Koinonia
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
This passage from Acts describes the first early days of the church, a month and a half after Jesus has been raised from the dead, and just days after he had ascended into heaven. This is right at the beginning of the church itself, the Day of Pentecost. If we back up a bit in this chapter, we find Peter’s sermon, and his exhortation to be baptized. We’re told that those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. Can you imagine that? One sermon, three thousand converts. It can make us a bit nostalgic, wondering what it might have been like to be in the crowd that day.
Then we read that in the days after, everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. We read about believers being together, selling property and possessions so that nobody had need. They broke bread and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. We hear this, and we long to experience it ourselves. Or maybe we hear it and are skeptical—it sounds too good to be true.
But this is a lived faith and a living faith. It is a living faith in response to what the Spirit of God is doing among them. When we realize that—that it is a faith lived in response to what God is doing—maybe it helps us to see in a different light these beautiful signs of fellowship. The great numerical growth, the sacrificial giving—these were not the cause of a healthy church, but effects. That lasting fellowship, or koinonia, grew out of God’s work, and out of the deep, healthy, living faith of those first Christians in response to God’s work.
Sometimes it seems like a contrast to today. Today we are used to something moving us, seemingly deeply, but then going back to the routine. We might watch a video clip on social media, or a TED talk on youtube, and be moved deeply, be cut to the heart. But then we go back to our daily lives, and that moving experience is just a memory. When we read in Acts about the early church, we see those emotional moments and experiences—on that first day they were cut to the heart and drawn into repentance. But then there was also a more lasting change—they did not just go back to their daily lives.
What we see is how those early Christians nurtured the faith they had been given, and how it took root and lasted beyond the emotion and excitement of that first day when they were cut to the heart. So how did they nurture their faith? Verse 42 gives us a picture of their practices. It was a church focused on the apostles’ teaching, on fellowship, on the breaking of bread, and on the prayers. These actions nurtured their faith in response to the movement of the Holy Spirit. Might these same actions nurture our faith and our fellowship together in response to the same Spirit?
May that same God grant us such devotion.