If and
Why
(1-25-04)
Acts 6:1-4
Ken Davis, the Christian Comedian,
in one of his shows called “A Butane Bush, A Wimpy Prophet, and No Excuses”
talks about Moses talking with God. He shows a possible humorous take on Moses trying to get out of going to lead the people.
In that he argues that God said he was going to deliver the Israelites and then tells Moses –‘You Go!’ Moses
argues the point that God said He was going, the point Moses was most pleased with. There is security in knowing that your
with someone who can deliver. Thus Moses’ argument; ‘you said you were going.’ (Exo.3:7-12; 33:5, 12-17)
Jesus does a similar thing
with Peter in Mat.16:17-20 Here Jesus says He is going to build His Church and Peter hypothetically responds “You go
Lord, Do it, Dude!” Then Jesus does like His Father and says – “Now you Go.” You wonder if the sentiment
is – how can I go except you go with me. (Mat.28:18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven
and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go…”)
Jesus did in fact commission the
disciples to go but he assures them that they will not be left alone. Moses was assured that God would send His Angel to go
before them. Jesus assures that He would send His Spirit to be with them and in them and forever.
AC 6:1 “In those days when the number of disciples was increasing,..” Today’s reading leads us into an interesting juncture for the Church. The Apostles can see that the Church Jesus
was building was getting larger and this increase was creating reason for adapting or creating some kind of organizational
structure to help it continue to become what Christ was building. What I want to better understand is the unique character
of the Church as it grew.
This uniqueness of the Church is worth our study, but why? The fact that it was growing
is not unique. Neither is the creation and adaptation of functional structure in on going development of relationships. What
makes the Church unique from all other groupings of people? The Spirits indwelling existence in those who are members is the
only truly significant and radical difference.
In the book of Acts which is the telling of the story of the spread of this phenomena
called the Church the word Spirit shows up 61 times. (NIV) 41 of those times it is used with the adjective ‘Holy’
attached to it. Of the 20 remaining passages 4 are talking of a non holy spirit (evil) and one is in reference to a man’s
spirit (Stephens at his death) and one is a Pharisees quote as to a possible origin of Paul’s understanding. This makes
for a total of 55 passages in the book of acts that speaks about the Spirit in connection to the building and operation of
the Church Jesus is building through the laboring of those called.
What does this mean for us who look backwards 1970 years and see portrayed over a span
of some 60 years of written evidence (from Matthew through Revelation) that the Spirit must exist in the believer or that
person does not have a place in heaven. (Rom.8) (Rom.8:9-11)
Do you see why the Spirit is such an important issue? We could feasibly spend our whole
life doing Church and churchy things and living reasonably good lives and still not gain entrance into heavenly dwellings.
Do we each who profess to be Christian because of our close association to the Churches of Christ so boast because of that
association or because we have found it to be true that the Spirit of Jesus does abide in us? Amen!
