Slideshow image

What should be normative and ordinary to Christ’s Church and the local, visible churches within it? What should be normative and ordinary to us within Anchor Baptist Church? On Sunday, Nate pressed us with the aspects detailed in Acts 2:42-47 that this largely brand-new believing community is given to. It’s no accident that Luke records what he does in this section right off the back of v. 41, “So those who received his [Peter’s] word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” It’s almost as though Luke anticipates the question, “What did receiving Peter’s Gospel message by faith produce in this new believing community?”

As fallen humans and especially those in an age that is drowning in viral online content and sensationalism, the contents of vv. 42-47 can feel pretty humdrum. As Nate pointed out in his sermon, with the exception of the miracles that were confined to the working and specific purpose of the Apostles at that time, there is a lot of ordinariness in this passage. We might be tempted to think, “Wait. The things they were devoted to were just the apostles’ teaching, fellowship together, and communion together? This new normal was just made up of things like generosity, attending gatherings together, and hospitality toward each other? Really?!”

Really.

When we take honest inventory of what we want for God’s work and growth in His Church, what thoughts populate our minds? Do we tend to gravitate toward the spectacle, the sensational, and the extravagant? And if so, are we willing to lay down our vision in favor of God’s and apply ourselves to what He has said ought to be the ordinary reality of His Church?

If you’re like me, you know the enticing pull of the spectacle, the sensational, and the extravagant well. The sad part is that when we give into these desires, we miss how truly extraordinary it is when God brings spiritually dead people to life by the power of the Gospel and then leads them in a new ordinary in this “ordinary” way of life.

This week, may we seek to model the ordinary, everyday aspects of our lives after the ordinariness of our Acts 2 forefathers in the faith.