The Ancient Order . . .

HOW DID THEY LIVE?

In his classic work on Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, John Laurence von Mosheim observes that “The whole Christian Religion is comprehended in two parts; one of which teaches what is to be believed upon Divine subjects; the other, how we ought to live. The apostles ordinarily call the former the mystery, or the truth. the latter godliness.” It is the latter, the godliness of the primitive church that concerns us in this short essay.

Mosheim goes on to point out that their lives were marked by plainness and simplicity, as was the manner of their teaching. Unlike the philosophers of their day, the Christian teachers avoided all the precepts of human art and rhetoric. Their doctrines were not worked into any scientific or regular system. For some time the apostolic letters were not even collected, and when they were it was in the simplest manner, circulating as they did from church to church, read and prized like love letters more than theological essays, of which the humble saints knew nothing.

As an example of their simple manners Mosheim notes that baptism, “by immersing the candidates wholly in water,” as he puts it, was at first performed by the one who had led the candidate to Christ. It was after the church was “settled and provided with fixed regulations” that the bishop alone did the baptizing. He sees this freedom of community spirit in other instances, such as fasting, which was at first practiced voluntarily and without any prescription as to time, though later stated days of fasting were instituted. The sharing of their proceeds in the Jerusalem church, “according to what each one needed,” was also voluntary and free. This freedom was the basis of their simple trusting faith. They did not have to believe in any arbitrary or dogmatic set of doctrines, for they “remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)

Hardly any text reveals the spirit of the primitive community as does Acts 4:32, as rendered in the Jerusalem Bible: “The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul; no one claimed for his own use anything that he had, as everything they owned was held in common.” This finds its climax in that great line in verse 34: None of their members was ever in want. The circumstance was such that they freely (perhaps spontaneously) pooled their resources, even to the disposal of their property, in order to take care of those in need. This was obviously “communism” —or at least communal—but being within an atmosphere of freedom and spontaneity it is hardly akin to totalitarian types of communism.

Johannes Weiss reminds us in his Earliest Christianity that what happened here was a fulfillment of that ancient prophecy back in Dt. 15:5, where Israel is idealized in the future: “There will be no poor person found in thee, for Yahweh thy God will richly bless thee.” They took care of their own poor, all of them. It is a most impressive accomplishment, and it reveals to us something very important about how they lived. They were a united, loving, sharing community. It shows us what unity is. While they were one in heart and soul, there can be no question about their diversity. In that primitive church, beset with its many problems, reconciled diversity was beautifully illustrated.

In his Primitive Christianity, Rudolf Bultmann refers to these primitive saints as “a complex phenomenon” that triumphed over its competitors. He admits that he makes no effort to prove that Christianity is true. He lets the reader decide that, but neither does he attempt to explain the phenomenon. Such a community defies explanation, and it stands apart in the history of religions. But the reason for its triumph, even over the efforts of pagan Rome to destroy it, may well be that it was a community of love. That “the people were loud in their praise” of this humble community (Acts 5:13) was not because they did churchly things. It must be because of what they were as a community devoted to one another. Their rapid growth, which Luke measures in the thousands, can hardly be explained except that this new, still Jewish community had what the people were looking for, a loving, meaningful, communal religion. It was Jewish but it was more in that it was the very essence of what Judaism idealized. That a growing, persecuted community, made up of slaves and priests and gentility, situated in a not-so-rich environment, could cultivate itself as a “one heart and one soul” community that allowed no one to suffer want must have profoundly impressed its neighbors as the real thing.

A modern illustration of this phenomenon, in one respect at least, would be the way the Mormons take care of their own, which has no doubt contributed to their remarkable growth. Even those that are critical of the Mormons otherwise are quick to praise them in this respect. One might also point to the several “million dollar offerings” of some of our Christian Churches-Churches of Christ. In order to give; million dollars or more on a single Sunday some families borrowed money, sold property, or sacrificed their life’s savings. A Christian Church in Seattle gave a million and a half one Sunday! This kind of thing cannot help but impress the secular world, especially when it is done to help suffering humanity. But all these “miracle Sundays” that I’ve heard of were for ourselves, buildings and property. The primitive community at Jerusalem shows us how to be concerned for the poor, even when they themselves were not all that well off. The modern church is rich, and yet we do so little for the suffering masses of the world.

How did they live? They lived for God. They were a colony of heaven, a people hopeful of a Savior from heaven, who would in the end transform them into Christ’s own likeness, as Paul indicated in Philip. 3:20. Prepared by their Jewish faith to suppose God’s kingdom on earth was to be secular, they eventually learned that the kingdom was “righteousness and peace and joy brought by the Holy Spirit” rather than rules on food and drink, as Rom. 14:17 indicates. The next verse says, “If you serve Christ in this way you will please God and be respected by men.” It is remarkably descriptive of the first Christian community in Jerusalem, for they were obviously set upon being God-pleasers in their righteousness, peace, and joy, and it was this that brought them the respect uf the community.

Too many of us have supposed that we please God through rule-keeping rather than by the righteousness, peace, and joy that the Holy Spirit brings. It is when we thus serve Christ that God is pleased and men are impressed. 1 John 3:22 gives us an unusual promise: “Whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep his commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight.” The Christian is not only one who habitually obeys Christ, but one whose heart is set upon pleasing God. The promise is that the Father answers the prayers of His children when they both obey Him and strive to please Him in all things. This places the standard above rules of do’s and don’t’s, where the life of righteousness, peace, and joy is found. One who is willing to venture into questionable behavior because there is no specific command in the Scriptures against it must be one who sees the kingdom in terms of meat and drink. For the heart to be set upon what pleases God is the essence of the kingdom of God on earth. The Scriptures promise that God hears the prayers of such a one. After all, the Scriptures say of Christ that even he did not please himself.

Even when Jesus was set upon pleasing his Father and not men it was this that brought him the respect of the masses. Lk. 2:52 gives a poignant description of Jesus: “He kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” We know too that the common people heard him gladly, and that folk generally had to be tricked into turning against him. All this seems to contradict the statements about “the world” hating Jesus and of Jesus telling his disciples that they too would be hated. But “the world” may sometimes refer to the establishment or the ecclesiasticalpolitical order, which did hate Jesus and his disciples. Surely the preacher was wrong who interpreted these passages to mean that Christians must somehow manage to get themselves hated by those around them.

Something quite different is the case. If we serve Christ “in this way”—the way of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit—we will please God and gain the respect of the world. That is the way to live. It was the ideal of the primitive Christian community and a valid part of the Ancient Order. —the Editor