The template of the church, Acts 28

So this is the last chapter in the book of Acts.  And I really struggled with how we should finish this book.  I suppose I could have broken down this series of events and exegeted each one, tried to find a parable or outline in each and preach a sermon.  But as I considered it, I could not help but feel that the Holy Spirit was telling us something that was greater than the summary of each individual event.  I couldn’t help but wonder how  this grand epic of the gospel could just kind of wind down with a series of little events without any preaching, without some new doctrine, and just kind of fade out without coming to a conclusion like we might expect?  It felt kind of like the way those movies make you feel that never conclude the story but just leave you hanging at the end, wondering what was going to happen next.

But I don’t think it’s because the Holy Spirit is a bad writer or because He could not figure out how to finish the story so He just fades to black and leaves us to figure out the end on our own.  I think the solution is to consider the bigger picture, rather than focus too much on these little vignettes as independent subjects. 

And so at some point I found myself asking some questions about what the Spirit was indicating in this passage and  the preceding chapters leading up to it.   Like for instance, why at the end of his ministry, not to mention his life, is Paul left to practically fade into obscurity, without seeing` any great harvests of conversions either among pagans or among Jews? Where are all the thousands upon thousands saved in a matter of a few days such as had been the case with Peter in Jerusalem when the church first started?

Why did God use the storm to drive Paul to the shores of a tiny 12 x 20 mile long island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea?  Of all places in the world where God could have sent Paul, why is he shipwrecked on Malta, a barbarous island peopled by a few superstitious natives?   This was after all the greatest apostle of Christ. And furthermore, why does God allow his servants to die ignoble deaths alone and practically forgotten by the world?

And as I answered those questions I  felt the truth of this passage begin to dawn in my mind.  I considered for instance, that all of Christ’s apostles were arrested at some point and spent much time in prison.  And all of the apostles save John were eventually martyred and from our perspective died an ignoble death, practically alone, alienated from family and friends, by the hands of brutish men.

But the full answer goes back all the way to the beginning of Acts.  As the Christian church was born, there was a great blossoming of fruit and a great harvest of souls, culminating in thousands upon thousands of Jews becoming saved and being added to the church.  And great signs and wonders were being performed daily in the church and in Jerusalem, and everyone, Luke tells us, held the first Christians in high esteem and they were well spoken of in the community. 

Today when we talk about the characteristics of the first Christian church, that is what we think of, isn’t it?  Great crowds, admiring congregations, apostles with tremendous miraculous power, and Christians being well respected in the community.   Sounds like a Joel Osteen or Billy Graham crusade.  But that is not an accurate picture of the first century church.  And I would go so far as to say that is not an accurate representation of what God’s template for the church truly is.  Now we know that to be a fact, because the popularity and profusion of conversions and subsequent church members did not last long.  The diaspora began soon after that beginning with the martyrdom of Steven in chapter 7, and in chapter 8 vs.2 it says, “And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.”  The honeymoon period of the church was over.

Now after that point, the focus of Acts begins to look away from the church at Jerusalem and starts to look at the developing church in Gentile territories.  And in those territories we no longer see the mega church example that we see in Jerusalem, but instead we see small house churches.  We see the gospel taken to individuals, to families, and small gatherings of believers meeting in rooms and homes.  We see the apostles and disciples encountering more and more persecution from both Jews as well as pagan cultures. 

Now I have to say that I saw that really for the first time just this week as I was preparing for this message.  It wasn’t that I did not know it, but I hadn’t really seen it before  in that way.  A classic example of not seeing the forest for the trees.  And when I saw this I was greatly encouraged.  Because to tell you the truth, both the world and the Christian culture seem to equate success as bigger churches and more people.  The question of how many members you may have, and how big your organization is, and how fast you are growing, and how many programs you are running, are the ways in which we quantify and validate successful ministries.  And if you don’t fit that template then you are left to question the validity of your church.

But what I found when I began to look at this is with the exception of the brief honey moon period when the church at Jerusalem was started, there is not another example of a mega church in the New Testament.  And furthermore, there is no record of apostle worship in the Bible either, at least on the level of the admiration and followings of the great “Christian” leaders of today.  When you compare the 60,000 people filling up a football stadium to hear Joel Osteen with the ministry of the Apostle Paul then you will see a major discrepancy.  When Paul was last in a huge stadium in Ephesus the crowds were calling for his head.  They were not lining up to shake his hand and ask him to sign a copy of his latest book. 

Now I point this out because I think that what the Holy Spirit is illustrating one last time as He winds up the book of Acts is the template of the church.  From a human perspective, this is not the way it’s supposed to look at this point.  After all, Paul is the greatest apostle of all of Christ’s apostles.  If anyone should have been a mega church pastor it should have been Paul.  If anyone should have had a 60,000 member church and dozens of satellite churches streaming live his messages every Sunday it should have been Paul.  Furthermore, from the human perspective, if Paul was really God’s man then he wouldn’t have been in chains.  He wouldn’t have ended his life in relative obscurity.  He would have been elevated to the position of the Cardinal of Europe or something like that with his own disciples serving churches under his supervision.  I mean, if Peter supposed to be the Pope, then Paul should have been the Cardinal.

But instead we see a different model acted out in these last chapters of Acts.  We see the apostle beleaguered by constant harassment, chased from town to town, ridiculed by the elite in not only the intellectual world but the religious world.  We see him stoned, beaten, imprisoned.  We don’t see him lauded by the media, hosted on the Today Show, appearing on the television talk shows,  but instead having to sneak out of town by being let down from a wall in a basket to escape certain death.  We see him being stoned and left for dead.  We see him in prison almost more than we see him out of prison.  And yet in spite of appearances to the contrary, I would suggest that Paul is the embodiment of the church.  In 1Cor.12:28, Paul said that God after God raised Jesus from the dead and He ascended on high, He gave first of all to the church apostles.  And in Eph. 2:20 Paul says that the church has been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone.  And then again in Eph. 4:11 it says, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.”

The point I think then is this; that as we look at the events in this last couple of chapters in Acts we see that Paul is the church.  He was the foundation of the church.  He was traveling with Luke and Aristarchus.  And you will remember that Jesus said where two or three are gathered together there I am in the midst.  The church is not characterized by buildings or organizations, but by people.  And that starts with Christ as the cornerstone, the apostles word as the foundation, and then preachers and teachers building up the body or the church brick by brick, person by person.

I recently had a woman call me who had attended our church during the summer and she is writing a book about churches on the Eastern Shore.  She was originally intrigued by the church buildings and started to think about the stories behind them.  But when she discovered our church on the beach one Sunday almost by accident, she felt that there was something here that needed to be investigated.  And so as Susie and I spent a couple of hours with her, we were able to share how God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands.  But how God’s church is comprised of His people, not characterized by architecture.

Well, how was the church template laid out in Acts? Well, as we look at Paul’s ministry we do not see the thousands upon thousands saved like we saw in the honeymoon period in Jerusalem.  Instead we see individual conversions such as the jailer and his family being saved who was in charge of the prison he was incarcerated in.  We see him casting out demons from people who were accosting him as he preached.  We see him meeting with small groups of people by the riverside, or in the market places or in homes or upper rooms, with some or a few people being converted.   We see Paul having to work with his hands to raise his own money to support his ministry.  Paul’s life is one of hardship, persecution, small gatherings of Christians, trials, incarcerations, preaching, and lots and lots of rejections of his gospel.  And yet Paul said “be imitators of me.” (1Cor. 11:1)

Now that may sound uninspiring to some people.  But personally I find it encouraging.  Because there are times when I find myself comparing our ministry with what the Christian culture and the world tells me are the marks of a successful church, and feeling like we keep coming up short.  Just the other night I was speaking with someone and they asked what I do, and as I tried to tell them about our church I found myself feeling almost embarrassed because we do not have many of the trappings of what society calls a successful church.  And their response didn’t help either. Because they proceeded to tell me about the church that they went to, which happens to be a church of several hundred people and is very popular in the community.  And this man said they went to this church because they had a large children’s ministry . Then to add injury to insult, they told me a story about how their pastor and his wife drove up to the middle of Pennsylvania to attend his mother in law’s funeral and how that sealed the deal for them in regards to church membership. 

Well, I can’t compete with that.  We don’t have a children’s ministry.  And I dislike going to hospitals or funerals and to tell you the truth would never even consider driving three hours one way to attend a funeral of a person I didn’t know (even if my car would make it) just so I could seal the deal for someone’s church membership.  Besides we don’t even have church membership. So I guess I will never pastor a mega church. 

But thankfully, according to the template given to us in Acts, that is not necessarily God’s plan for us anyhow.  Paul was the greatest apostle in the New Testament and as we have seen in our recent studies he has been in chains for the last 2 ½ years, under house arrest, never even formerly charged with a crime.  But in that time God used Paul to preach to very small audiences, although at times made up of kings and governors and rulers of the Jews.  However, those messages were not received, but rejected.  For the most part, it would look like from our perspective that those were very  unproductive years for Paul.  But we are looking at things as they appear outwardly.  We don’t know, and perhaps neither did Paul,  all the lives that were affected by his messages.  What we do know is that God’s ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts like our thoughts.  And what often seems like a tragedy to us in a triumph in Christ.  Even our Messiah only had a few disciples and He suffered and was crucified before He was exalted in resurrection.

Now the passage illustrates this template of God’s church in a series of small vignettes of Paul’s ministry here in this final passage.  And we will look briefly at each of them for additional clues as to the nature of God’s plan for the church as it continues on until the return of Christ.  First we see that Paul has endured the storm only to be shipwrecked on the island of Malta.  This was a small island, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, only 12 miles by 20 miles wide.  It was a Roman colony, but more than likely populated by a simple, rather superstitious native people. 

And it’s interesting to me that God used the storm to bring this great apostle to this tiny island and leave him there for 3 months.  Certainly, you would think that God would have used him for greater purposes than that.  In fact, there isn’t even a mention that anyone on that island became a Christian.  But I cannot help but think that Paul would have laid the seeds for a church there on this island among these simple people.  By the way, the word barbarous is the literal word used there in vs.2 and 4 translated as natives in the NASB.  Barbarians was a word that was used by the Greeks to denote anyone who did not speak Greek.  Paul himself uses the word in Romans 1:14 when he says “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.”  It simply means non Greek speaking.

But I think that it can be surmised that Paul did in fact preach the gospel there by the fact that the Holy Spirit enabled him to first of all be healed of a snake bite.  That got the attention of the population.  And it also is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus in Mark 16:17-18 "These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

Now a lot of charismatics have misinterpreted these verses to say this promise includes all believers.  But if you look at the context of that passage, Jesus is speaking to the 11 disciples, who would become His apostles. They had not believed Him when He had foretold His resurrection, nor even when the women came to them and reported it.  And so Jesus rebukes them and then He commissions them as His apostles saying these are the signs that will accompany His apostles.  Those signs of an apostle are born out as well in 2Cor. 12:12 “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.”  These were the attesting signs of an apostle, not devises by which we today can attest to our spirituality or serve our personal needs.

And Paul would have used such miraculous powers to proclaim the gospel.  That was the whole point of miracles, to confirm the word preached.  Paul never used miraculous powers for his own benefit, but only to authenticate the gospel that he was commissioned to preach.  So though the text does not say Paul preached, you can be sure he did, attesting to the authenticity of his message with signs and wonders and miracles.  So that as the word spread on the island, all who were sick came to him to healed.  And though the scripture does not tell us of conversions, tradition does say that a thriving church was started there.

Now this is an example of the mercy and compassion of God, in that He sent His apostle to this remote island especially so that these few natives might hear the gospel.  And it would seem from the kindness and the response of the natives that they did respond to the gospel.  This small island far from the rest of the world was not forgotten by the Lord, but singled out for a divine appointment by one of Christ’s greatest prophets. Here is the principle; God often uses great men to perform humble tasks in dark places to small audiences.

I’m reminded of the story of Eric Liddel, told in the movie Chariots of Fire, which told how this Olympic athlete became famous for his stand for his faith by not running on Sunday even though that was when his 100 meter race was scheduled to be held. But after some deliberation, he was switched to the 400 meter race later in the week, and consequently won the gold medal in a race he had not prepared for.  That made for exciting storylines.  But the real story is that afterwards, Eric Liddel accepted a call to be a missionary in China, to a people who never really appreciated his sacrifice or his athleticism. 

