We Are One

By Andrew Beasley        There is a togetherness that is notable about Christianity when we are doing things in the way that God desires them to be done. Of late I have taken note of how the early church, in the days after its establishment on Pentecost, functioned outside of what we might refer to as corporate worship today. What was life like for these early Christians? The end of the second chapter of Acts informs us that Christians then were together. They had all things in common. They took what they had and shared it among themselves as needs arose. But perhaps most importantly they were together every day studying together, sharing common meals with one another in each other’s homes. Perhaps most importantly is that they did all this gladly and praised God as was right for them to do.    I wonder if Christ held up the church today and placed it side by side with the early church after its establishment, what would he see? Would he see churches that look different from an outward, surface level perspective but inwardly they are identical in nature. Or would he find that the Lord’s church in modern times, inwardly, looks nothing like the church that Christ built upon the foundation of Peter’s confession of who He is (Matthew 16:17-19)? I reflect on the fact that at the time that Luke records in Acts 2, the church had not been in existence for very long. There were still epistles to come. There were still things that would be revealed to them. But as they waited for those things to come, they had one thing right. Unity.     What about us?

- Andrew Beasley serves as a minister with the Northwest Church of Christ in Greensboro, NC. He may be contacted through the congregation's website: https://nwchurchofchrist.com/about/