Revolution Part 2

Revolution Part 2

· Focussed

Let’s consider the following scenario. The city of Galatia never even heard of Jesus Christ before Paul and Barnabas arrived there. (Acts13:14-) From the time that Paul first preached till the time they left was about four months.

They leave these new, fresh, ‘baby’ Christians with nothing but the message they heard. They leave them without an institution or organisation to support them. They leave them without any professional clergy to keep them on track. They leave them without any leadership! (Leadership within churches only developed many years later, but always remained very low-key. These believers had to learn how to be brothers before they learned how to be elders. This is also why Paul’s letters are never written to the leaders at churches, but to the whole church. Leaders weren’t really an issue – they were simply brothers who served more than others). They leave them without a Bible! They leave them without any training material. But what do they leave?

They left them with the sobering reality that the message they heard is either true and contains within itself all the sustenance they need, or it’s just another man-made religion that will fall flat in the absence of all the support structures needed to keep man-made systems from falling. All they had was Christ in them and brothers around them. They found out that’s all they need. It is all we need also and once we take away all these artificial support structures we will once again discover the sustaining power of the original message.

In the absence of all the things we thought were essential to our Christianity they discovered that a clear focus on Christ was the essence of their faith. This message-focussed quality was a vital part of what made first century Christianity revolutionary.

· Lack of control

We have a few records of people informing the apostles in Jerusalem of what God has done in other places. We have no record of people coming to ask permission to take this message to another region. There was no way to stop it! It was, and is, a way of life.

This total lack of control caused wonderful and unexpected results. This message transformed ordinary people into God’s own personal ambassadors. This absence of official control was undoubtedly one of the key elements that made this church so dynamic and revolutionary.

The good news of Jesus Christ – the revelation of who God really is and the revelation of who man really is – still has those revolutionary qualities in it today. But we are required not to mix it, and dilute it with teachings that deny the very essence of it. When Paul eventually wrote to the Galatian Christians, He did not start with an apology for leaving so soon. Neither did He try to check up on the program or use it as an occasion to introduce some new rules, or ordain that pastor they never got. No, thank God no. His message was to assure them regarding the freedom they found and warn them not to submit to any regulations, even religious regulations that would try and undermine this freedom.

I read a delightful account of the history of the Celtic Christian communities in Britain. When the Roman Catholic Church arrived they were a bit disgusted that Christianity was already present and they did not introduce it! Although the Catholic ‘church’ was successful in assimilating just about every Christian community into its system, they found the Celts just impossible. They just wouldn’t conform to the system. (It took hundreds of years to make them forget the message and fit into the system) I had to smile when they mentioned that the Galatians were originally Celts and that the Christian faith was brought to them through their family contacts with Galatia. Paul would have been proud. The first letter Paul wrote was to warn these Christians to not submit themselves to religious traditions and regulation. They obviously learned this lesson well. May we learn it anew.

· Lack of building!

Another unique feature of these early Christians is that they did not have a building of their own. All other religions of the time had their own sacred meeting places, but these Christians just met in homes! This was not just a coincidence, its strategically part of God’s plan. There are no religious buildings numerous or big enough to contain the intended audience of the gospel. But there are enough houses! It is also in the setting of a house that the previously discussed values, flourish naturally.

It was about 300 years after Jesus’ resurrection that the first Christian buildings were built by the emperor Constantine. I remember when I first learned this as a child. I thought that it was great that such an important person accepted Jesus and built buildings for the Christians. Today I have come to know that it was probably one of the greatest curses introduced to Christianity. What used to be a ‘lay’ led movement, focussed on a glorious message, free from institutional control, living in the reality of brotherhood, was reduced for the most part to just another man-made institution. What Satan failed to achieve through persecution, he almost succeeded at, through the introduction of church buildings and the reduction of our understanding of church, to a man-made institution. No matter how much lip-service we pay to the truth that people are the church, if a building and professional clergy remains at the centre of our Christian fellowship, we have exchanged the values of true church for something less.

As our focus returns to the treasure within us, may we remove everything that distract from the simplicity of knowing and living Christ.

By Andre Rabe
andre.rabe@gmail.com
http://eclesia.blogspot.com