What was the Early Church Like? From Acts 2.
From Acts 2: "7Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. 41Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
"2And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. 43And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. 44And all that believed were together, and had all things common; 45And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. 46And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, 47Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved."
The above passage has been read or quoted many times to show the scriptural authority for water baptism as a means of forgiveness of sins and of being added to the church. No apologies need be made. The passage accomplishes those goals very well. We'll continue to read and quote them.
But this passage tell us so very much about the other emerging characteristics of the church for which Christ died (Ephesians 5: 21-33). Granted, the rest of the New Testament that follows this account goes into much more detail about the church. But this account of the ingathering of the first 3,000 souls sets the tone, and the consistent pattern, for what the church would be like until the end of time.
The Acts account sets the pattern for conversion. Members of the church of Christ are sometimes derisively spoken of as "five steppers." This is because the church has consistently taught that there are five steps to becoming a Christian. Those steps, along with only some of the scriptures that justify them, are:
So far, this discussion has probably seemed pretty familiar. But let's go on the clues about the character and mission of the church that was established in 33 A. D.
We see the three-fold mission of the church in the Acts 2 account. The ultimate mission of the church is evangelism, or the leading of unsaved souls to Christ. Verses 37-41, it could be argued, were about evangelism, showing a heavy emphasis in that area; But we also see a three-fold mission of the church. Those missions were evangelism, edification, and benevolence. What is also significant about this realization is that all of the church's resources (that is, corporate resources-not that of individual members doing individual acts of kindness and service) were expended in these three areas. They did not take the Lord's money to entertain themselves with. It begs the imagination to read this passage and think that the church's money was spent just on fellowship. They had fellowship, but that fellowship was a by-product of their evangelism, edification, and benevolence. Though we wouldn't press it to this extreme, there is no record in the New Testament of the church ever owning a building. Instead they met in the temple (which was already there) or in peoples' homes. Back to the three-fold mission, along with some other supporting scriptures:
Church leadership and governance. In Acts 2, we see the leadership of the church in the hands of the apostles. In Acts 6, we read of helpers who probably were the first deacons, though they are not called expressly by that title (see also I Timothy 3: 8-13 for a description of the office and its responsibilities). In time, elders would be appointed in congregations to be shepherds of flocks (see also Acts 20: 28; I Timothy 3: 1-7; Titus 1: 5-10; I Peter 5: 1-7). Those elders did not have the authority to amend the word of God (Revelation 22: 18, 19) but were to lead particularly by example and teaching. One thing that should be pointed out here in the discussion of deacons and elders is that the deacons of the New Testament served under either apostles (Acts 6) or elders (I Timothy 3; Philippians 1: 2). There is never a board of deacons serving without elders, or one elder serving alone. There is always a plurality of elders.
Orientation towards the future. The church consisted of people who were in the world but not of the world. They looked forward to the Christ who was coming soon. They tried not to get too involved in the affairs of this world since the world consisted of things that would ultimately be burned up in the day of the return of the Christ anyway (II Peter 3: 8-14). Although the time of Christ's second coming has been far longer than what those first century Christians might have envisioned, we of that church look forward to his coming today.
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