Sometime between September 17, 2021, and November 20, 2021, this post was hacked into. I am holding out prayer no other posts have been tampered with: that my witness is secure.
Psalm 23:2-3:
He makes the way to green pastures. He leads beside still waters.
His word restores our souls.
Before the church was born at Pentecost, Heaven had a way of speaking into lives of people who would believe. It was hundreds of years before Jesus appeared, when David (a flawed man among a flawed people), heard from Heaven. David found stronger faith through believing the prophets and repenting.
David looked forward to the coming Messiah, but meanwhile found comfort in a personal prayer relationship with Heaven. David's relationship with Heaven was like the relationship Jesus promised the church. Jesus told those who followed Him that He would send "another comforter," the Holy Spirit.
It was through life in the Spirit that David knew Heaven, although David had not seen Jesus, who was yet to arrive. Despite the fact that we do see Jesus in one another today, the church kind of has a relationship with Heaven as David did: in the Spirit.
Although David had much more alone time, talking with Heaven, than most of today's church has, the church does know something about the importance of having personal space as a sanctuary.
That's the sense I get in remembering how Lydia, in the New Testament, offered her home for a few days' Christian fellowship, not based on anyone's need but based on her joy that a group of disciples had just saved her whole family. Lydia didn't want to part with those disciples right away but wanted to spend more time with them. In that moment, in Spirit, her home became a sanctuary not only for her, but also for those disciples.
It's in that sense that the early church shared with one another, not out of compulsion, and not based on a rule, but based on a desire to be supportive of those who were ministers, and a desire to spend time with those ministers.
In fact, the apostle Paul built on Jesus' teaching that disciples, or ministers, shouldn't carry money or extra goods when traveling from place to place, house to house, inn to inn, but should work as examples to others and should also depend on the kindness of believers who offered sanctuary and who wanted to continue worshiping together.
Through wanting time together because of ministry, the church began to have less alone time in the Spirit, but more shared time in the Spirit. And, so no one would have to worry about money, there was a sharing of goods, to support the ministers and those who traveled with them.
In terms of practicality, it was a little like when people join the armed services today and are deployed. Those servicemen and women kind of depend upon the kindness of the people in order to remain cohesive and do their work. But, obviously, most people are not in the armed services; and, like leaders and disciples of the early church, most people don't travel from place to place in ministry.
In the early church, most people were not those who shared all they had in order to minister: in order to, together, go from place to place, house to house (Acts 4:32). That wasn't everyone's calling to do.
Remember, even Jesus had asked some people to go in peace, to return home instead of following Him on foot. In fact, most of the mass who gathered at the Sermon on the Mount, went home after fellowship. And later, at Pentecost, when the church received the Holy Spirit, thousands were baptized but, again, most went home after their time together.
Today, there continues to be that way of being in Jesus, with some groups soldiering together in ministry, depending upon one another and upon others who are willing to be supportive. Yet, most of today's church does not so much soldier on in shared travels but meets together in sanctuary, both to do the work of the church and to fellowship like at Pentecost — but always departing and going on to create sanctuary at home (something hell likes to destroy, by the way).
That's all part of the life we live in Christ Jesus — or should be. I also believe it's worth saying that, when we read and teach that some of the early church shared everything they had (in order to go place to place in ministry), we should each seek Heaven's will for our lives and be accepting that, as Christians, we don't all have that particular practice of the early church as a calling, but that we all are called to be at home, in the church.
"He made the way for me to abide in peaceful pastures. ... He restores my soul." (Psalm 23:2-3)
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Two Articles for Background:
