The Four Marks of Christianity

Acts 2:42

Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

ἦσαν δὲ προσκαρτεροῦντες τῇ διδαχῇ τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ τῇ κοινωνίᾳ, τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου καὶ ταῖς προσευχαῖς.

Fourth Sunday of Easter + Year A (RCL)

Today, we get a glimpse of the life of the early Christian Church. It was a peaceful, devotional kind of place. People were filled with awe – not only because of the miracles that Peter and John and the other disciples of Jesus were performing, but because living together as a community was so fulfilling. Their life was simple: they went to the Temple to pray every day (so they must have been located close by it), they “broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts” [Acts 2:46] They praised God and enjoyed “the goodwill of all the people.” As a result, more people joined their number all the time (in fact, 3000 were baptized in one day – not something that I would want to try to do, even if I had eleven helpers!).

It might be tempting to yearn for such a tranquil and simple time, to live like those early Christians, in harmony with themselves and everyone, having no needs unmet, able to spend all their time in prayer and praise to God. In fact, there was a group of Americans who were so attracted to that type of life that they attempted to recreate it for themselves. In 1774, a group whose official name was “The Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing” came to this land from England. Today, we call them the Shakers. They established a community (what we might today call a “commune”) in the tranquil countryside of up-state New York. They did all they could to live as we heard described in Acts today: they owned everything collectively, they worked and shared what they produced and earned with the entire community. They spent a good part of each day in prayer and worship. They took all their meals together, both the ordinary ones and the Holy Communion.

It might seem that these people had gotten it right – a Christian community in which everyone has a part to play, and in which they all live in awe of the wonderful works that God is doing in their midst. But things went awry.

First, their first leader was a widow who had had four children die in childhood. She studied the Bible, especially some of the letters of Paul, and concluded that since Christ was coming again so soon, all members of the Shakers must remain unmarried and celibate. Unlike the community in Acts, this had the effect of not attracting large numbers of people to join the Shakers. In fact, the primary way that they grew in numbers was by offering a home to orphans, raising them, and hoping that they would stay in the community when they grew up. Many did, but by January of this year (2011), there are only three Shakers left, living in a small village in Maine.

None of this is meant to deny the beauty and goodness of what we have read in Acts. In a special act of grace and mercy, God granted those first Christians a brief period of tranquility and harmony, in which to get ready to face the challenges of living in a hostile world.

So, let’s look at the four “hallmarks” of that first Christian community (the things that identified them as Christians), and especially consider how we can and should apply them to our own lives as Christians today.

Acts chapter two, verse 41, lists the four things to which those who had been baptized were devoted:

·       the apostles’ teaching

·       fellowship

·       the breaking of bread

·       the prayers

Let us look at each of these in turn.

At this point in the Acts of the Apostles, we have had two powerful examples of “the apostles’ teaching” – two sermons preached by Peter. The first occurs when it is necessary to elect someone to take the place of Judas Iscariot – to be a new twelfth Apostle. The second, and more well-known, teaching of Peter occurs when they receive the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. In fact, today’s passage follows immediately after Peter preaches that first sermon.

So, what did “the apostles’ teaching” contain? Peter’s sermon has three parts. First, he reminds his hearers of the message of the prophets who foretold the coming of the Messiah. Then, he reminds them of what they saw and heard of Jesus, especially the many wonders that he worked. He points out that they condemned and killed Jesus, and then finally he proclaims that Jesus rose from the dead. Peter concludes, “Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” [Acts 2:36]

The key points of “the apostles’ teaching” were that God prepared the world for the coming of Jesus by sending many prophets to announce him. Then, God sent Jesus into the world to teach, heal, and show the power of God. Jesus’ own people rejected and killed him. God raised him from the dead, and Jesus is now Lord of heaven and earth. That is the simple heart of Christian faith, and that is what the earliest Christians believed. You may have noticed that Peter said nothing about abortion, homosexuality, divorce, war, evolution, immigration, gun control (my wife says it would have been “sword control”), Islam, or any of the other things that many preachers make central to their messages today.

The second hallmark of these “Acts Christians” was that they lived in fellowship. The Greek word that Luke used is koinonia (pronounced “koy-know-KNEE-uh” – in Greek, κοινωνίᾳ). This is a special word, and “fellowship” actually only begins to define it. Some definitions of koinonia mention things like “living in intimate communion with one another,” and “sharing, participating, and contributing” to one anothers well-being. The word is used 19 times in the New Testament, but this passage today is the very first time that it was used (at least, in the sequence of the books as we have them in the NT today).

