I do hope
that you are finding the Book of Acts which we have been studying recently both
stimulating and encouraging. I hope that through reading it and, if you have
not been able to make the two study groups, through spending some quality time
on the questions we issue each week, you have found this to be time well spent?
I ask this because one of the criticisms of much modern western Christianity is
that the Church in the West has lost its sense of perspective and purpose,
replacing these with an almost anarchic spiritual individualism - an
individualistic approach to Christianity that undermines the very purposes for
which Jesus founded his Church.
What so
distinguished the early Christian Church from the individualism of the world in
which it moved was an understanding of humanity and community that renewed and
transformed individuals and society so profoundly that all they thought about
was how best to serve God and their neighbour. Whereas today we see, even in
the Church and in churches, an approach to the practice of faith and the living
of life that is too often led by worldly values, worldly principles, and worldly
priorities.
And when the
world’ s values, principles, and priorities are allowed to make the running,
the Church ceases to be the family Jesus intended it to be; and Christians lose
confidence and effectiveness in the role to which we have all of us been
called. If my faith consists of little more than the cultivation of my own
spiritual concerns, if my doubts are greater than my belief (fashionable though
doubt is in many circles today), if my beliefs about what Christianity is –
however content I might feel – are not producing the kind of fruit Jesus calls
me to produce, then I need to do some serious soul-searching. And the best
place to start such soul-searching, I would want to say, is with the words of
Jesus - with what he says is genuine faith; and then with the record of those
first Christians who took his words seriously and put them into practice.
This is
where the Book of Acts is such a helpful, inspiring, and encouraging guide and
measure. Yes, the first Christians had their issues and problems to deal with;
but what we see is that they did not lose sight of where the priorities lay.
Often, as we see from the Book of Acts, it was a crisis of some sort that
enabled them to perceive where the priorities of Church life and personal
discipleship lay. Crises clarify where priorities lie: I certainly found that
to be true in the army and in business: they enable us to focus properly and
remind us of our raison d’etre, the reason for our existence.
This little
crisis in first century Jerusalem that we encounter here in chapter six serves
as a reminder to us that the first two priorities of the Church are, verse 4, prayer and the ministry of the word – that is preaching it, teaching
it, living it, and sharing it. Churches which fail to make these their
first priorities historically have failed to be fruitful or have failed to produce
‘fruit that will last’. That’s a fact about which there is no longer any
dispute: the research is conclusive. If the people of God are not mindful of
these, if they are not growing in true knowledge of God and of their
understanding and practise of the role to which he calls us, then we are
failing in our calling.
Churches in this country have not closed – over 1000 in
the last 30 years; 260 in the last 4 years alone – mainly because of lack of
money but because of lack of people. And the lack of people has come about,
mainly, because local Christians have lost confidence in their faith and in
their primary role as Christians, which is to share their faith with those who
have no faith.
It was very
striking in this respect, on our recent trip to our link church in Estonia,
that they are in the business of planting not one but two new churches. Reaching
others with the good news of Jesus is their priority; and that is founded v4 on
‘paying attention to prayer and to the ministry of the word’.
It is
because these are not taken as seriously as they ought in many British churches
that such churches are gradually but effectively dying. You can keep a church
open on marvellous music and fabulous flowers, and social events, and
architectural beauty, and even out of a sense of local duty; but only for a
time: because none of these will last for long. Tastes and fashions change; and
eventually duty just tires us out. It is only renewed and transformed people
that will keep a church alive in the long run; and it is only renewed and
transformed people that can make a church effective in its calling.
When
churches decline into maintenance mode rather than missionary mode - like a business that just wants to survive but
no longer effectively produces what it was established to produce - they cannot
survive for long.
The problem
the early church encounters here is very revealing and helpful for us. The
Apostles realise that either by oversight or by favouritism some members of the
local Christian family are not being properly cared for: it is an obvious
failing, whether by oversight or by favouritism, to fulfil the Second
Commandment. Some members of the family are not being properly cared for. So
they had to sort it out or else they would not have been practising what they
preached! I think we can note two very
pertinent points here: first, that people were ready and eager to take up the
role, to play their part in the fellowship – certainly a much more onerous task
than volunteering to be our PCC Secretary! And, secondly, that the church
members are all referred to as ‘disciples’
verse 2.
To be a
Christian is to be a disciple: to be a disciple is to be known as a Christian.
In the modern West we have tended to equate being a good person with being a
Christian, whereas the New Testament nowhere equates the two. The result in the
West is that many churchgoers do not think that their good neighbours, family
and friends, need to hear the Gospel, need to be ‘saved’; whereas the New
Testament nowhere makes such an assumption – indeed quite the opposite! This is
just one of the indications of the extent to which worldly ideas have
infiltrated the Church and undermined our effectiveness as disciples. It would
never have occurred to the first Christians to make such erroneous and,
frankly, selfish assumption.
‘The word of God continued to
spread’, verse 7, and ‘the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly’ because the early Church knew its
God-given priorities and practised what it preached: they made sure that
everyone was properly looked after and that nothing – not even the care of
those in need – deflected them from the two first priorities of Christian
discipleship: prayer and the ministry of the word. People come to faith
primarily through hearing the word of God, the message of salvation, and being
convicted of their need of God’s forgiveness; and the authenticity of that word
is corroborated in their minds primarily by the way Christians treat each other
– especially those in need. This is why the Church grew and spread as it did;
this is why churches are ineffective and eventually die when these priorities
are not embraced. Little things – like making a priority of studying what the
first Christians believed and practised; like making a priority of not just
chatting to our friends over coffee after the service but seeking out the
newcomer; like making a priority of asking a friend or neighbour to church: all
these little things can make such a difference. I particularly like the second part
of verse 7 there: ‘a great many of the
priests became obedient to the faith’. Oh that that were the case in the
Church of England!
And you can quote me on that if you like. I think of the late Bishop of
Pontefract, Richard Hare, known as ‘Pente Ponte’ because of his charismatic
sympathies and practices. As he himself said, ‘I was the glory of Anglicanism –
frock, gaiters n’ all; a high-church career churchman; and then I found the
Lord – or rather he found me.’ And he went on to tell the story of how
complaints had been made to him of the ‘goings-on’ in one of his churches,
which was growing and where people were coming to faith, and not just being
healed but healing others and speaking in tongues, and all sorts of other
things that he considered distinctly and dangerously ‘un-Anglican’; and how he
went to that church determined to put a stop to such ‘nonsense’ –as he called
it. Well he went; and that was the end of him – at least as far as his career
in the Church of England was concerned. But it was, as he said, the beginning
of what the great Chinese evangelist, Watchman Nee, called ‘the normal
Christian life’. Where before he only quoted Shakespeare, now he quoted the
bible; where before he would wear frocks and gaiters now he would usually wear
jeans, an old fisherman’s sweater, and a wooden cross. His archbishop told him
that unless he gave up this new life of his he would not be offered a diocese.
But Richard Hare spoke of ‘a release of joy and praise within me that I would
not have thought possible.’ He remained the Bishop of Pontefract for 21 years.
Well I am glad to say that he made the right choice, and through his prayer and
teaching and preaching not only did many lay people come to faith and lead
others to faith, but other Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, and Charismatic priests
came to faith – some even to become Anglican bishops who were instrumental in
restoring orthodox faith and teaching in the House of Bishops.
At the same
time I think of a radio programme I once heard and a celebrated darling of the
liberal atheist media describing the kind of bishops she liked – ‘a man with
white curly hair, who quotes poetry and never mentions sin.’
We all of us
have to ask ourselves the questions, what kind of a bishop do I want and what
kind of a church do I want to part of?
