The Infant Church
The Infant Church
The disciples had only ten days to wait. Then suddenly, while they were praying together for the promise to be fulfilled, it happened. Accompanied by the noise of wind and the appearance of fiery flames, the Holy Spirit came and filled them all. It was the culminating event of Christ’s saving career, for, as Peter explained in his sermon that same morning, it was Jesus Christ who brought the significance of his birth, death, resurrection and ascension to its climax by pouring out his Spirit from heaven.
Pentecost must also be understood fundamentally as a missionary event. The miracle of the foreign languages which the disciples spoke symbolized the international Christian community which was about to be brought to birth by the gospel.
Three thousand people were converted, baptized and added to the church that day:
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)
One marvels at the clarity and forcefulness of the early preaching of the apostles. Luke gives us four sample sermons by Peter—on the Day of Pentecost, after the healing of the cripple outside the temple’s Beautiful Gate, before the Jewish Council and to the household of Cornelius (Acts 2:14–40;3:12–26;5:29–32; 10:3443). Although of course he supplies only a précis of each, it is enough to show the content and pattern of Peter’s proclamation.
Peter preached Jesus Christ, his life, death and resurrection. During his life he was divinely attested by miracles. His death was due both to the purpose of God and to the wickedness of men (Acts 2:23). Though men denied and killed him, God vindicated him by raising him from the dead. And now he is exalted as Lord, Christ, Savior and Judge. Moreover, all this is doubly confirmed by the testimony of Old Testament Scripture and of the apostolic eyewitnesses. Therefore, let them repent of their sins, believe in the name of Jesus Christ and be baptized, for then they will receive the blessing promised to Abraham’s seed, namely the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit.
It must not be imagined, however, that the infant church had no problems. No sooner had Jesus Christ through his Spirit launched his offensive to conquer the world than the devil mounted a powerful counterattack. The devil’s strategy was threefold.
First, he tried the crude weapon of persecution (Acts 3–5).When Peter and John started “teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:1–2), they were arrested and brought to trial before the Sanhedrin. Here they witnessed to Jesus with wonderful boldness, declaring him to be the only Savior. The Council was deeply impressed, knowing them to be uneducated men, but forbade them to “speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus” (4:18). Peter and John replied that they must obey God not men, and that in any case they simply could not help speaking of what they had seen and heard. Then, after they had been further threatened, they were let go. The apostles went straight to their Christian friends and together they prayed to the sovereign Lord of nature and of history not for their safety and protection, but that they might be given courage to go on speaking his word. So the preaching went on. They were again arrested, and now imprisoned, but an angel of the Lord released them and told them to go and preach the gospel in the sacred precincts of the temple itself. Once more they were arrested and brought to trial, but this time the Jewish Council, cautioned by the Pharisee Gamaliel that they might be found opposing God, did no more than beat them and repeat the injunction not to speak in the name of Jesus. The reaction of the apostles?
The other weapons which the devil wielded against the church were more subtle. Unable to crush it by external pressure, he tried to undermine it from within.
The generosity of the early Christians had led many of them to sell their lands and bring the proceeds to the apostles for the relief of those in need. A married couple called Ananias and Sapphira decided to do the same, but then to keep back part of the money for themselves while pretending to surrender it all. Their property was entirely at their own disposal both before and after the sale, as Peter later made clear. They were under no obligation to give any of it away. Their sin was that they wanted the credit for giving everything, without the cost. If they had succeeded in their deceit, hypocrisy would have begun to seep into the Christian community. Peter detected their lie, however, and they paid for their duplicity with their lives (Acts 5:1–11).
The third satanic weapon was the most indirect. It was to preoccupy the apostles with social administration (to be precise, the care of Christian widows) and so divert them from the teaching role to which God had called them. But the apostles were alert to this danger. So they delegated the task. They instructed the body of the disciples to choose seven “deacons” (as they are usually called) to take over the church’s welfare work, so that they could devote themselves to their God-given priority, namely “to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
When the devil’s initial three-pronged counteroffensive had failed, Luke was able to write:
So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly. (Acts 6:7)
One of the seven was Stephen, a Christian man full of grace, faith, wisdom and power. Accused of speaking against the law of Moses and the temple, he was brought before the Council. His defense, recorded in Acts 7, is a masterly narrative of God’s dealings with Israel, designed to demonstrate that God is tied to no place or building but only to the people whose God he is. He ended his speech by accusing his accusers. They were stiff-necked, he said, always resistant to the Holy Spirit, and now guilty of murdering the Christ. At this they rushed on him, threw him out of the city and stoned him to death.
But in the providence of God the death of the first Christian martyr helped rather than hindered the spread of the gospel. For the persecution of Christians which followed it scattered them throughout Judea and Samaria, and wherever they went they preached the word (Acts 8:1–4). Among them was Philip, who was another of the seven “deacons.” He was given conspicuous success in evangelizing Samaritans, who for centuries had been repudiated by the Jews. So the apostles (who had stayed behind in Jerusalem) sent Peter and John to investigate and endorse what had happened, thus avoiding a continuance within the church of the Jewish-Samaritan schism. Philip also explained the good news of Christ crucified to an Ethiopian state official who was on his way back home from Jerusalem (Acts 8:5–40).
This outreach to Samaria and Ethiopia was only the prelude to the Gentile mission which soon began. Luke introduces it in Acts with two significant conversions, of Saul of Tarsus and (through Peter’s witness) of the Roman centurion Cornelius. These events indicate the vital part played by the great apostles Paul and Peter in opening the gates of the church to Gentiles.
Saul of Tarsus is first mentioned as the man who minded the clothing of those who were stoning Stephen. It is conjectured that he never forgot the courage and love of this Christian martyr who prayed for the forgiveness of his enemies. But he continued to stifle the voice of conscience and savagely to persecute the church, until that memorable day (described no fewer than three times in Acts) when Jesus Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus and (as he was later to put it) “apprehended” him. After reaching Damascus he learned from Ananias that he had been called to be an apostle as well as a disciple, and to be Christ’s chosen instrument to carry his name before Gentiles as well as Jews (Acts 9:15). His conversion must have taken place between three and five years only after the crucifixion.
Almost two complete chapters of Acts are devoted to the story of Cornelius’ conversion, so important an event did Luke consider it (Acts 10–11). For Cornelius, although a “God-fearer” on the fringe of the synagogue, was still a Gentile outsider. It took a special vision to convince Peter that he should enter Cornelius’ house and preach the gospel to him, and it took a special repetition of Pentecost (as I think we may describe it) to convince him that God now made no distinction between Jews and Gentiles but granted his cleansing and his Spirit to all believers without discrimination (Acts 10:47; 11:17; 15:7–11).It was an immense leap forward.
Some of those who left Jerusalem after Stephen’s martyrdom traveled north to Antioch, which was the capital of Syria and the third most renowned city in the Empire. They preached the Lord Jesus to the Greeks, and a great number believed. Hearing about this, the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to Antioch, and he in his turn fetched Paul to help him. For a whole year these two men taught the converts. Here (in Antioch) the first Gentile church was established, for the first time the disciples were called Christians, and the first missionary expedition was launched (Acts 11:19–26; 13:1–3). The date was now about AD 47.