This semester in my Bible Study group (Within The Word) we have started journeying through the book of Acts. This week as I was studying Acts 2. One thing that struck a chord in my heart was Acts 2:42-47 & what a Beautiful example this passage gives about Biblical Community. It’s about the early Church / Believers harmoniously “Doing life Together”, just how God intend us to!
Unfortunately though, we live in a “Me First” driven world! In our culture there is so much focus on individual desires & less on relationships & community, so the concept of Biblical Community can seem a bit foreign. That is why I Love the examples Jesus give from different passages in Scripture about the early Groups of Believers. They focused on what really mattered – Learning / Studying the Word of God together. Truly caring for one another through fellowship & building their relationships through worshiping & praying together. For them it wasn’t an occasional thing they did, but rather a way of life. It was not based around just one particular place or building, but around relationships, their relationship with Jesus & each other.
Jesus designed Biblical community for the purposes of “Encouraging & Building each other up”, I Thessalonians 5:11. This is the way I believe He intends for us, His Church / Body of Believers to be like today, functioning as a Community doing life Together. If your not plugged into a group of believers or a Bible study. I want to encourage you to take that step of getting involved somewhere. With technology today (Aka:Google) it so easy to find a Body of Believers or Bible study in your area. For we were not meant to do this life thing alone, we were Divinely designed to do it together!
~Ruth Griffith