In Acts, Luke describes, he doesn’t proscribe. That is, what we have in the book of Acts is a description of what the life of the community of faith was like, not a series of commands for what one must do. Nevertheless, by watching over the shoulders of these earliest followers of Jesus, we can gain considerable insight into what helps us grow on our journey with Jesus.
Early in his account, Luke offers a summary of the life of the church in Jerusalem:
They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)
Some particular things characterized them. They devotedly gave themselves to four “ingredients.” It isn’t that doing these things gave rise to the church as much as it is that the church life was lived out in this way. They lived like this because of who they were in Jesus.
In prior posts, working from the last on this list of ingredients, we looked at “continually devoting themselves . . . to prayer” and “to the breaking of bread.” That brings us to “continually devoting themselves . . . to fellowship.”
When contemporary followers of Jesus (particular those I have met in the States) think of “fellowship,” it seems that the prevailing idea is either “hanging out” or “eating meals” together (or both!). Although it is likely that those ideas are a part of fellowship, the idea seems to be a bit more intriguing than that.
The word translated “fellowship” comes from a root word that means “to have in common with.” Fellowship was more than just an occasional pot luck; it was a way of thinking about life. To be “continually devoting themselves . . . to fellowship” doesn’t mean that they were at all times of the day in some small group meeting, but it does mean that woven into the fabric of their living was this awareness that they were not in life alone. They realized that they shared a common life because of Jesus and lived into that common life.
If you’ve ever been with a tour group in a strange and foreign place you might be able to catch of glimpse of what I am talking about. As that tour group goes from place to place, your constant refrain is “I’m with them!” When walking through a museum, visiting some ancient ruins, lining up for a bus ride, or trying to get hotel rooms, there is a sense of “belonging” that comes in that identification: “I’m with them.” And the result of that “with-them-ness” is an experience of life together that might just give a sense of what fellowship is all about.
As followers of Jesus moved in and out of the scenes that make up daily life, walking through the market, conversing with neighbors, interacting with co-workers, carrying on their businesses, they lived with this common realization: We belong together!
That might get expressed in taking meals together from house to house, or gathering for times of corporate worship, or coming to the aid of one another in times of needs, or countless other ways. But such activities were rooted in something deeper than “We should really get together sometime”–it was the expression of a common realization.
We share one common life in Jesus.
2 Comments
So good. So needed. The problem is its so anti-american culture. Of course, following Jesus many times is contrary to what our culture says. May we all live more intentionally into our fellowship. Thanks.
You are so right, Jon. It seems that at times the culture shapes the way we think about the life of faith much more than it should. We end up with a culture/Gospel mix where what ends up defining us just doesn’t really look like what is pictured in the Scriptures.