Our exalted Christ guards the purity of His church with a holy passion. Just ask Ananias and Sapphira, who were both struck dead after donating a large chunk of money for the needs of the poor, yet lied about the finer details of the gift.
God is serious about the sin of lying, but He is also serious about the sin of spiritual complacency. When God issues a command, each person must decide for themselves whether they will respond like young Samuel and say, “Speak, for Your servant is listening,” or just take a page out of Jonah’s book and board the first ship to Tarshish (1 Samuel 3:10).
To Obey Or Not To Obey
In Acts 1:8, Jesus issued the last instructions of His Great Commission mandate with a three-fold geographic progression. He said, “and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” In fact, the entire book of Acts can be outlined with these three geographic destinations in mind. It was in this progression of geography that the early church missed the mark of God’s revealed will and, subsequently, suffered the severe consequences.
Our Lord expected the disciples to commence with the proclamation of His gospel first in “Jerusalem,” then to “Judea and Samaria,” and finally to “the remotest part of the earth” (c.f. Acts 1:8). The problem with the early church, however, was that they simply never got around to leaving the comfortable city of Jerusalem. Once the day of Pentecost had come and gone, the church remained in Jerusalem for close to two full years before being thrown out by God Himself. The church had become complacent in their partial obedience and, consequently, refused to leave the convenience of Jerusalem for the fertile crops of the Judean mission field.
The pews, if you will, had become too comfortable.
Essentially, the main problem in chapters 1-7 in the book of Acts was this: The gospel of Jesus Christ never traveled beyond the walls of Jerusalem.
This was a significant obstacle to God’s revealed will of Great Commission Discipleship. After all, how can you fulfill Christ’s Great Commission to all the nations if every Christian refuses to leave the city?
The Jewish disciples were huddled together in a cozy Christianity, keeping the gospel all to themselves within Jerusalem’s walls. They were unwilling to venture out into “Judea and Samaria” and beyond with the saving gospel.
But why would they do such a thing?
There Is Nothing New Under The Sun
For one reason or another, the early church chose not to be fully compliant to Christ’s revealed will. Like King Saul, they were satisfied with partial obedience rather than remaining true to their core mission. But I am personally finding it difficult to really blame them. After all, the Lord was saving souls by the thousands seemingly each time Peter or John opened their mouths to preach, so it just may have never dawned on them to continue on with the mission they were given, rather than sit still.
No, I don’t blame the early church one bit, but that is only because I’m certain I would have been doing the very same thing.
Those Hellenist Jews who were raised in and influenced by the Greek language and culture from Acts chapter two, who believed the gospel message and got saved were, for the most part, remaining in Jerusalem. They weren’t returning back to their own cities and homes. There weren’t any Christian churches back in their home towns, after all, and so they were quite content to sojourn in Jerusalem where all the excitement was.
This is not too difficult to understand when we read, “Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles (Acts 2:43). When you consider the daily fellowship was so wonderfully sweet that they “were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people,” it is no wonder why the 5,000+ redeemed were not hurrying to get back to the humdrum of their old lives (Acts 5:46-47). Add to that the fact that “the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved,” and I can find almost no fault with them myself (Acts 5:47).
But that is only because I am a sinner who, like them, typically prefers the comforts of Christian fellowship rather than the lonely trail of evangelistic enterprise.
Nevertheless, as wonderful as all that must have been there in Jerusalem, it was not God’s long-term plan for Great Commission Discipleship. Jerusalem was not to be the Christian hub where believers congregated until the Lord’s second coming.
Jerusalem was the starting line for discipleship, not the finish line.
We’ll learn more about this tomorrow. Have a great day!
* Photo credit: premasagar (Creative Commons)