A New Community
Read: Acts 2:1–12, 42–47
Bible in a Year: 1 Chronicles 10–12; John 6:45–71
Bible in a Year: 1 Chronicles 10–12; John 6:45–71
All the believers were together and had everything in common.—Acts 2:44
My friend Carrie’s five-year-old daughter, Maija, has an interesting approach to playtime. She loves mixing together dolls from different playsets to come up with a new community. In the world of her imagination, everything belongs together. These are her people. She believes they are happiest when they’re together, despite being different sizes and shapes.
Her creativity reminds me of God’s purpose for the church. On the day of Pentecost, Luke tells us, “Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5). Though these people were from different cultures and spoke different languages, the Holy Spirit’s arrival made them a new community: the church. From then on, they would be considered one body, unified by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The leaders of this new body were a group of men Jesus brought together during His time on earth—His disciples. If Jesus hadn’t united them, more than likely they would never have come together. And now more people—“about three thousand” (2:41)—had become Christ-followers. Thanks to the Holy Spirit, this once divided group “had everything in common” (v. 44). They were willing to share what they had with each other.
The Holy Spirit continues to bridge the gaps between people groups. We might not always get along, nor readily understand one another. But as believers in Christ, we belong together. —Linda Washington
Jesus, thank You for dying for us and uniting us as one people in the church.
The Holy Spirit turns “us” and “them” into “we.”
INSIGHT: The brand-new church God established in Acts 2 demonstrated a sense of unprecedented community across ethnic and national lines (vv. 5-11). This life included teaching by the apostles, fellowship with each other, sharing meals, and praying together (v. 42).
How do we live out the community life God calls us to? Tim Gustafson
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