In this chapter we look to see how the early Christians fellowshipped.
We are not mean here looking for their equivalent of our church outings, barbecues and socials. Fellowship in their experience went rather deeper than that. What they called 'fellowship' (koinonia) was a whole new dimension of togetherness that burgeoned out of their experience of God. It was a fellowship of the Spirit.
They had experienced God's entire forgiveness of their sins; they had seen in the bloody death of Jesus its cost to God of that forgiveness; they had seen in the splendour of His resurrection the permanence of that forgiving love; God had poured His love into their hearts. He had 'taken them all on,' taken them to His heart; He had bedded His own living Spirit down in their hearts, and they knew that to be a pledge of His non-stop kindness. To quote Paul, "God had sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts, so they cried, "Abba, Father!" (Gal. 4:6) Sons and daughters, they were! And the result of this Pentecostal experience was to create among them an overpowering sense of brotherhood. J. B. Phillips' rendering of 1 John 1:3 expresses perfectly how they felt about it: "We want you to be with us in this - in this fellowship with the Father, and Jesus Christ His Son." That was the dynamic of their fellowship. Alive to God, they were alive to each other.
We again trace our theme through the book of Acts, pausing here and there to gather in supportive evidence from the epistles.
2:42 Right from the very first day, Luke tells us, they "devoted themselves" to 'the fellowship'; not just 'fellowship,' notice, but 'the fellowship': the fellowship as we have just tried to define it.
Luke then charts its expression and its growth.
2:44 "And all who believed were together." Luke uses the same idiom we have noted before, 'epi to auto'; they jelled into one.
The first spontaneous expression of this 'jell' was that they shared everything - but everything: goods, money - some even sold real estate so as to have money to give. They were all lifted ... clear up out of their own private little worlds into a whole new world instinct with God which they all shared. "They had all things in common." (v. 44) Luke repeats this two chapters later for emphasis: 4:32 "Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common ... There was not a needy person among them: as need arose, those who owned real estate sold it, and made the proceeds available."
This must not be misunderstood. To describe it as Christian Communism is misleading. They were not all obliged to sell up everything and pool it, as though the only form of ownership left was community ownership. That is not what Luke means at all. No one surrendered private title to what he possessed: what Peter said to Ananias makes that quite clear. What they surrendered was selfish title to what they owned. It dawned on them that everything they had was God's; it was theirs only in trust for Him. If He needed it for the family, to the family it went.
This practical generosity Luke describes was only one aspect of a bigger reality - that they were all of one heart and one soul. There was a community of everything - not just of money, but of time and energy and caring, and joy and hope and purpose. The nearest thing to it in ordinary experience is what happens when a population finds itself at war: suddenly the war effort draws everybody together into one overriding common purpose. That is the sort of thing that happened - spiritually of course. It changed everybody's lives. The Lord's own prayer (John 17:21) had a marvellous initial fulfilment: "My prayer, my desire for them is this: that one they all might be; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, so one in us may they all be, that the world may believe that You sent me!"
That is what was happening. They were one. And the exciting, life-enhancing experience, the "conquering new-born joy" of it, was one the apostles prized and coveted for their congregations wherever they were planted.
Rom. 12:16
Be of one mind together.
Rom. 15:6
God grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Cor. 1:10
I appeal to you brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, that there be no dissensions among you, that you be united in the same mind and the same judgement.
Eph. 4:3
Be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Phil. 1:27
Let me hear that you stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the Gospel.
Phil. 2:2
Fill up my cup of happiness by being in full accord and of one mind.
Phil. 4:2
I entreat Euodia and Syntyche to agree in the Lord.
Col. 2:1-2
I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love.
1 Peter 3:8
Be of one mind all of you, and of one heart ...
It is easy, reading those pleas, to be unaware of the excitement of the early experience of fellowship out of which the apostles wrote. The New Testament epistles were not written to teach doctrine so much as to communicate life experience. We owe an enormous debt to scholars and theologians, but when they have picked over all the grammar and analysed all the doctrine, we can be left with the unhappy feeling that they have missed the vibrant experience out of which the apostles wrote. For them, Truth was something to live in, with relish, not something to beat your brains with. The one-mind-and-one-heart syndrome is the big, powerful, over-arching, pulsating, life-enhancing reality ... experienced ... lived in ... throbbing with vitality because God Himself is the life of it - that is 'the fellowship' Luke and the apostles wrote about.
We see it in action next in Acts 4:23-31. Peter and John had been arraigned before the Jewish Sanhedrin, and let off with a caution. "When they were released, they went to their friends and reported" - that was real comradeship - "and when they heard it, they lifted up their voices together to God" (v. 23) and encouraged themselves in their conviction of His Sovereignty, with the result that "the place where they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit so they spoke" - not tongues, note, but - "the Word of God with boldness." The fellowship put vigour and confidence into their praying and their proclaiming.
