LENTEN READINGS AND REFLECTIONS

DAY 20

Reading: Acts 1:1-6:15

This morning's readings take us out of the gospels and into the book of Acts. Luke, the same Luke who wrote the Gospel of Luke, also wrote Acts and he exercised the same care and attention to detail. The full name of the book is, “The Acts of the Apostles.” And that is precisely what it is.

Luke gives us an account of the birth and incredible growth of the 1st century Church founded on the witness, teaching, and proclamation of the apostles. Who, you may ask, are the “apostles”? The core apostles are the eleven disciples (excepting Judas Iscariot). A disciple is one who sits under the teaching of another. During Jesus' earthly ministry the twelve were sitting under his teaching and being formed by his words.

Just before Jesus ascended into heaven he commissioned the twelve to proclaim the good news of salvation to all peoples. He “sent” them. The word “apostle” means one who is sent.

The eleven disciples formed the inner apostolic core of the New Testament Church but through the Holy Spirit, God appointed and recognized other apostles. In Acts chapter one, Matthias is chosen to replace Judas Iscariot. In chapter 10 Saul (who would later be known as Paul) is appointed by Christ himself as an apostle to the Gentiles.

We see in chapter 1(and it is reiterated in chapter 10) that only those who personally witnessed the living and risen body of the Lord Jesus were eligible to be apostles. Thus, the apostolic office ceased after the first century although the apostolic ministry, proclaiming salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, continues to this day.

The book of Acts is a vital resource for understanding the purpose and mission of the Church. Pay close attention to what the Church in Acts is and does. It is founded and grows on the basis of apostolic preaching. Peter and John and the others proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ in the districts of the temple and the streets of Jerusalem .

The preaching follows a consistent pattern: convict, call, baptize. The apostles convict the crowds of their sins, specifically the sin of rejecting Jesus and contributing to his crucifixion. They call them to repent. Those who respond to the call and surrender their hearts to Christ are baptized and incorporated into the Church, the Body of Christ.

The Church, led by the apostles, established on the foundation of apostolicteaching (which is today recorded in the books of the New Testament), and made up of the converted, meet regularly to hear the apostles teach, to pray, to praise God in music and song, and to collect and pool their financial resources which are used to help other believers and to feed and clothe the poor.

The New Testament Church is our model. Every parish church, every congregation, and every believing member of the same is called actively and carry on the mission Christ gave to the first century Church.

This not only the responsibility of pastors and leaders, it is your call too. Notice how radically the believers in the book of Acts changed their way of life once baptized. All of their gifts and talents, not just their financial resources, were dedicated to building up the Body.

Its so easy, especially if you have been raised in a Christian home, to think of the Church as a building where a pastor preaches and you get communion once a week. That is not the New Testament model.

As a believer you are engrafted into a living Body. The Church is not a human invention. It was established and created by Christ himself and it is indwelled and enlivened by the Holy Spirit. To neglect and disregard the Church is to neglect and disregard Christ's own Body.

Though indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the Church is populated by sinners. So she is not perfect. She upholds and proclaims a Truth which she does not meet.

And yet the Lord loves her. He calls her his Bride. He did not just die to save a group of individual believers, living autonomously and independently. He died to save you and bring you into a new eternal family bound together by his own Blood and Spirit.

How is it then that so many believers regard Jesus' Bride with contempt? Many worship the Lord within the Body only when it is convenient to do so.

Sports, sleep, business, school, everything else comes before the Church. Why is that?

Perhaps the answer is that Church is the one place in our lives where the focus is not on us? It is wholly and completely on the Lord and on others. We sacrifice ourselves in praise and thanksgiving. We hear the Word of God. We confess our sins and make peace with God and with our fellow believers.

If we give ourselves wholly to it, we discover the truth of the Lord's words: in losing our lives, we find them.

But if we neglect the Body we will never experience the joy of self-giving love.

Pray this week about the place of the Body in your life. Is Church an afterthought or a priority? Does your dedication and commitment to the Body reflect the devotion of Christ for his Bride? Perhaps the Lord would have you change some habits and priorities? Perhaps he's calling you to renew past commitments or make new ones?

Pray that Christ will give you his heart for the Church.

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