All of this would come later. At this point they were Jews who believed that their Messiah had come and were considered by most to be another sect of Judaism.

A Question to consider in this course:

What is Luke telling us about the early church and how does this compare with our church today? Remember Luke is writing a theology. For Luke, the church is essential to the faith. It is God's outpost of the kingdom on earth and is indispensable to God's work here.