Hi First Presbyterian Church,
It’s time for our Mid-Week Meet-Up! This Sunday is New Member Sunday, when we will receive six new people into our church’s membership. How exciting! I hope you will be there to support these new members and celebrate the growth God is causing among us! We will also be continuing our five-week sermon series, focusing on our church’s five core values. Last Sunday, we discussed our core value called “follow.” This Sunday, we will explore our core value called “connect.”
“Connect” expresses the value we hold as a church of creating and sustaining life-giving relationships across all generations. During worship, we will be reading Acts 4:32-37 and Hebrews 10:9-25. The reading from Acts is an inspiring passage, but people also misunderstand the passage leading to confusion and even a misuse of the passage. The main reason for this is because of what it says in Acts 4:32-34, “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common… There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.”
Sometimes people read this passage and think that the scripture advocates for a government economic policy of shared wealth or collective ownership. This is not true, not because the early church would have necessarily rejected specific economic systems like socialism or capitalism (concepts that would have been totally foreign to them, anyhow), but because the early church was unconcerned with what political or economic systems were used by their governing authorities. Keep in mind that the Christian Church was born in the Roman Empire, an authoritarian government ruled by an emperor and whose economic system relied heavily on forced taxation, tribute, and the upward flow of wealth through means of patronage. Most of the earliest Christians weren’t even Roman citizens who could even benefit from Roman wealth if possible. While Christians believed that God granted the state the privilege to govern its people, they also understood that any human government was inherently flawed and, therefore, could not be fully relied upon to bring peace and righteousness. I recently read something church historian Jerry Sittser wrote, who said that early Christians did not focus on how the state came to power, but rather on how the state used its power and how Christians were to relate to it. In other words, Christians prayed for their governing leaders and some (like Justin Martyr and Tertullian) even addressed their governing leaders asking them to exercise justice and morality in their treatment of the populace, but Christians were unconcerned about whether they lived under an authoritarian monarch or a semi-democratic city-state. Why was this? Because they weren’t looking to human government to offer the world the hope of the Kingdom of God. God had already given that hope through Jesus Christ, and the Church was meant to be the continuation of Christ’s work through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let me put it a little differently. Early Christians didn’t look to human government for hope; they believed that the Church was God's chosen instrument to remake the world. Acts 4:32-37 is not about the secular government; it is about the Church! It is not about state economic policies; it is about the Church taking ownership of God’s mission in the world! You might wonder, “But what can the Church really do to remake the world?” O, ye of little faith! Never forget what Paul once wrote, “If God is for us, who can be against us?!” (Romans 8:31)
As you prepare for worship this Sunday, I pray you will consider how powerful our life together as a congregation truly is. When we faithfully give ourselves over to the mission of God with our time, talent, and treasure, anything is possible. We may even find that there is not a needy person among us (Acts 4:34).
Peace to you,
Pastor Aaron