okay we're still on the edgy cass uh religious studies a level section of christianity and we're looking at theme 2b which is entitled the community of believers so we know in acts of the apostle the earliest account uh of the spread of christianity in the first century we know that acts was widely thought to be written by luke the same writer as the third gospel probably a companion of paul now various dates have been given from when acts as written these range between 70 to 90 ce so we're talking at least 35 to 55 years after the death of jesus and what this theme is looking at is really trying to answer this question what was the community of the early christians like what form did their worship take how did they see themselves and these are all as i said questions that this unit is seeking to address alongside one other key question which is is the contemporary christian church the christian church of today anything like that model described in acts and if it's not should it be so let's explore this in a little more detail now with the beginning of the church first century we're talking about a movement or an alternative community we're not talking about a sunday morning service in the earliest days of the church it's quite clear that many christians didn't have set days for worship there wasn't a day of the week that was set aside all those christians certainly in the church in jerusalem were jewish so if anything the set day of the week would have been the sabbath friday evening to saturday evening but undoubtedly as we read in acts it was a very exciting time when thousands of people suddenly became christians joined a new movement which was uh which involves spiritual social political and financial dimensions now the term church actually comes from the greek work ecclesia which uh originally referred to a group of people who were called out in order to come together for political purposes that's actually what the what the word means so ecclesia group of people who came together for political purposes so it's this idea of coming together that's key in in in this ca in this concept now in a christian setting we would use this word to describe those who believe in jesus who come together as a group at any time and in any place now in the greek version of the hebrew bible the septuagint ecclesia is used interchangeably with the term for synagogue so this is really clear that the early christians still viewed themselves as belonging to the jewish religion in fact it's quite clear from the accounts in acts that they attended the synagogue they participated in jewish customs they prayed over and broke bread at the beginning of a meal which was common in jewish times particularly at the shabbat meal on the friday evening when the family would come together for a meal and it's also clear for back that jews and christians mingled with one another although it would also be true to say that the jews rejected the christians claims about jesus so in the first century the original church right at its very beginning shortly after the death of jesus was not considered by those in it as non-jewish that rift came decades later what we can see is there was one precondition for entry into that early christian church and that was baptism now this activity basically saw one into the new church jews practiced this it did exist there's references to it in the hebrew scriptures though generally the practice was for those who were converting into judaism so coming from another religion and becoming jewish accepting the jewish religion so that so baptisms is this idea that you are heralding into a new religion and we know that john the baptist offended some jews by promoting baptism for all jews even for those who were circumcised which is a symbol of your jewish jewishness in the gospels jesus commands his followers to baptize those who would be his followers and baptism brings about this whole idea of the symbolic the symbolism behind it of cleansing of holiness dying to self new life all these things are linked to this idea the fact that one comes down underneath the water and then you re-emerge fully clean a new life freedom from sin all that sort of thing all that masses of symbolism behind the rite of baptism sacrament of baptism so as far as the exam goes there's a key passage which is acts chapter 2 42-47 and i can't stress this enough you have to know this passage you don't have to know it off by heart but you need to know the key things that are within it and you need to be able to refer to this passage and show the examiner that you have a full understanding of what's contained within it so let's look at this passage now so the title for the passage is the fellowship of believers and this is what it said they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayer everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles all the believers were together and had everything in common they sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts praising god and enjoying the favor of all the people and the lord added to their number daily those who are being saved now this passage here is basically describing the very earliest christian community and i've highlighted some key passages here which are echoed in this graphic here so what we see in this early church what were they doing well they would devote themselves to a number of different things the teaching the apostles those early followers of jesus peter james andrew paul who came to be apostle because he had seen jesus so it's the teaching of the apostles fellowship is a key theme breaking of bread is another key theme as is prayer and we have this key phrase all the believers were together having everything in common this idea of selling property possessions giving to those who have need meeting communally together sharing everything that is what the early christian church appears to have been like so remember the early church came into being before there was any new testament written the first writings the earliest writings of the new testament are actually