Tuesday, Oct. 4

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Tuesday

The first several chapters of the book of Acts tell the exciting story of the birth and rapid growth of the early church.  It is the story of how the Holy Spirit moved in the lives of the early Christians, empowering them and guiding to establish the Body of Christ on earth. It doesn’t take a Biblical scholar to see that the early church was growing. 

Acts 2:41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

Acts 2:47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 4:4 But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand.

Acts 5:14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.

References like these make it abundantly clear that what began as a small group of believers huddled together after Jesus ascended into heaven quickly grew and spread throughout the Roman world.

There are some folks today who view large and growing churches with suspicion.  They seem to feel that a large church cannot be a God honoring church.  I have heard Christians use the term “mega-church” as a term of derision, as if a mega-church is a bad thing simply because it is large.  Most church growth experts today would consider any church over 5,000 people to be a “mega-church”.  Look again at the verses above and you will see that the early church was a “mega-church”!  The point is that growth is good.  Growth is what God is after; growth in the heart of each individual believer, and growth in the number of people who come to know, love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ!  Let me say it again – growth is good!

The early church was growing rapidly; in fact it was growing so fast that it began to experience some real problems.  These same chapters in Acts also tell the story of how the Enemy (Satan) tried to destroy the church before it ever really got going.  Acts 2-4 tells of the opposition and persecution from the Jewish authorities.  Acts 5 tells the story of deceit and internal corruption among the believers.  Acts 7 recounts the persecutions and death of Stephen, one of the leaders of the early church.  It seems that the early church was both growing and struggling with challenges and problems at the very same time.

Acts 6:1 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.

Here we see that while the church is growing and making more and more disciples, a problem rises from within.  A dispute between two groups within the church (anyone who thinks that the Bible is irrelevant for today needs to read this story!)  We will get to the heart of this particular problem and how the early church handled it later this week.  The important point for now is that problems and pain always accompanies growth.

This really should not surprise us – growth, while good and desired by God, inevitably causes problems and pain.  We accept this reality when it comes to our physical bodies; we even call them “growing pains”.  Childbirth itself is painful (or so I have been told).  We know that as a child grows and learns to walk, they will occasionally fall down and scrape their knee.  Athletes understand that in order to grow and improve in their sport, they must go through painful training.  We see this principle at work in just about every area of life – there is no growth without some kind of pain.  Yet when it comes to the church, there are many people who see any problem or struggle as a sign that something is wrong.  

Perhaps the way we should view problems is not as a sign that we are doing something wrong, but as an opportunity to grow!  Perhaps our problems and struggles are actually a sign that we are growing as we seek to obey and follow God?

Jeff Frazier