The new church was meeting and fellowshipping in Jerusalem as a group of believers following Jesus’ teachings and instructions. They spent time together and shared in all things. It states that all who believed were part of this church and thus the only qualification for membership in this new church was belief. It was belief that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, that caused them to form a new entity, a new body of worship and Christian community. They had all things in common. They shared every aspect of their lives with one another, both physically and spiritually. It was their belief in God and the infilling of the Holy Spirit that made them one. They realized that they all had one thing in common: that they were all sinners in need of a savior and that that savior had come and died on the cross for them. As a result they now had a new lease on life and shared a common goal that transcended any other motivation in their lives: to serve Christ with all they had.
How many times today do we segregate and divide in our churches, because we get together and decide that the only true way to do church is to come up with regulations that all have to adhere to based on our own understanding. We are comfortable only with certain a way of worship, a certain dress code, a certain group of people, and develop our own little club. We restrict memberships and invent new rules with which to ensure that only those that fit into our little society will enter. Paul warns the early church about such behavior in the book of Galatians. In chapter three verse three he asks the Galatians “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” The church in Galatia thought they had to get back to making rules and regulations for members to qualify to be part of their group. Paul further tells them in verse five “Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” In other words what is required to be part of God’s body? Faith in Jesus. Romans 10:9 tells us “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him form the dead, you will be saved.” That’s it. Nothing else is required. To go back to legalism and try to make church goers adhere to all the rules we can come up with in order to make sure no one undesired is among us is foolishness. In Jerusalem all who believed became members of the gathering of saints and so it should be today. Let us not add heavy burdens to the backs of those that want to celebrate Christ’s victory on the cross and live in freedom from bondage of the old life that has now been defeated. We are a new creation in Christ. And all that is required to be part of the body of Christ is faith.
Application
I desire to have the kind of koinonia fellowship with my brothers and sisters in the body of Christ that the early model of the church displayed. For that I have to have a fresh understanding of what Christ has done for me, so that I do not look to myself but to Him. When I am self-centered, I divide, but when I am Christ-centered I join together. Therefore, today I will read the epistle to the Galatians and meditate on it during my time with God.
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