If modern Christians would have scripted the story, Eric Liddel would have moved onto the Christian conference circuit, heralded as a great example of a successful Christian athlete, and receiving large offerings and speaking to great crowds.  He would have written a book about successful Christian athleticism and how you can use it to influence the world.  But God had different plans.  He sent Eric Liddel to the darkest continent on the planet, to a people that would never appreciate his Olympic gold medals, and Eric Liddel lived out the rest of his days there teaching the word of God.  He died in China in 1945 after being incarcerated for the last two years in a prison camp. God’s ways are not our ways.

The next few verses of our text detail the voyage of Paul and the others as they sailed to Rome.  And one point of interest is that they met some brethren, that is fellow Christians in Puteoli and they were allowed to stay there 7 days.  Notice the providence of God in this.  Here are believers in a town where there is no record of having received the gospel, and yet there are already a few Christians there.  Again, this is such an out of the way place that Paul would have probably never visited these people under normal circumstances.  But God knew that this small band of believers were in this city, and He arranges it so that they will come there, and not only be there for the day, but for seven days.  Furthermore, the text says that Paul was allowed to go to them.  He stayed with them.  This is an extraordinary indication of God’s providence seeing that Paul is a prisoner, and yet the centurion so trusts Paul and is in fact indebted to him so that he gladly allows Paul to stay with his friends.  Such an example of how God is concerned about small audiences.  This little group of believers are visited by the great apostle and given the benefit of his preaching for 7 days.  What a boost that must have been to that little church there, and what an encouragement as well it must have been for Paul to see that the gospel seeds that he had planted elsewhere had blown even to this remote spot.

I was looking at the colors of the trees on our lane yesterday and noticed a young cedar sapling growing in the woods at the end of the lane.  And I realized how far it was from the two cedar trees that border our house lot.  I don’t know how a seed from those trees made it all the way down to the end of the road, perhaps a bird dropped it there and it found root and grew.  But I couldn’t help but think of how Jesus relates the preaching of the gospel to a farmer casting seeds, and some fall on good soil, and some do not get rooted deep and do not produce.  But our job is to cast the seed, and let divine winds blow it where God has prepared the soil to receive it.

I think of all the people that come in and out of our church, many times for just a few days or maybe a week at a time.  And yet during that time we are able to minister to them and they to us in a special way.  Some people we will never see again perhaps this side of heaven.  But God uses our church to minister to traveling visitors, and infrequent guests, who hopefully go away refreshed and with a new sense of purpose back to their home communities and perhaps even bringing new life to their churches. 

Then note in vs15, it would appear that two different groups of Christians came out to meet Paul as he came near to Rome.  You know, Paul was a great apostle, but we must not forget that he was human as well.  He became tired, hungry, fatigued, worried and even fearful.  Some pious people like to say that being fearful or worried is sinful.  But I disagree.  I think it just means you are human.  There is nothing wrong with being afraid.  Courage is not the lack of fear, but the willingness to go on in spite of your fears.  Paul had been on a long hard journey.  And now he is finally near his destination.  He has no idea what is going to happen when he arrives.  Only that the Holy Spirit has told him he will stand before Caesar.  Where Nero was concerned that usually had a way of not turning out too well for most people.  And so I’m sure that Paul was concerned, even a bit fearful as he approached this capital of the world, to be judged by the highest official of the Roman Empire.

Now we can be assured he was fearful, because it says when Paul saw the brethren who came outside the city to meet him that he thanked God and took courage.  I cannot tell you the numbers of times that some visitors to our church have given me an opportunity to thank God and be encouraged just at a time when I needed it most. 