the letters of paul who was an apostle of jesus christ and those gospels came later those stories about jesus life were written after paul's first letters so what were the christians using as their holy book well the first christians would have used the bible as they knew it so that would be the old testament that would be the law in deuteronomy in exodus in leviticus the writings of the prophets such as isaiah jeremiah etc the writings of the hebrew scriptures so it's quite clear they were using the old testament but at the same time that passage in acts 2 points to the importance of the additional teaching by the apostles so as well as the old testament they were using apostolic teaching as some form of scripture so if that's what they were using what was it now the apostles teaching greek word didachy was preached in the early church in what the new testament scholar ch darden here he is on the left and others have termed the kerygma so the kerygma which literally translating for the greek means proclamation is the key facts the key teaching of the gospel and we study this in much more detail later on in the course but in reality when we're talking about the kerygma and as i said we will deal with this later on in much more detail this core message of christianity this is what we mean the old testament prophecies have been fulfilled the messiah has come and you can link back to matthew's gospel and all those old testament prophecies in the nativity that fulfill that this has happened through the life death and resurrection of jesus who was born of the house of david and died to save mankind jesus was buried resurrected on the third day according to the scriptures he ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of god he will come again to be that should say humankind's judge and savior therefore because of this everyone needs to be repent needs to repent of their sins and be baptized in his name in order that they could be saved so that was the in a nutshell the charisma of the church that was what the apostles were teaching um and to which the early christian community was devoted how do we know that well we have two distinct speeches in acts by peter which as i said we will look at in in detail in a later time which basically outlines those seven key themes that i've put down here so we know that was the case we know the apostle peter preached these we've got at least two different references to it so we we assume that the kerygma the key teaching the thing that they were devoting themselves to was this these key beliefs which are actually summed up later on in the nicene creed 300 years later when the christian church pulled all this together so let's look at these other key themes as well as the apostles teaching we have fellowship mentioned so this is in contrast to the idea that churches are only people sitting in rows facing the front quietly listening to teaching by a priest um an essential aspect of church is fellowship so the greek word for that is koinonia which means to have communion to participate in so fellowship is much more about being involved so acceptance of the curriculum baptism led those believers to fellowship a special relationship with god through jesus and indeed a relationship with each other and that's expressed through partaking in communion the eucharist the mass the the bread and the wine the body and blood of jesus symbolic of his suffering and death on the cross to save humanity from sin and to have eternal life as a result of that and we can see we've got a really tangible sign of this fellowship because they considered their material possessions to be in common and as we know in that passage passage max 2 they uh they shared everything and sold their goods and distributed that to anyone in need now this has led to some saying well you know they were early communists you know many commentators note actually this isn't the case it doesn't preclude private ownership and private wages uh being voluntarily brought to the community um as communism would they would advocate no private ownership etc however there's no doubt that those early christians were putting their money where their mouths were so let's have a look at the next bit devoting themselves to the breaking of bread now some have seen this as a reference to the eucharist the lord's supper the mass but the in reality that could be much more simple so as i've said before it was a jewish practice to pray over loaves and then break them before a meal so it could be that this passage is merely referring to the fact that early christians shared common meals in various homes in fact later on the passage refers to the community eating meals together in their houses so it could be that at some point these communal meals became combined with the lord's supper the eucharist etc many scholars consider that the meaning of the phrase is determined by its context again sorry for the typo there i can't spell the word of so let's look at the context so some say well when it's used in the context of worship as in acts 242 it's referring to the eucharist so when we're referring to breaking of the bread in terms of worship then we're talking about the eucharist the mass the lord's supper the communion but when we're using it in the context of a meal at home then it's referring to that jewish practice remember these early christians saw themselves as jews acts 2 46 also notes that the first christians ate together with sincere hearts and this could mean that these were simple meals matched with plainness and honesty of speech and life and that's put forward by the theologian g be cared make of that what you will the next theme we have coming through is devoting themselves to prayer now we know that jewish men in jerusalem went to the temple to pray at least three times a day and it's quite clear that the apostles and their followers still stuck with this custom however we also know that the early christians also meant to pray in private homes and there could be several reasons for this it could be that the firstly the