Living in koinonia means

·       giving up all selfishness, possessiveness, and greed

·       caring more about the good of others and of the community as a whole than about oneself

·       giving one’s heart, mind, and soul to the work of the community (prayer, worship, and manual labor)

·       devoting oneself to the common goals of the community, even at the expense of denying one’s own wants or needs

In short, it sounds like an ideal sort of communism, or a lot like a monastery or convent.

The third mark of these early Christians was that they shared in a specific action, the breaking of bread. Biblical scholars see two levels to the meaning of that phrase. On the practical level, it suggests that everyone ate together in the same room. “Breaking bread” is a phrase that still today means having a meal together.

On the theological level, however, scholars (and many other Christians) see these words referring to the sacrament that we call the Eucharist or Holy Communion. The early Christians repeated Jesus’ actions at the Last Supper. It is not clear that they fully understood, at this early point, some of the things that have been revealed in our theology: that the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Jesus, that they recall the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, or that receiving the Body and Blood result in the forgiveness of our sins. There is no doubt, though, that this special, common meal created something very important: community.

Let’s look at that word a moment: comm-unity. Something that unites us together in a special bond and keeps us together after we leave the room. As much as forgiving sins and memorializing Jesus’ actions, breaking bread together as Christians is something that makes us into what we call ourselves: a church, a community, a group of people united by our faith and actions.

The teaching of the Apostles, koinonia fellowship, and the breaking of the bread – these were visible signs of “being Church” to these first Christians. And there was one more thing – the prayers.

Acts tells us that these Jewish Christians went to the Temple every day to pray. The Old Testament describes what that consisted of: morning prayers at sunrise, afternoon prayers at the time of a special sacrifice that was offered in the Temple, and prayers at sundown (which marked the beginning of the next day and also the beginning of all Jewish festivals, such as Passover). All of these prayer-times included recitation or singing of Psalms, as well as certain words that were repeated every day, with all present saying them together.

In Christianity, we have a similar tradition. We include a Psalm in every celebration of the Eucharist, as well as at Morning and Evening Prayer (and the other times that our church recognizes: Noonday and Bedtime). We repeat certain important prayers word-for-word every day, like the Lord’s Prayer, the Gloria, the Creed, and the blessing. Times may have changed, language been modernized, and newer versions replaced the traditional ones, but prayers in common are still a central part of our lives together as Christians.

What do we learn from looking at the first Christians, as described in today’s passage from Acts? First, they rejoiced at their lifestyle – one totally dedicated to living the life shown them by Jesus. Second, they didn’t just sit back and relax – they were faithful to the four hallmarks: the teaching of the Apostles, the fellowship or koinonia, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers.

And finally, it didn’t last long. Very soon, the Temple authorities threw Peter and John into prison for preaching about Jesus. The Romans cracked down on those who still thought the Messiah had come to overthrow the Emperor’s rule. Finally, these loving, sharing Christians split into factions over principles of theology and interpretation of Scripture, and the broken world of Christianity that we see today had its beginning.

None of that, though, is as important as what we can do today. We can look back with understanding and even longing to that first Christian community, and we can regain for ourselves the four hallmarks, albeit in a modern way.

The Apostles’ teaching for us today is colored by almost two thousand years of interpretation, translation, learning, study, and fighting, but the key is still the same: Jesus lived and died for you and me, so that our sins would be forgiven. Let us never lose sight of that fundamental teaching.

We can live in koinonia fellowship, not only for one hour on Sunday mornings, but in our daily lives, by caring about one another, by sacrificing our pride and some of our resources to help those in need around us, and we can share our faith and the wonderful blessings that it provides for us.

We can and do break the bread, in the way that Jesus instituted at that Last Supper. We also break bread together by sharing meals and other times together. This is a sign of our common family, our common goals, and our need to build each other up.

Finally, we join in prayers every day with people all over the world. Some prayers are formal and written, others are spontaneous and unique. Many of us pray some form or portion of the Psalms every day, and many have memorized one or more Psalms, which they use in their daily prayers.

All this is important because we must not lose what those early Christians had: a sense of being a community, a fellowship united by one purpose and devotion. The ways in which we demonstrate the four hallmarks today will naturally be very different from what the first Christians understood, but they are still important goals for which all of us should be working every day.

May Jesus, the Good Shepherd, guide and defend us on our path, and may we be faithful to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and prayers. Amen!