The Community of Believers
Acts 2:42-47
Do you have to go to church to be a Christian? We observe Luke's account of a community inspired by a love for God, and some of the qualities that we should aim to mirror in our own churches.
Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?
The emphasis in Evangelical Christianity has been that becoming a Christian is about a “personal” relationship with Jesus Christ. One’s faith is a personal decision between you and God. So a person doesn’t have to go to church to be a Christian. We’re saved by grace. Grace, we’re told, means we don’t have to do anything—that includes going to church. Going to church doesn’t save a person. A person might want to go to church, but it’s not necessary. Some Christians actually think it’s better for your relationship with God to stay away from church. The fact is, more Christians don’t go to church than do… and they don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
In Acts 2 we read about how the Holy Spirit miraculously came on the Apostles and all the believers—with the sound of a loud windstorm, and with small flames of fire that appeared to rest on them. A large crowd of devout Jews heard the amazing and perplexing sound of the windstorm and rushed to where the Apostles were. They thought that God might be doing something special—that this was a sign.
Peter addressed the crowd, explaining to them that this was a sign, and that what had happened in and through Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus was both Lord and Savior, and that through faith in him they could be saved from the soon coming day of God’s judgment. Those who responded to his message and believed in Jesus Christ numbered around 3,000.
So the community of believers that day went from just over 120 to over 3,000. What was Peter and the other Apostles supposed to do with all these new believers? How could they nurture them, disciple them, help them to grow as believers? Luke tells us what happened:
All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.
A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47 NLT)
This is a historical account. These are events that actually happened. But we should remember that just because God worked a certain way at this time, doesn’t mean he will work the same way all the time. For example, just because these believers, at this time, “enjoyed the goodwill of all the people,” doesn’t mean all believers, at all times, should expect to enjoy the goodwill of all the people. In fact, just the opposite should be expected—persecution (see John 15:18-20; 16:1-4). But there are a couple of important observations that we can make about what happened here, that, supported by many other Scriptures, we know do generally apply.
The first observation is that the church is an organic organization. By organic, I mean that it is a naturally occurring organization. These new believers didn’t have to be told to go church. They wanted to. Church wasn’t a building they went to or a service once-a-week they attended. Church, the community, was their life. Church wasn’t something they did, it was something they were, it was a way of life for them. They “devoted” themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to sharing meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. They had a hunger for God. They wanted to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. They wanted the Holy Spirit to come on them. And they expected all of this to come to them through their participation in the community of believers.
These were devout Jews (and still considered themselves to be), they were used to thinking of their relationship with God as being inseparably tied to the collective, to the people of God, to Israel. We, on the other hand, are used to thinking individualistically about our relationship with God. We think participation in the community of believers has very little to do with our relationship with God. It is difficult for us to believe what Paul says about the importance of participation in the church when he compared the church to the human body (1 Corinthians 12:12-31).
The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ…
All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.
Every part of the body—the feet, the ears, the eyes, etc.—is essential to the functioning of the body. Each member of the body is dependent on the other members.
The second observation is that they had a self-sacrificial love for each other. They “shared everything they had.” They “sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need.” “They shared their meals with great joy and generosity.” Apparently many of the new believers were in need, were poor. Those who had means were sensitive to the needs of their fellow believers (”If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it….”) and believed they were responsible to, they felt compelled to meet their need—even if that meant selling their possessions to do so.
Jesus said it would be by their love for one another that the world would recognize his disciples (John 13:34-35). And the kind of self-sacrificing love that we see happening here, in the young church, would be expected and encouraged as the Lord “added to their numbers those who were being saved.” John, writing more than fifty years after what happened in Acts 2, wrote this:
For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another…
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:11, 16-18)
Similarly, James, in his letter mentioned self-sacrificial love as fundamental between Christians and characteristic of the church.
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:14-17)
James said that deeds, actions, are the evidence of genuine faith. Without them our faith doesn’t exist, it’s dead. The deeds, the participation in the community, the love of the new believers for one another in Acts 2:42-47 was the evidence, the proof that their faith was genuine, that spiritual life was in them through their faith in Christ. Going to church didn’t make them Christians, it showed that they were.
You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian, but the Christian who doesn’t want to should ask themselves why that is. Why don’t they want to go to church?
Having been a pastor for many years I have had many painful experiences in the church. Sometimes I want to give up on the church. But I don’t think I can. I know I need to be a part of the church. I know that the reasons I have to stay away from church are fundamentally self-centered, self-serving and worldly. I am called to follow Christ. And I want to lay down my life and love the church just as he did (see Ephesians 5:25-32).
There is no such thing as healthy Christianity, a healthy relationship with God (according to the New Testament) apart from active participation in a local community of believers. And what does “participation” in the community look like? What do we see in this passage, what was the level of participation of the new believers we see here? They loved one another sacrificially.
We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. (1 John 3:16)