CG Check In Discussion

Forty-eight days after Jesus’ resurrection, thousands and thousands of Jews were gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, what we call Pentecost. On Shavuot the giving of the Torah is celebrated, but that year God’s word arrived in a profoundly new way—the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus’ followers in tongues of fire, enabling them to proclaim the good news of the gospel in every language, and after a short sermon from Peter over 3000 men, women, and children repented and were baptized in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:1-41).

It’s this community of believers that’s described in Acts 2:42-47. Aside from the small core of Jesus’ disciples, the rest of the early church was made up of recent converts. Their brand-new faith in the risen Lord Jesus united them, perhaps because it also disrupted their existing familial and community relationships (though note that they still maintained “favor with all the people,” 2:47). Their belief changed their lives from top to bottom, pulling them together into a tight knit community, centering their lives on the teachings of the apostles, and stirring them up to show radical generosity towards one another. You get the sense that these people simply couldn’t stop getting together to rejoice over their new life in Christ. This was a community of resurrection.

But lest we lose heart when we think of our own communities, we should remember that tensions will soon flair over food distribution in Acts 6. What we’re seeing in Acts 2 is the honeymoon phase. Nevertheless, their shared life should form a pattern for us. Here we have a people who are freshly aware of the work of Christ and the forgiveness they have in his name, and the overflow of this awareness is a community of rejoicing, mutual care, and devotion. Their wonder over the gospel and their joy in community were inextricably tied. The same can happen in our lives.

However, the goal isn’t to just pantomime what the early church was doing but to have the same convictions and ask the same questions (ex. “how should I live now that my sins are forgiven?”) and then arrive at our own authentic conclusions (ex. “Jesus has been so generous to me that I can gladly help my neighbor pay his rent.”)

Looking at the beliefs and convictions that underlay this Christian community can also help us surface our unbelief and lack of conviction. For example, these followers were radically generous because their tenuous hope in this world had been transformed into an unshakeable hope in the world to come, so they didn’t have to hold on to all their possessions and wealth but could instead give freely to support others. When we are stingy or slow to help, when the idea of loving one seems too risky or determining how our group can advance the gospel together seems too burdensome, it’s likely because our hope has not been similarly transformed.