That is the sort of experience that lay behind Paul's plea in Eph. 6:19-20: "Pray for me," (energetically, together) "that utterance may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the open secret of the Gospel, as I ought to speak."
We get this fellowship in prayer again in Acts 12:5. This time, Peter was in prison awaiting execution, as James had already been executed: "but earnest prayer was made by the church unto God for him." There is a cheering rhythm, a bracing swing about the very way that reads. And some indication of how much the fellowship mattered to them all is seen in the fact that Peter, when he did escape, risked discovery and therefore his life, standing in the street knocking on the door (for ever, it must have seemed to him) to let them know he was free. They had 'prayed him out,' and he knew what he owed them. One heart and one mind ... in care for each other ... in prayer for each other.
Would that there was prayer like that for the ministry in our churches. "I appeal to you brethren," Paul wrote to Rome, "by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and ... that I may come to you ... in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ." (Rom. 15:30) Let us recover that.
The next example is in Acts 9:25. The Jews in Damascus, following Paul's conversion there, had plotted to kill him. "They were watching the gates, night and day, to kill him. But the disciples there took him by night and let him down over the wall, lowering him in a basket."
They did something like it again in Ephesus - physically restrained Paul from exposing himself to danger when he wanted to front up to the howling mob in the theatre there. Even some of the town councillors risked their jobs by taking sides with him. (Priscilla and Aquilla, Rom. 16:3)
They did it again in Thessalonica. After the uproar in the city there, they got Paul and Silas away under cover of darkness.
It happened again in Jerusalem (23:16) where the Jews vowed not to eat and drink till they had killed Paul, and were willing even to tangle with Roman troops to do it. Paul's own sister's son alerted the Roman Tribune to the danger, and saved the day. (Did those Jews keep their vow and starve to death?)
The point of all this is that the fellowship was real enough for them to share danger - real danger to life and limb.
In among Paul's list of spiritual gifts in 1 Cor. 12:28 - along with the higher gifts like apostleship, prophecy and teaching, and the lesser though more spectacular ones, like healings and tongues - you find 'helps!' And along comes Dorcas next in Acts 9:36-42, "full of good works and acts of charity." She had died in Joppa, where Peter was in fact to raise her up. Before he did, "they showed him the coats and garments she had made for the poor while she was with them" (v. 39) ... like blankets and clothing our women make for our missionaries in third world countries. Helps. What a radiating centre of good fellowship Dorcas must have been.
It is thought-provoking to observe that there are only two occasions in Acts when the apostles were gifted to raise the dead: one was Eutychus, a teenager; the other was Dorcas, a needle-woman. James the apostle was not raised from the dead: Dorcas and Eutychus were. They, not the up-front people! The Holy Spirit is surely indicating that it is not the big names that matter most, but the 'fellowship' - not the Chiefs but the Indians. In God's eyes, it is at least as important to have Dorcas's about who clothe the naked as to have James's about who preach the Gospel.
While we are in Acts ch. 9, we must not miss a simply marvellous little peep (v. 17) at what fellowship meant in the young church. Dear Ananias, who was just a rank and file member of the house church in Damascus, was sent "to the house of Judas in the street called Straight to restore sight to a man of Tarsus, named Saul."
Public enemy No.1 of the Christians was Saul - in Damascus to rout them out, like a Nazi officer hunting down Jews in the Third Reich, and send them bound to Jerusalem.
Now going to Saul was not Ananias's idea - the Lord directed him in a vision to do that. But when he did go, his greeting was, "Brother Saul." That was his own idea. Yesterday, Saul was Ananias' enemy; today, he is welcomed as 'Brother Saul.' Someone has said that the Church owes the apostle Paul to the brotherliness of Ananias as much as it does to the prayer of Stephen, for Ananias was the first Christian Paul met after his conversion. When Paul wrote in Rom. 15:7, "Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God," I wonder if a smile lit up his face, because the fond memory of dear, good Ananias, came to mind just then. 'To Paul 'the fellowship' was a precious thing - a marvellous thing. He, like all the rest, "tasted the kindness of the Lord" in it (as Peter was to put it - 1 Peter 2:3).
Later, as we read in Acts 9:26-29, he tasted it again in Jerusalem. He attempted to join the disciples there, but they were all afraid of him at first. Then Barnabas, that Son of Encouragement, introduced him to the apostles and spoke up for him, and thereafter "he went in and out among them at Jerusalem." (v. 28) The Fellowship!
Paul was to experience another touching example of it when he came to Rome - Acts 28. He had dreamed for so many years of taking the Gospel to Rome; but when he got there, it was not like he had dreamed it at all. He was a prisoner, not a free man. He was trundled along the Appian Way in a prisoners' cart, chained to a Centurion. But then you read (v. 15), "the brethren there, when they heard of us, came as far as the Forum of Appias and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God, and took courage."
