Monday
Monday
Study
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.
Acts 2:42
Luke focuses on four marks of the Jerusalem church. The first is very surprising; we would probably not have chosen it. It is that a living church is a learning church. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.” This is the very first thing Luke tells us. The Holy Spirit, we might say, opened a school in Jerusalem that day. The schoolteachers were the apostles, whom Jesus had appointed and trained. And there were three thousand pupils in the kindergarten. It was a truly remarkable situation.
We note that those new Spirit-filled converts were not enjoying a mystical experience that led them to neglect their intellect, despise theology, or stop thinking. On the contrary, they concentrated on receiving instruction. I do not hesitate to say that anti-intellectualism and the fullness of the Spirit are mutually incompatible. For who is the Spirit? Jesus called him “the Spirit of truth,” so that wherever he is at work, truth matters.
Notice also that those believers did not suppose that, because they had received the Holy Spirit, he was the only teacher they needed and they could dispense with human teachers. No, they sat at the apostles’ feet. They were eager to learn all they could. They knew that Jesus had appointed them teachers. So they submitted to the apostles’ authority, which was authenticated by miracles. For if verse 42 tells us of the apostles’ teaching, verse 43 tells us that the apostles did many signs and wonders. Similarly, some years later Paul referred to his miracles as “the things that mark an apostle” (2 Cor. 12:12).
How is it possible, then, for us to devote ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and submit to their authority? For we have to insist that there are no apostles in the church today. To be sure, there are bishops, pioneer missionaries, and other church leaders, and we might perhaps call their ministries apostolic. But there are no apostles who have an authority comparable to that of the apostles Peter, John, and Paul. So the only way we can submit to the apostles’ authority is to submit to their teaching in the New Testament, for it is there that it has come down to us in its definitive form. Fidelity to the apostles’ teaching is the very first mark of an authentic church.
For further reading: 1 Timothy 4:1–13