This is the second post continuing on from part one. Click here to read part one. Part two will make more sense.
The New Testament book of Acts–which tells such incredible stories–is not literary fiction, nor is it the make-believe world of Broadway theater or Hollywood films. Instead, it is the truth–the truth about flesh-and-blood people, living in real time and in actual places, with families and jobs and insecurities, who had impact on contact with their culture. The book of Acts is the truth about what the church of Jesus Christ really looks like.
And that leaves me wondering about things.
If the book of Acts does not tell the truth about the church, then where is that truth found?
If its record is not the truth about what the church really looks like, what is that truth? And how do we know?
Do we just make up a definition of the church on our own?
Do we let the modern church write its own definition? And, if so, which of all the modern churches would that be?
Either the book of Acts gives us a true picture of the church of Jesus Christ or the church can be whatever we want it to be. And the latter is a sure recipe for disaster.
It frustrates me that after two thousand years, Christians still view the book of Acts as the exception rather than as the rule.
Oh, we are quick to admit that God did extraordinary things . . . then . . . and there . . . with special visitations of the Spirit, and spectacular gifts, and sensational miracles, and breathtaking revivals, and mass conversions. But, we are equally quick to point out that that was then and this is now. Acts, we assert–even if it is only a subconcious assertion–is the exception to the rule.
What rule is that?
Seriously.
What rule is that?
That God sits on his hands and does nothing?
Where is that rule written?
That God worked so hard in the first century that he wore himself out and has been resting ever since?
Where is that rule written?
That the Holy Spirit has retired and is living as a recluse off his residual income on some tropical beach and wants to be left alone?
Where is that rule written?
That Jesus doesn’t do impact-on-contact anymore?
Where is that rule written?
If the book of Acts is not the rule, what is the rule? And who says so?
If the church doesn’t really look like what the book of Acts says it looks like, then what does it look like?
And who says so?
And by what authority?
To take seriously the whole New Testment, but specifically the book of Acts, is to see its record as the rule and the modern church as the exception; its record as the truth and the modern church as the aberation; its record as the chicken farm and the modern church as the poultry section at Schunucks.
Maybe I should explain that last one.
Walk into Schnucks, or any other grocery store, and in the poultry section you will find an amazing assortment of chicken parts–packages of wings, and legs, and thighs, and quarters; chickens divided in ways that no chicken would ever want–and even whole, frozen chickens, though without their customary heads and legs, and certainly without their feathers. But each of those packages seperately or all of them together cannot give you a true picture of what a real, living, breathing, cackling chicken looks like or what it does. In fact, if your only understanding of a chicken comes from what you observe at the poultery section in Schnucks, you have a really warped concept of what a chicken really looks like and what a chicken really does.
If you want to know the truth about chickens, go to the chicken farm, not to Schnucks.
That’s what I’m saying.
The book of Acts is the chicken farm.
The modern church in the poultry section at Schnucks.
The latter will mess with your head . . . and your heart.
The former tells the truth about what the church of Jesus Christ really looks like and what that church really does when it engages its culture.
What is that truth?
It is well-described, I think, by Dr. Dean Kelley, who wrote of that early New Testament church, “These little bands of committed men and woman have an impact on history all out of proportion to their numbers or apparent ability. In the main, they are usually recruited from the least promising ranks of society. They are not noble, or wealthy, or well-educated, or particularly talented. All they have to offer is themselves. But that is more than others, to give anything. For when a handful of holy, committed human beings give themselves fully to the great cause or faith, they are virtually irresistable. They cut through the partial and fleeting commitments of the rest of society like a buzz saw through peanut brittle.”
And I might add, they cut through culture the same way.
The church is a revived and reviving community. As such, the church has impact on contact with its culture.
Really?
It certainly doesn’t seem that way most places today.
Why is that?
What has happened–most notably in our day and age–to make the modern church such a glaring exception to that rule?
First, at least as I see it, a misguided mindset has taken root in the church.
Put simply, that mindset–which has, over time, become an ingrained belief system–insists that we arrived too late to get what God had to offer.
Years ago, when my wife and I were living in the heart of Georgia, a friend from our church called me one Saturday morning to tell me that his neighbor to the north was selling a jeep. The add was in the paper and the price was right, he told me, and, after all, he knew how much I wanted a jeep. He was right about that. So, I asked for his friend’s phone number, but he said his neighbor asked for no phone calls. Anyone who wanted the jeep had to come see it in person. I asked the price, went to the bank and got the money, then headed to my friend’s neighbor’s house.
About a half-a-mile from the house, I meet–though I didn’t know it at the time–the jeep I was hoping to buy. It was being driven by the man who beat me to it. When I arrived at the house, the previous owner was apologetic, saying simply, “If you’d been here sooner, you could have had it.”
Strangely, that seems to be a single-sentence summary of much modern church theology.
We read, in scripture, truly astounding stories of hearts touched, souls saved, lives changed, habits broken, burdens lifted, sickness reversed, death defeated, captives released, oppression ended, justice restored; of God orchestrating, Jesus leading, the Spirit equiping, the gospel spreading, truth previaling, love healing, faith empowering, the church conquering; of governments infiltrated, institutions influenced, neighborhoods impacted, cities converted, and cultures reclaimed for God.
Astounding stories!
But our response to such stories is sadly revealing.
We treat those take-your-breath-away stories as if God is a sadist, cruelly teasing us with tantalizing tales from long ago that we cannot touch or handle or experience today. Like they represent realities forever out of our reach. Like a divine advertisement in the Heavenly Post-Dispatch classifieds enticing us to drive out to the address listed only to meet God saying, “If you’d been here sooner, you could have had it.”
What a disappointment!
But the real tragedy is that we have learned to live with that disappointment . . . and to live comfortably.
To maintain our comfort, we have even constructed complicated theological infrastructure, supporting our belief that we arrived too late to get what God had to offer.
We spout theo-babble about church ages, and dispensations of the Spirit, and other hot-air-ish mumbo-jumbo that is little more than a subconcious effort to explain away the modern church’s problems without admitting that we have any.
Even our logic is bogus.
“We don’t look like the church we read about in the book of Acts so, obviously, we must be under a different dispensation of the Spirit”–what a bunch of bunk! In point of fact, it is little more than theological smoke-and-mirrors, a carnival shell-game we play with scripture. The truth is, of course, that we don’t look like the New Testament church because we no longer are like the New Testament church.
We have problems.
Not the least of which is a faith problem.
We do not believe that God speaks today.
Instead, we believe that all we have is a CD of his words made years ago from scratchy, long-playing, 33-1/3 rpm albums.
We do not believe that God does now what he did then.
Instead, we believe that all we have is a DVD made from streaky, eight millimeter, black-and-white film showing what God did a very long time ago.
We do not believe that the church has life-changing, culture-transforming power today.
Instead, we believe that all we have is a dusty and well-worn history book describing the long-past, never-to-be-again glory days of the church of Jesus Christ.
We have a faith problem.
As a result, we think that we have been unfairly stranded in a different dispensation from that of the original church–a belief which, by the way, we use to conveniently explain away our lack of power and impact on contact when, in reality–whether we will ever have the integrity and the gumption to admit it–we have hamstrung ourselves by our faith.
Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Part three comes tomorrow)
