As I look at the early Church – the Church as we see it in the various books of the New Testament – I see that people came to know Christ through a variety of methods used by the first Christians. The four primary approaches were public proclamation, private conversations, power encounters, and proliferation of new house churches. These were not expensive and highly organized programs or projects dependent on mere human genius, but rather natural, spontaneous, passionate, prayer empowered, and Spirit-led expressions of faith. Thus, the general principle of first-century outreach can best be described as wherever, whenever, whoever, and however.

Let’s look at these briefly…

Public Proclamation: A very common apostolic practice was that of verbal proclamation of the message of Christ in a public setting. The strategy used by the apostles was to find an area in a town or city that acted as a natural gathering place for its citizens, whether it was a riverbank, a synagogue, the Jerusalem Temple courts, a lecture hall, or a marketplace. They would then verbally present the good news of Christ.

Typically, they would tailor their message to suit their hearers, thereby making it seem less foreign. Paul, for example, appealed to the well-educated Greek listeners by weaving into his talk references to Greek religion and poetry as a connection point. Similarly, when talking with a Jewish audience, apostles and evangelists would relate how Christ was the fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies and was, in fact, the long-awaits Jewish Messiah.

In both situations, anyone who responded positively to the message of Christ would either be encouraged to join an existing house church or, if this was a new work in the area, would be encouraged to open up their own home as the first spiritual beachhead in that town. This approach in looking for a “man of peace” in a new area being evangelized was modelled by Jesus and imitated by both Peter and Paul.

Private Conversations: Individual believers also had private conversations with and prayed for people in need on an individual basis. These were not programmed or planned endeavours, but rather spontaneous interactions during the daily ebb-and-flow of life, sometimes referred to as ‘lifestyle evangelism’. Whether they were walking by the roadside (Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch), languishing in jail (Paul and the Philippian jailer), visiting someone’s home (Peter and Cornelius; Ananias and Saul), or when a non-believer visited a home meeting, ancient Christians were always awake to the opportunities of sharing Christ with others in a natural unforced conversational way.

More tomorrow…

I enjoy reading the Book of Acts. It is the story of the birth of the early Church and its growth as it spread into the majority of the Roman Empire over the first several decades. And, each and every time I read through this exciting account I see more about the life of the Church and Church life in the beginning. And, I gain fresh understand and admiration for the early Church recognizing that we today have much to learn from them if we want to become a viable option for the younger generation today.

The first Christians allowed their beliefs to determine their behaviour. Their function determined their form. And, their mandate determined their method. Let me unpack that a bit….

The early believers lived what they believed. In fact, they made life choices on the basis of their beliefs. Every day, according to Acts 2:42, they met daily and during these times learned the basic doctrines of the Christian faith – the “apostles doctrine”. Then, they lived out their beliefs in every day life. For this reason people joined with them in their faith and became members of their community of faith. This was a daily occurrence. The saints in Jerusalem sold their real estate holdings and gave the money to the Church so that the poor could have their needs met. They were sharing their faith daily because they actually believed that people went to hell if they did not have a personal relationship with the Living God through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23b and John 17:3). They lived what they believed.

In the early Church their function determined their form. In the early Church the people had their needs met by other members of the Body of Christ. There was no official ruling class of priests or pastors. Everyone had a ministry. The five-fold ministers (Ephesians 4:11-12) had the task of “equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.” There are 59 “one another” verses in the New Testament and, as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12, the various members of the Body ministered to the other members of the body. The clergy-laity (expert – amateur) divide did not yet exist. And, the five-fold ministry team would help to “equip the saints” for this ministry.

So, the early Church was both inwardly focused helping their own members without neglecting the outward focus of telling others about the Lord and seeing the lost saved.  In fact, their form and function enabled them to influence and impact the unsaved.

They lived in “community” and were involved in each other’s lives on a daily basis. They were connected, supportive, and involved. Transparent, vulnerable, and accountable. They were literally the “body” of Christ in their world. Because of this form they were known to unbelievers as “those who loved one another.”

Thirdly, their mandate determined their methods. The early Church understood their mandate. It was “to go into all the world and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19). It was to continue and complete the task that Jesus came to do … “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). The mandate was a large determining factor in the way they lived (see above) as well as in their methods of outreach.

They understood their culture; they were connected to the real world in which they lived; they were in the world but not of it … they were not so different from the world as to be strange and “separate.” They did not speak “Christianese” but related to others in the working language of the day. They were naturally supernatural and not strange, spooky, super-spiritual, and scary like a lot of believers today. They simply lived life with a new focus or perspective, new values, and an attitude that allowed them to fulfil their mandate.

The first Christians allowed their beliefs to determine their behaviour. Their function determined their form. And, their mandate determined their method. We would do well to study to Book of Acts and see exactly what they did and how they did it … and then think deeply about what you (we) do and how you (we) do it. Maybe as a result we will change and become more relevant than we are, touching our communities with the love of God as found only in Jesus.

Beliefs determine behaviour.                                                                              Function determines form.                                                                               Mandate determines methods.

Very pragmatic but it worked… as the early Church impacted, influenced, and changed the Roman Empire.

Almost weekly now I am gaining new insights into very familiar passages of the Bible. At times they come when simply reading scripture. Other times I gain a fresh understanding through a book that I am reading. Sometimes it simply “pops” into my spirit and I simply have a deep understanding of something I was not aware of before.

One recent one was from the time Jesus was speaking to His disciples about the Church. In Matthew 16 Jesus says, “I will build My Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” The Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and quietly said, ‘a gate is not an offensive weapon. It is a defensive posture.’ In other words, we build a gate in the fence to keep people out. So, Hell has a gate and it is meant to keep us out – keep us from rescuing those who are going to Hell when they die because they don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus.

This gate is not attacking us. It is not dangerous. We did not send weapon inspectors over to Iraq to see if there had ‘gates of mass destruction.’ Police do not carry ‘loaded gates.’ And, we don’t post signs on our fences saying, ‘Beware of the gate.’ A gate cannot hurt us. And, Jesus said, it cannot “prevail” against us. In other words, it cannot stop us from doing what He has commanded we do … “go into all the world and make disciples.” In other words, storm the gate and rescue the least, the last, and the lost. We have nothing to be afraid of. We don’t need to hide behind the four walls of our church building or in our prayer closets for fear of the devil and his demons. Attack!

So, we do not need to be afraid of the “gates of hell.” We need to understand deep in our gut that the devil is  defeated. He was defeated by Jesus through the Cross of Calvary and the resurrection on that first Easter Sunday. Peter writes that he is “like a roaring lion.” In other words, he makes a lot of noise but he doesn’t have any bite.

John, the apostle of love, states “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.” This verse states … we who are born again don’t continue to live in known sin; Jesus, the first born (or begotten) protects us and the evil one, the devil, can’t even lightly touch us even with one finger. There is no need to live in fear of him and hide from the reality of the call on our lives to “seek and save the lost.”

Just a simple, but very profound, insight into a well know scripture verse.