Bold!

Do you find that everywhere you go, your steps are dogged by a ranting mob who accuse you of crimes against the state? Perhaps you preach a different, less upsetting Gospel?

“These men who have turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6) that’s how their hysterical enemies described the first Christians. Do you find that everywhere you go, your steps are dogged by a ranting mob who accuse you of crimes against the state and call for you to be thrown in jail? No? Perhaps you preach a different, less upsetting Gospel? Perhaps you try not to get noticed and don’t speak of Jesus at all? Feeling uncomfortable? Good – that makes at least two of us… 

There is nothing less comforting to our present-day Christianity than Dr Luke’s account of the early church in what we call the book of Acts. If you start to read with honest eyes and a heart soft and transparent towards God, you’ll be squirming in no time. Why? Because their discipleship was such a costly affair – all the time. But, under constant threat of extreme criminal punishment and death and with expectation of persecution, mob rioting, public floggings and imprisonment wherever they went, they could not, by their own testimony, “but speak of what we have seen and heard”. 

Two centuries later the Roman Emperor could not resist the pervasive influence of the gospel throughout his empire and decided it was time for Christianity to be the official religion of his domains. But that’s another story…

The fundamental requirement of an apostle was that he had witnessed the resurrection of Jesus. Wherever early missionaries went they tirelessly and consistently preached ’Jesus and the resurrection’.

This was the central message of the church. So important that Paul said: “…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Cor 15:17-19)And thenPaul, who had met the Risen Lord Jesus so dramatically on the Damascus Road settled the matter: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (v.20)

When Jewish people took their firstfruits offering to the temple it was a statement of faith that they looked confidently to God in anticipation of an abundant harvest. Jesus’ resurrection is promissory towards those who believe. Once again, Paul spelled out his meaning: “…as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (v. 21-22) The crucial phrase is “in Christ”.The apostles were not peddlers of universal salvation. Their first taste of persecution was generated because “they were proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead”.Peterleft his hearers in no doubt about the uniqueness of Christian hope in Jesus: “… there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

This is the message that attracted such opposition to the first believers. They were bound by conviction, by their own knowledge of Jesus and compelled by His love to preach an impossible fact: that Jesus of Nazareth had defeated death. How many people would you expect then or now to believe such a message? Yet thousands did – even when it might cost them their lives to say so. 

Missionaries saw that “love your enemies”and “make disciples”meant the same thing. Had they been eaten up with self-concern, they could not have done what they did or suffered as they did. But they served in the power of the Holy Spirit who produced conviction of sin in their hearers. Jesus had come from God to “seek and to save what was lost” – ‘lost’ meaning blind to God’s goodness and foolishly hostile to His rule. As His former enemies, Christians were now charged with bringing the liberating news of Jesus to His present enemies – hence opposition was the norm.

When they encountered fierce opposition and even criminal prosecution they did not pray for protection, they cried out for boldness: “…now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (Acts 4:29-30)

Still uncomfortable? Good – let’s pray for boldness. Truth2Go