Sunday Scripture

 

Again this Sunday, I'm sharing from the Made for Community reading plan from Love God Greatly that I worked on back in 2015.  With this study, as I have often done, I used the SOAP method of Bible study.  Just a quick reminder that the S is for Scripture, O is for Observation, A is for Application and P is for Prayer.  The fifth section is Living in Community with the Local Church.  So here we go with the Scripture for the second day of that section.  I took a bit of a deeper dive into this one, as you will see.

S= "And the multitude of those that believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that any of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." (Acts 4:32)

O= In the Scofield Study Bible, C.I. Scofield titles this section "Voluntary sharing among believers at Jerusalem."  There are several cross-references here.  "Those that believed" describes the true church.  A cross-reference is Acts 5:14 -- "And believers were the more added to the Lord; multitudes both of men and women."  The same cross-reference is given for "believed".

For the phrase "one heart and one soul", Scofield gives a cross-reference of John 17:21, where Jesus had prayed, "That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou has sent Me."

Our passage tells us that the believers at Jerusalem:

• were of one heart
• were of one soul
• didn't consider their personal possessions their own
• had all things common.

Scofield writes concerning this: "The experience of the Christians of the Jerusalem church in sharing their possessions is not to be taken as normative for all Christian churches or communities.  Their voluntary sharing of possessions in the time of persecution is a beautiful evidence of the oneness of the believers.  However, it should be observed that this communal sharing was 1) voluntary; 2) in a time of persecution; 3) evidently restricted to the Jerusalem church.

Warren Wiersbe writes in Be Dynamic, "One evidence of the unity of the church was the way they sacrificed and shared with one another.  When the Holy Spirit is at work, giving is a blessing and not a burden.  We must keep in mind that this ... was very unlike the political communism of our day.  What the believers did was purely voluntary and was motivated by love.  No doubt many of the new believers were visitors in Jerusalem, having come for the feasts, and they had to depend upon their Christian friends to help meet their daily needs."

He adds, "While the early church's spirit of sacrifice and loving generosity is worthy of our emulation, believers today are not required to imitate these practices ... It is the spirit of their giving that is important ... and not the letter of their system."

A= I believe that God still would have us to be "of one heart and of one soul" with our fellow believers.  We see Jesus' heart in this matter in John 17:21 -- "That they all may be one ... in Us, that the world may believe that Thou has sent Me."

I think also that believers today still cannot say any of our possessions are our own -- they belong to God.  He has allowed us to have them, and they should be used to bring Him glory.  Often that will mean sharing them with others.  We, and others we know, have even shared large possessions like vehicles with our church family, sometimes for months on end.  The "spirit of sacrifice and loving generosity" alluded to by Wiersbe is never inappropriate.

P= "Lord, I thank You for the wonderful example of the early church.  I pray that You will help me to be willing to share my possessions, even my precious time (which is not really mine at all) for the benefit of other believers.  Help our church to have a testimony of love and unity among its members, so our community may see that we are different.  I thank You for how You will work, in Jesus' name, Amen."

There is this week's study.  I hope it was a blessing to you!