That says so much, does it not? He was feeling thoroughly dejected, approaching Rome that way, and needed cheering up a bit. And their welcome did it: they were not "ashamed of his chains" (2 Tim 1:16) - standing there by the roadside, searching for his face among the rest, recognising him and waving, all smiles and bright eyes. And Paul touched Luke's shoulder, there beside him, and pointed, and their eyes pricked with tears of joy. The Fellowship - alive and beautiful as ever, half way across the Empire!
And while we are on this incident, it is worthwhile remembering why Luke was there in the prisoners' cart with him. Acts has to be read with a sharp eye to see it. The reason is concealed in ch. 27. Paul, at his trial before King Agrippa, had appealed to Cæsar, and he was put in the custody of a Centurion, Julius, to be taken as a prisoner to Rome. And Luke, the dear man, says - so quietly and unobtrusively - "when it was decided we should sail for Italy." We should? Why 'we'? Only Paul was the prisoner, and they did not take free men as passengers on prison details. The only way Luke could contrive to travel with Paul was to attach himself to him as a 'prisoner's slave.' Luke did that to be with Paul, all the way to Rome - surrendered his own freedom to give him company. The Fellowship!
When Paul wrote to the Philippians, where Luke had been their pastor, and put his finger on the dynamic of all true fellowship by saying, "Let each of you look, not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others," I wonder if there was not a catch in his voice while he dictated it - because he wrote that from Rome where Luke was with him, serving him, very likely, as the prisoner's slave still.
The last example from Acts might be called the Fellowship of Overseas Aid - Acts 11:27-30. In Antioch, the big northern centre of the Gentile Church, a prophet named Agabus warned of a world-wide famine ... world-wide, mark you, so it would affect them as it would everybody else. It happened, too, in the days of Claudius. And for whom was their first thought, those Gentile Christians in Antioch? - for their Jewish Christian brethren way, way south in Judea. They launched a relief fund at once, and sent a handsome gift by the hands of Barnabas and Paul. They had not been a church all that long - hardly more than 18 months. But their new-found faith, and the dimension of fellowship it inspired, prompted them to overleap the racial prejudice that had, until so recently, ruled them all their lives ... as though a bunch of Arabs, converted only a year or so, should beggar themselves, following an earthquake say, to help a distant Jewish congregation.
And the astonishing thing was that the Gentile churches all over the empire followed suit, so that wherever Paul went he found himself being pressed with gifts for the Jerusalem Poor Fund. 2 Cor. 8:1-5: "but first they gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God." That was the secret: the gift in the Grace of God - Christ Jesus. That was the fountain of inspiration of all their fellowship.
We have only run through the book of Acts, confining our survey to the evidence there. Had we put together all the additional evidence from the rest of the New Testament, we would have found it overwhelming.
We have not noted in Acts the heart warming way the quarrel Paul and Barnabas had over John Mark was healed in the years that followed. Nor have we included those occasions when the church in Antioch gathered round Paul on his return from each of his missionary journeys, and spent hours and hours with him, rejoicing with him over his triumphs and sorrowing and praying with him over his trials, frustrations and setbacks.
Had we surveyed the rest of the New Testament we should have had to talk about the fellowship of sufferings, and many other expressions of it ... like the self-denial the strong must accept to show a true care for the weak, and the submissiveness they learned to assume in a whole variety of relationships, and the ministry of encouragement, and of listening, and the ministry of holding-your-tongue, so as not to sour the fellowship with endless criticism (the fellowship is the gift and creation of God - to poison it is a grievous thing), and the ministry of bearing one another's burdens. On and on it went.
We give the last word to Clement, a Christian bishop, writing before the turn of the first century, which shows us what a Christian congregation then was like.
"Who has stayed with you and not made proof of the virtue and steadfastness of your faith? Who has not admired the balance and gentleness of your piety? Who has not reported your character so magnificent in its hospitality? Who has not congratulated you on your knowledge so mature, so certain? ... And all of you were of a humble mind, free from self-conceit, yielding rather than insisting, more ready to give than to receive. With the supplies provided by Christ you were satisfied, and giving heed to His words you had them carefully enshrined in your hearts, and His sufferings always before your eyes. Thus there was given to you all a profound and bountiful peace, an insatiable longing to show kindness, and an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit ... You were sincere and innocent and free from malice. All kind of unrest or schism was hateful in your eyes. You grieved over the transgressions of your neighbours; you judged their shortcomings as your own. You never wanted to go back on any act of kindness, ready unto every good work. Adorned as you were by an honourable and virtuous citizenship, you did everything in the fear of God." (C. Anderson Scott, "Fellowship of the Spirit" James Clarke & Co. Ltd. p. 120)
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