First let us trace in bare outline the initial shape of the church the day it was born. That will not be its final shape, any more than a full-grown person is the same shape as a new-born infant; but you do expect the basic features all to be present - a head, a trunk, two arms and legs and so on; and surely Luke was inspired to not omit any essential feature.
The very first essential of any birth is of course life. This infant was not still-born! The church's life was the Holy Spirit.
A new life, at its beginning, is always miraculous. Throughout my ministry, I have always visited 'my mums,' if at all possible within a day or two of their new-born's arrival. After forty years of doing it, I still marvel; the birth of a child is marvellous. The birth of the church was even more marvellous. God communicated His life to people: "He poured out His Spirit into men of flesh." We cannot explain that; it defies explanation. The 'how' of it is God's secret.
How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming: but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him, still, the dear Christ enters in. (Phillips Brooks)
God's Spirit is to Him (as Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 2:11) what your spirit is to you - the real, hidden, inner, knowing 'you.' God imparts His real, hidden, inner, knowing Self to us. The church is made up of those who have been "made partakers of the divine nature." Peter said that (2 Peter 1:14); he was there when it happened!
The church is born, and the church is cradled, in miracle.
That is the first thing, the absolutely fundamental thing about the church which we must never forget and never ignore. The touch of the miraculous should be upon the whole of her life. In what way that touch is to be seen is yet to be defined in the rest of Acts, but one caution needs to be entered at once. That touch of the miraculous is to be distinguished, not merely by its being marvellous, but by its being divine. That first.
Second, v. 38 tells us that for each individual who entered the church, the miracle happened in the experience of receiving from God the twofold gift of forgiveness and the Spirit, in response to their repentance and faith, and that that experience was expressed and witnessed to in baptism.
Note those ingredients in the mix:
(1) ... Repent
(2) ... and be baptised
(3) ... for the forgiveness of your sins. The forgiveness of your sins is one element ... the being baptised for it is expressive of the element of faith which is assumed in the experience (a fourth ingredient if you like, for without it there is no reason either to repent or to be baptised); the attitude of trust is expressed in the obedience of baptism.
(4) ... and you shall receive the gift of the Spirit. There isn't any doubt that you will because it's a promise, as the next verse affirms, and that four-fold but unified experience can be summed up as "receiving the Word and being baptised."
That is how the church gets born. Peter would express it years later by saying, "You have been born anew by the living and abiding word of God. That Word is the Gospel - the Good News - that was announced to you." (1 Peter 1:23) That means that if the church stops announcing the good news, there will be no new births. If evangelism dries up, life dies out. "We must evangelise or fossilise," as C. J. Tinsley, a well-known Australian pastor, used to say.
What shape did this new-born infant take then - this community of about 3120 forgiven souls, suddenly alive with the life of the Spirit? What spontaneous expression did this uprush of life take? We shall spell it out quite swiftly without embellishment, so we grasp the whole picture in one go, and then stop. We shall look more closely at some of the features in forthcoming chapters.
All that is usually said at this point is that they devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching, the breaking of bread and the prayers ... and that's it. But Luke said a good deal more than that. We are not done with what he said about this new-born infant church until we get to the end of the chapter. Twice over he uses a phrase whose repetition is obscured in almost every translation I have checked. The phrase is "they continued steadfastly in ..."; you have it in v. 42, and you have it again in v. 46. What follows describes a clear, firm shape which the church took.
1. In v. 42 Luke says they continued steadfastly in four things -
(1) The teaching of the apostles
(2) The fellowship
(3) The breaking of the bread
(4) The prayersThere were three consequences of their devotion to those four things.
(1) Fear come upon every soul. (v. 43)
(2) Many wonders and signs happened through the apostles. (Note that - awe in all, signs by some! )
(3) They all shared everything! It meant they were all lifted clear up out of their own private, selfish little worlds into a whole new world of love, instinct with God, which they all shared. v. 44
2. Now in v. 46 Luke says again that they continued steadfastly in three more things which had two more consequences.
(1) Daily, they assembled as a united company in the temple.
(2) Daily, they broke bread in their homes, sharing meals in gladness and generosity of heart.
Note that - worship and witness in the mass; worship and fellowship in small groups.
(3) They had a daily disposition of praise. v. 47And the two consequences of all that was:
(1) They enjoyed favour with all the people.
(2) The Lord daily integrated into their company those who were being saved.
I say integrated rather than added (as most translations do), because to the Greek word for 'added' (prosetithai) Luke appends an idiomatic little phrase right at the end, 'epi to auto', (upon each) - very hard to translate. What Luke means is that as each convert came along, God did not just 'tack him on,' but 'built him in (or her of course).' It is the Lord's work to build them in; it is ours to fit them in - or as Paul put it (Rom. 15:7) to "welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you."
We enumerate now, in the very briefest way, the salient features of life together in worship, learning, fellowship and evangelism. This supplies a map of the journey we are to take through succeeding chapters.
(1) in the Temple; on the level of a big, united congregation ... everybody in;
(2) in private homes. on the level of small groups, in households.
(3) round the Word and round the Table.
Its Content :
1. The public reading
of the Scriptures.
2. Singing - old psalms, new hymns, solos undoubtedly - and
Scriptures in Song!
3. There was the preaching - of all sorts:
(a) The Apostles' preaching ... of two sorts:1. Kerygma - preaching to the unconverted.
2. Didache - preaching to the converted, to build them up in the faith. Paul speaks in Rom. 6:17 of "the standard of teaching to which you were committed." ... in 2 Tim 1:13 of "the pattern of sound words which you heard from me."(b) "Prophecy" - Spirit-inspired preaching that brought the timeless truth of Scripture to bear on local and immediate life situations, "so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged" ... a ministry to and by both men and women.
4. After the
preaching, there was praying - again of all sorts.
5. Then of course, there was the offering! It
gets a mention in 1 Cor. 16:2
6. Finally there was the Lord's Supper.
(1) by the teaching (as in the epistles)
(2) by judgments (Ananias and Sapphira)
(3) from their mistakes (Philip at Samaria)
(4) through sufferings (repeated persecutions)
(5) by visions (to Peter and to Paul)
(6) in conference (the Jerusalem Council)
(7) shared searching of the scriptures (Berœa)
(7) example - the church always needs models (Paul)
(8) training trainers (Timothy, Titus)
(1) the fellowship of prayer (Peter's release)
(2) the fellowship of danger
(3) fellowship in "helps" (Dorcas)
(4) the fellowship of welcome and acceptance (Ananias and Paul)
(5) the fellowship of overseas aid (Jerusalem Poor Fund)
(1) The Apostles: Preaching and Healing (only ever to support and authenticate the Gospel - never just for the sake of healing.)PAUL ...
1. started with those who already showed a religious interest (Jews in synagogues, Greeks at the Areopagus).
2. chose his centres of evangelism for their strategic communication value.
3. argued the Gospel, and taught the Gospel.(2) The sheer quality and vitality of the believing community's life ... love, commitment, God consciousness
(3) They evangelised the natural relationship groups - households.
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