A Faith That Spreads Like Fire
“Every day they spent time in the temple and in one home after another. They never stopped teaching and telling the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.”
Acts 5:42
The Book of Acts is the history of the church. Every page illustrates how the message of Jesus’ resurrection traveled from an attic in Judea to the ends of the earth. It all started with a small spark in a small city. This weekend’s church services in Jamaica and Japan can be traced all the way back to ancient Jerusalem.
Let’s take a short census of Christianity in the book of Acts. In Acts 1, there are about 100 believers. After the power-packed sermons in Acts 4, there are over 5,000 households (15,000 people) of believers. As we fast-forward to the end of Acts, many scholars suggest there are between 50,000 and 100,000 followers of Jesus. Keep in mind, this is when the world’s population was lower than the current population of the United States.
This growth is a testament to the power of Spirit-filled followers who are on fire for Jesus. However, there is an inevitable question. Where did all these people go to church? There is no way they had churches big enough for all of these people in an era before shopping malls and movie theaters. The only structure that could handle that many people was the Temple, and the leaders there were not big fans of the message of Jesus.
The author of Acts, Luke, was a researcher. That means that he had the same question in his journalistic endeavor. He alludes to the answer in Acts chapter five. He recounts, “Every day they spent time in the temple and in one home after another. They never stopped teaching and telling the good news that Jesus is the Messiah” (Acts 5:42). As the Church grew larger, it also got smaller. This passage gives us an ancient model of small groups. Followers gathered in the temple for worship and prayer, but gathered in homes for fellowship and preaching.
For the ancient followers, church was not a gathering in a building. It was a lifestyle. Church happened around dinner tables, in living rooms, or in town collecting money to help a friend in need. The church grew bigger by getting smaller. If you want to grow, then you need to gather. Find a small group of Christians and commit to meeting frequently. Pray together. Have fellowship together. Eat together. Learn together. Do you want to grow? Find your group