And the reason that Paul is so encouraged was that these people were the fruit of the gospel to the Romans that he had written  years earlier.  People that he had never met, but that had read his letter and received it as the gospel of Jesus Christ.  No wonder Paul thanked God and was encouraged.  That is another characteristic of the template of the church, encouragement.  Even as we are reminded in Hebrews 10:24 “and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

 I remember a few weeks ago really struggling with preparing my message, and when I delivered it I kind of felt deflated, feeling like I wasn’t sure if it had really accomplished anything for the kingdom.  And a couple of days later I got an email from a woman telling me how much the message had meant to her, and how it had spoken to a particular need she had.  I’m not even sure who this lady is.  For some reason, I cannot remember what she looked like or anything about her.  But I was encouraged by her note.  And I think that every Christian who is serving the Lord has that hope, that something you said to someone about the Lord, or someone you reached out to in Christian kindness, was genuinely moved by your words or your actions.  You may not see the fruit of that work in this lifetime, but there will come a day when what you whispered in secret will be shouted from the rooftops.  And what was done for Christ will last for eternity and be rewarded in heaven.

Well, Paul finally gets to Rome, he is given his own rented quarters to live in with just a personal guard.  That is an exceptional privilege for a prisoner.  He is allowed unrestricted access to friends and visitors.  But nevertheless he is still a prisoner.  And this is really incredible; Paul calls upon the very group of people that are responsible for his incarceration in the first place to come and visit him.  It’s almost like he is inviting trouble.  The Jews in Rome have not heard about Paul, or of any charges against him.  You would think that Paul would have tried to avoid these guys, much less invite them to his house. 

But this illustrates another important principle: our spiritual adversaries are not our enemies, but they are our mission field.  So Paul invites them to hear the gospel.  He explains the gospel from the OT scriptures for 8 to 12 hours and presents them with evidence that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and that He had to die and be resurrected to fulfill God’s plan of salvation. 

Luke tells us that some of the Jews were being persuaded by Paul and some weren’t. And that resulted in them having a sharp disagreement and leaving.  The idea that some were being persuaded does not necessarily mean that they were saved.  I think there was a disagreement, similar to the times when Paul preached to the Jews before and the Pharisees and the Sadducees ended up arguing amongst themselves.  The point is though that they left without being saved, as Paul’s parting remarks make plain. 

Paul quotes from Isaiah 6:9, saying, ‘GO TO THIS PEOPLE AND SAY, “YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; AND YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, AND WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES; OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT SEE WITH THEIR EYES,

AND HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.”’

I don’t quite understand the compassion of God, but He continues to call His prophets to preach to a people who will not understand, to a people who have hardened their hearts and closed their eyes.  But yet that is the commission of the church.  Only God can open hearts and open the eyes of the blind.  Our job is to preach the gospel, whether or not they will accept it or not. 

I will say this, my experience is confirmed by the scriptures in saying that the majority of people will not understand.  The majority of people will not be saved.  But a few will turn and believe. When I consider the number of people that we have presented the gospel to that were almost persuaded, but eventually went on their way I can easily become discouraged.  However, we must not allow small numbers or the lack of results to discourage us as we fulfill the commission of Jesus Christ.  The gospel has never been popular, contrary to what we sometimes are told.  Christians have always been in the minority.  But I can say this with absolute conviction.  The kingdoms of the earth rise and fall into obscurity, but the kingdom of God endures forever.  Caesar and the Roman Empire have faded away.  Ancient Judaism and the temple are no more.  But the gospel has endured, and flourished and is still saving souls 2000 years later. 

Well the book of Acts concludes without coming to a conclusion.  Because the story of the church is not finished.  Paul continued for two years there teaching and preaching out of his home to all who would come to him. And that I think is the final part of the church’s template; the consistent preaching and teaching of the word of God in Paul’s house. He would have never had a great crowd.  It was a rented home after all and would not have held more than a couple of dozen people at a time.  But the church continued.  And when Paul eventually met his death, someone else picked up the baton and continued to run the race.  That baton has been passed down through the centuries from church to church, from generation to generation.  Today we still meet in our homes, and today small groups of Christians meet all around the world, sharing the truth of the gospel to all who will come. 

I believe the true church of God is still following that template,  doing the same thing that Paul did, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness.  The preaching of the word is the hallmark of the church, it’s our purpose, and nothing can stop us except the Lord’s return.  Let us be found as faithful as Paul was, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, to be about the purpose of the kingdom of God, never ceasing to preach Jesus Christ.