pentecost experience when the holy spirit came down and visited the early christians as outlined very early on in acts that experience of receiving the holy spirit may have been so intense that it compelled them to seek constant fellowship with god and each other or it could be that the practice brought them into contact with pious jews which then enabled the early christians to introduce those pious jews to the concept of jesus messiah thereby adding to their numbers and also thirdly they were aware that prayer was the main source of strength as a community so any of those three reasons or a combination of those three could be the reasons why they weren't just praying at the temple but were carrying this on in their private homes so our next question um you know you know the word is is a plural so it implies there are different types of prayers so we can assume that they were using jewish prayers that they were familiar with along with the prayers they may have learned from jesus and also the new prayers that came from the apostles teaching so you know they they would have been familiar with prayers in the old testament such as the psalms if the lord's my shepherd i shall not want he makes me down to lie the common jewish prayers such as the 18th benedictions the shamona ezra or the amidah the lord's prayer our father who art in heaven taught by jesus related in matthew chapter 5 i think and then various new christian hymns and psalms that may have been written by other believers so that's the sort of thing we think they would have been doing when it comes to prayer again we've stressed this idea they had all things in common acts 245 states that all those who believe sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need this is that reference to communism that i made earlier on well it doesn't mean that early christian communities taught some kind of religious communism um it doesn't necessarily refer that phrase all the believers were together and had everything in common may not actually refer to the distribution of wealth and it's quite clear certainly from early christianity and indeed the writings of acts that the communal life wasn't compulsory for all christians because we know that elsewhere in acts believers own property if you look at acts 12 12 we know that the apostles met in a hose that should say house belonging to mary mark's mother so she owned her own property so certainly there wasn't any mass selling off of property and everyone um you know everyone living as a as a commune that is definitely not the case i think more what we've got here this idea of having being together and having everything in common i think what luke's getting at here is he's testifying to the voluntary loving and selfless attitude of the early christians we've got the holy spirit acting in their lives and causing them to care in an agopistic way for their less fortunate colleagues and agape one of the many different words for love in greece is a selfless sacrificial unconditional love the highest form of love in in the greek in the greek language there are many different words for love in greek so maybe that's what luke's getting at when they're saying they have everything in common they are together and they're giving to those in need they're recognizing that their fellow man or woman is in need and they're giving that selfless unconditional sacrificial love giving their stuff to those who have a greater need than they do they are exercising agape remember of course that jesus's greatest commandment is love your neighbor as yourself agape so also it's clear that not everyone receives material help only those in need so that's why it doesn't look like it was a general redistribution of wealth which is communism so a number of things to consider here nowhere else in the new testament is there a mention of a similar community to the one in jerusalem the experiment seems to have been restricted to the earliest years of christianity and it may have been actually a failure therefore you might want to consider as it only appears in jerusalem with those early christians who were without doubt had their roots in judaism as a pair as compared to the other churches created by paul who were gentile in origin it may well be that that very first church in jerusalem didn't work out may have been a failure so when we're thinking about should the contemporary church be like that you may want to take that into consideration we know that paul founded numerous churches in the gentile world far away from that jerusalem church and there's little doubt that those churches would have worshipped in different ways it would also be true to say that those early communities were also not ideal there were problems with false behavior from new converts even in the jerusalem community and you can look at the story of ananias and sapphira's deception in acts chapter 5 to get an example of that there are certainly uncertainties even among the lead apostles about how jewish new converts should be so in other words should they be circumcised should uh should they carry on keeping kosher paul is preaching to gentiles imagine if you're converting someone to a brand new church and you go oh and by the way you've got to give up eating pork you can't combine meat and milk and a meal no shellfish oh by the way we need you to be circumcised that would not have been actually a good way of embracing people into this new um religion and would be actually would have put people off so as we look through acts we can see that paul is definitely at loggerheads with peter so paul in the gentile church peter in the jerusalem church and there's definitely a spat a quarrel between the two of them as to how jewish this new sect this new branch this new religion should be and we can see that paul reminstrated with that church in jerusalem and with peter and once it was once it was clear that jesus's salvation is for all gentiles um that there's an argument about whether they can run a two-tier church with a gentile and or jewish behavior and you could you can look at