In a discussion yesterday, we were reviewing the historical context of Acts 2, particularly the paragraph at the end of the chapter about the first few months of the church in Jerusalem following the Ascension.
It was what we call the “honeymoon phase” when groups are first formed around faith in Christ. It wasn’t quite so blissful later as the demands of reality set in. Later on there was the issue with Ananias and Sapphira, and then the Diaspora widows who had no elders to represent them.
Jesus died on Passover and Ascended shortly before Pentecost. That was a two-month period every year when wealthy Diaspora Jews came home to Jerusalem. They would leave not long after, going back to their businesses scattered mostly across the Mediterranean Basin. The majority of that first church were those Diaspora believers who had been caught by the gospel message just before they left. Something about this new covenant faith in the Messiah caused them to simply abandon their former lives and stay in town. Most of them sold their overseas businesses to other Jews and embraced the growing number of local believers as their new clan, their covenant family.
When you take away the Talmudic perversions pasted over the top of ancient Hebrew custom and instincts, the result was a heady excitement about going to the Temple for genuine worship of Christ and His Father.
The broader picture was linked to John 17:20ff, where Jesus prays that His future followers would experience the union of hearts that Jesus had with His Father. One of the questions that prompted this discussion we were having was, “How do we reclaim that unity today?”
Naturally, we had to invest some time in eliminating what it was not. It was not uniformity. The first church in Jerusalem would not have tolerated that sort of thing; it was part of their culture to resist the kind of social manipulation we have in the West. That discussion alone can take a lot of time simply because western Christians assume too much without conscious awareness, injecting their assumptions about life into the Bible, thinking that first century Hebrew society was much like ours is today.
They would not have tolerated our business-like atmosphere with its rather reserved social behavior expectations. Hebrews were all touchy-feely in private family settings. The first church was not the least bit formal; they didn’t have our rules of carefully measured familiarity and handshakes only. By the same token, they would not have tolerated the fake back-slapping familiarity, either.
Hebrew men in particular would demonstrate affection to each other in ways westerners would find quite uncomfortable. For the ancient Hebrew, if they couldn’t recognize you by smell, you were a stranger. These people were literally in each other’s armpits.
Now, step back a bit. While it’s not necessary to change our social habits, it is necessary to break down the inherent facade of western social interactions. Our social rituals are inherently hostile to genuine heart-led unity in faith, virtually demanding that we not actually get involved in the lives of others. The stuffiness of our northern European ancestors is no longer a survival trait.
In a church setting, I should be able to find a fellowship of men to whom I can tell my darkest secrets without worrying that it will lead to self-righteous ostracism or wider exposure. I should be able to find men who would treat my personal tragedies as their own, giving it a high priority, as I would theirs.
The few times I tested that in churches, it blew up in my face. I’ve had better luck getting personal support and acceptance from those outside the church. We all need support to carry our loads, not judgment and rejection.
In the end, this was the answer to the original question. The reason churches don’t see the miracles that were common in that first faith community in Jerusalem is because we have not built the atmosphere of unity that existed there. We don’t invest ourselves into the lives of our fellow believers. They aren’t family, but mere acquaintances from whom we maintain a careful measure of distance. Heck, we treat our own kinfolks that way.
“Hebrew men in particular would demonstrate affection to each other in ways westerners would find quite uncomfortable. For the ancient Hebrew, if they couldn’t recognize you by smell, you were a stranger. These people were literally in each other’s armpits.”
Having worked with plenty of Indians over the years, there’s some of this familiarity in Indian culture among men, with some regional differences of course. It’s common for male friend groups to go out to restaurants and clubs, holding hands and dancing with each other. That would be seen as categorically gay in public American spaces, but it’s totally normal to them. A few Indian men told me personally they felt uncomfortable in America at first, because they DIDN’T see that type of closeness with American men, either in public or private. This is despite the fact they were upper class Indians who were well-educated in American culture beforehand.
There’s probably a lot of those types of customs scattered around the world, but we wouldn’t see it unless we saw it personally in their setting.