People often talk about getting back to being like the New Testament church. Just what was the early church like? What was the emphasis of the early church? In what ways did the early church reflect God’s will for the flourishing of human society? Join Pastor Jim for answers in this study of Acts 2:42-47.
Sermon Notes
Four Marks of a Healthy Church
They were continually devoting themselves to…
1. The apostles’ teaching
“Scripture reveals God present and at work in our world and our lives. The revelation is given in the context of a multi-textured, meandering, and somewhat baggy account of ancient Israel and early church, at the core of which is the crisp, focused life of Jesus.”
Eugene Peterson
“One of the clearest evidences of a Spirit-filled Christian is his hunger for Scripture and his humble submissiveness to the authority of Scripture as God’s written Word. But show me a person who claims to be a Christian yet is not devoting himself to the apostles’ teaching, who rather neglects and even disregards it, and you give me cause to question whether he has received the Holy Spirit at all. For the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (as Jesus called him). He is given us to be our teacher, and those who are filled with him have a keen appetite for his instruction.”
John Stott
2. The fellowship
“It may fairly be said that unless one enmeshes himself in this redemptive fellowship of the church, he lessens his chances of steady growth and effectiveness, in his Christian life and experience.”
Samuel M. Shoemaker
“Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If a man has something, he gives freely to the man who has nothing. If they see a stranger, Christians take him home and are happy, as though he were a real brother. They don’t consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God… …And if they hear that one of them is in jail, or persecuted for professing the name of their redeemer, they all give him what he needs — if it is possible, they bail him out. If one of them is poor and there isn’t enough food to go around, they fast several days to give him the food he needs… This is really a new kind of person. There is something divine in them.”
Aristides
3. The breaking of bread
“A man can eat his dinner without understanding exactly how food nourishes him. A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works; indeed, he certainly won’t know how it works until he’s accepted it.”
C. S. Lewis
4. The prayers
Prayer is the antidote for my nervous addiction to anxiety and my frustrating attempts at self-control.
“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”
Karl Barth
“Where the church today finds itself stagnant, unattractive, humdrum and shrinking – and sadly, there are many churches, in the Western world at least, of which that has to be admitted – it’s time to read Acts 2:42-47 again, get down on our knees, and ask what isn’t happening that should be happening. The Gospel hasn’t changed. God’s power hasn’t diminished. People still need rescuing. What are we doing about it?”
N. T. Wright