The Church According to Acts 2:42-47 - Part 1

"And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching..." Acts 2:42

In Acts 2:42-47 we catch a glimpse of what the early church looked like.  The word church or ekklēsia, commonly confused with a structure, is a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly (this assembly might be in a home). This group of people, know as the ekklēsia have a common denominator, their faith is in Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 16:18 Jesus says, "...I will build my church..." Before the word ekklēsia or church is egō. This is used as a primary pronoun of the first person; Jesus identifies the church as His (my, me, I).  Our church must be founded in Him.

The example set in Acts 2:42 says they "devoted themselves".  Devotion means to be steadfastly attentive unto, to give unremitting care to a thing. What were they devoted to? God's word.  The apostles' teaching is God's word.  Most of the eyewitness heard Jesus teach and several complied His words in what we know as the Holy Bible.

Devoted to God's word. I can just imagine what this group of people did: reading and meditating on God's word morning, lunch, afternoon, evening, nightly and early hours of the morning.  They had devotion to His word.

I consider some of my own devotions and confess, I am not near this devoted to God's word.  I think think of a few things that get my time: Facebook, Twitter, Texting, Instagram.  You may have a similar list.  Consider the hours your might spend on these applications.  I make attempts to reminder myself to fire my YouVerion bible app, but more often than not I slip back onto another application.

God wants you and I to rearrange our priorities as the early church in Acts 2:42 showed us.  We need to devote ourselves to God's word.  I heard someone say, we might be considered the generation who wasted the most time.  Wow, what an indictment.  Are you ready to be considered that generation? God created us for much more than mismanagement of time. 

He wants you and I to have a relationship with Him.  The only way we can have that is by spending time is His word.  With Jesus as our foundation, we must begin to learn about Him through the word and Spirit.  That's how we get to know one another, we spend time talking to one another.  Devoting ourselves to God word stretches our faith, builds it up and deepens our relationship with Christ.

Ekklēsia, are you ready to devote more time to God's word?

Check back to see what else the early church did and please feel free to drop a comment with some additional insight.

Blessings.