philippians 2 11 16 to to to get an idea of that also paul had a number of problems in his churches with abuses of the eucharistic meal you know people stuffing themselves with food ignoring those who had none he had ideas of false teachers who taught false doctrines immorality among new converts including sleeping with your father's wife we've got issues with jewish legalism thinking you could be saved by following jewish law rather than faith in christ and if you look at paul's letter to the false paul's first letter to the church in corinth in greece one corinthians all these issues are being addressed so in his first letter to corinthians paul is clearly writing to a church in crisis and there are these numerous references that you can go through where paul is answering questions and addressing issues that have cropped up amongst this this church and when we come to his second letter to the corinthians two corinthians these issues appear to have been addressed and the church is functioning uh much better so clearly there were issues in the early christian church by no means was the jerusalem church ideal but at the same time was by no means were the gentile churches founded by paul ideal either each had their independent issues so this then leads us on to is the contemporary christian church anything like the model described in acts well we know that despite the numerous different denominations within christianity today the different churches i think would all still claim that they encompass the basic themes of the community in acts following the apostles teaching prayer fellowship breaking of bread etc etc and you have to know those key themes you must learn them okay so the worship and the sacraments of all christian denominations they would argue hop back to that early church the different ways of religious teaching well that creates more of a problem mission is part of it as well service and outreach different forms of fellowship so all of these are part of the various different christian denominations they go above and beyond what is mentioned in the church of acts some of them add more grist to the mill in terms of whether the contemporary church is like the church in acts some add weight to the argument they're not so you could argue that these bits are extra but they do refer to the agapeistic way of looking at things and so forth and so forth so therefore they are embracing that central theme of the church in acts so let's look at the teaching many traditional churches now follow a lectionary an organized way of reading through the old and new testaments in public worship however so i suppose you could argue in that it's not like the early church in that is much more rigorous and formal but at the same time many other churches also offer sunday school confirmation classes adult instruction so in that way it is so what i'm doing with these various bullet points is giving you different views to get your own head around whether you think it is the same or it isn't and these are all arguments for and against um you can look at the fact that martin luther famously wrote the small catechism so the christians could learn at home as well as in church we know in in the the church in acts they worshipped at home so that would seem to indicate that the current church is very similar you've got the piatism movement in christianity that emphasizes personal holiness christian growth and this has led many churches to organize small group bible studies and members homes so that would make it very similar to the church announced so i suppose what we're looking at here in the teaching aspect is whether you have christian denominations that solely go for the sunday service at church with a rigorous set out pattern of worship and if you have churches like that then i think you would argue they are not like the church in acts whereas if you have churches that have a variety of different ways of demonstrating fellowship then you have churches that are like the early church in acts if we look at sacraments there's issues here the term sacrament isn't found in the new testament okay it's a latin translation for the new testament greek term mysterion so by the third century um so again long after the uh the final books the old testament had been written baptism and communion are commonly referred to as sacraments augustine defined the word as an outward sign of a sacred reality and an inward blessing the idea is you've got an outward sign of a visible inner act of god and what we've got is disagreement on sacraments so the council of trent declared there were seven baptism confirmation eucharist penance extreme munching holy ordered marriage that's the catholic church's view the protestant church just says baptism and communion so is that a big issue well they all agree on communion breaking of bread and that's the one that's mentioned in in acts they all agree on baptism and that's the one that's mentioned in us they disagree on some of the others but they're not mentioned in that um i've mentioned that bit so there we go reformers believed in only two which were commanded by jesus but some christian denominations such as the quakers interpret baptism the lord's supper's only inner experiences and therefore don't practice let's look at worship now so we know that the centrality of worship for christians is found in jesus command to love god with one's entire being with all your heart with all your soul with all your voice that's a reinstatement to the first commandment in exodus 20 in deuteronomy 5. so what makes christian worship distinct is that christians are identifying jesus with god they're interpreting the hebrew bible as showing that jesus is the messiah that is prophesied so that mean that is christology so that is when we see references to god in the bible they're the same as references to christ particularly in the old testament some traditional churches attempt worship in a way that has a continuity of the past using religious language music and art to express prayers thanksgiving an example of this would