Cross posted @ Growing in Grace...
Reading the book of Acts was interesting and eye opening. While I have read verses and passages from the book of Acts before, I had never read it all the way through. Doing this, help me get a full glimpse of the church and how it started. It let me see the turmoil of the church and the turmoil of the first believers of Christ.
I must say, I have a better perspective of what it was like to be a believer. It was hard. At times, I feel like it is hard to be a believer in this day and age because of how people feel about church and believers, but in all honesty, it is not as bad for me as it was for the early Christians. Compared to them, I have it easy.
Reading the book of Acts help me see that conflict in the church is not anything new. I am not sure how I feel about that. To know that we have probably gotten worse with handling church conflict in this modern era. As one pastor alluded to… the early Christians could not just leave a church and go to another church down the street. They had to stay where they were.
Seeing how the first believers worked together to build churches and help get the Word of God out was exciting. It was enjoyable to see so many people wanting to be a help to Paul and his mission. I did hate to see the fall out between Paul and Barnabas. That one hurt my heart. I felt like they were a great team. But, I understand that at times, you have to move on.
Paul and Barnabas parting ways helped me to see that you can move on when it is time to move on. This is one of the things I have struggled with in my own Christian walk. I have been at churches and with people who made the strong case that if you left a church or no longer wanted to fellowship with people from the church, you were sinning. I know for a fact, I have stayed at a church too long for this reason, to my spiritual detriment, as well as stayed friends with people for too long, to my mental and psychological damage. I understand now, when it is time to move, you need to move.
I am somewhat ashamed to say that I never knew this happened between Paul and Barnabas. I knew of their relationship and how excellent Barnabas was as an encourager, but I never heard a sermon on how they ended up parting ways.
Probably, the most interesting thing to see was that the apostle Paul was the first multi campus pastor. His ministry crossed continents and oceans. It has been said that he traveled around 10,000 miles to more than 40 cities, sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is pretty marvelous.
We see the letters he wrote that are included in the Bible. It would be interesting to see what other letters he wrote to his flocks.
It was wonderful to understand the history of the church and to see how it parallels to today’s church. Understanding how the first believers learned, grew, worked, and helped build the kingdom inspired me to be better.