be the traditional church of england anglican worship service it's very much a set pattern you stand you say the same things you recite prayers etc etc is that similar to the one we had in um in the early church in acts well to some extent yes because we know they were using old testament uh psalms they were using passages from the apostles that's not a lot of difference between a to a traditional church service and we have other churches nowadays that attempt to convey their worship using contemporary forms of art and music such as contemporary christian music the you know they're often referred to as happy clappy um does that mean they're not like the church in acts you make your own decisions on that one um let's talk about mission for a bit now it's clear in the the final words of jesus in the gospel of matthew are go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and the son the holy spirit teaching them to obey everything i've commanded you now we know that the early church in acts was converting new believers to their way of thinking this is often called evangelism evangelism comes from the greek word evangelon meaning good news sharing the good news of salvation through jesus some churches have interpreted mission as being missionaries traveling to those who haven't heard about jesus and converting them is that any different from what paul was doing going out into the gentile world but at the same time the history of the christian church has been both responsible for helping cultures to progress culturally and spiritually as well as being agents of white supremacy furthering capitalism and industrialism and neglected the humanity of those not considered christian so some people argue that the way uh certainly um in late in the 19th and 20th century the christian church evangelized areas such as africa south america etc we didn't necessarily cover ourselves in glory and certainly won't be very agapeistic in our way of thinking and this also links to the concept of service and outreach so while some christian church bodies continue to embrace a traditional view of mission as in missionaries etc other churches and theologians have emphasized that you can't separate mission from service one of the rules of the franciscan brotherhood is that friars should preach by their deeds so jesus taught the disciples to wash one another's feet in other words perform the task considered the most lowly in fact the term minister comes from the greek word diconia which actually means to serve for which we won't get the word deacon so it also meant to wait at tables okay uh also linked to the term do leo which is to serve as a slave so this idea of service and outreach which is really about giving yourself freely agapestically in the service of others your fellow humankind so you'll find christians involved in service all over the world be educational outreach programs medical outreach humanitarian missions all across the world is that like the early church i think you can argue it is some contemporary examples include quakers involved in social causes pope francis speaking out for the poor and the oppressed world vision and other para church organizations feeding the hungry curing the blind etc etc christian aid week for wanted a better fellowship that key theme the idea of the church as a congregation as passive participants and the servants run by professionals i think many churches would argue falls below the ideals imagined for them one historic reaction to the political status of the church was monasticism where christians gathered largely into an egalitarian equal society devoted to spiritual and material well-being that to me appears very similar to that early church in jerusalem and again i've mentioned before piatism a movement across church bodies that emphasizes holiness giving rise to prayer meetings bible studies mission trips other intense other intense communal life and a contemporary restatement to the importance of fellowship can be found in dietrich bonhoeffer's life together where he says that the church is a community of love of agape which assists our growth into maturity and christ-like action in the world so how do you evaluate all this well the evaluation questions on this topic will tend to center around the question above or to the extent to which today's church should seek to follow the new testament model so basically the conclusions you can draw fall into three general categories you either say the new testament model's an excellent model of contemporary christians you know they were united in beliefs practices worship the communal life they were guided by the holy spirit its apostles spoke with authority they gave strong leadership they performed miracles it was focused on prayer and converting others to the religion so it was mission orientated disagreements appeared to be settled swiftly it was joyful it was enthusiastic it was effective and it obviously appealed to outsiders hence his dramatic rise in numbers so it was a really good model for therefore contemporary christians should follow it or you go down the route of saying it was a flawed model for contemporary christians we've got evidence of disobedience of lying to the holy spirit love of money of favoritism of jealousy of inconsistent leadership it was only concerned with converting jews you've got the peter versus paul debate you've got the problems with the church in korean in corinth all of these would seem to indicate that it wasn't an ideal model or and i think if it was me personally asking question this is where i'd be coming from i'd say the new testament model had some good points that contemporary christians should follow uh but also some bad points which some contemporary christians should disregard and i'd mention the good and the bad and given argument and uh i think i'd argue for a middle ground between the good points and the bad points and i think i'd argue that uh most contemporary churches are embracing most of the good points so that's how i go about evaluating this topic hope that all makes sense to you