Timeless Church

Five Lessons from Acts

P. Adam McClendon, Jared E. Lockhart

• Publisher: B&H Academic
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781535994798
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Guided by the book of Acts, McClendon and Lockhart unpack five timeless principles that characterize healthy, effective churches. With emphasis on doctrine, community, prayer, giving, and evangelism, Timeless Church illustrates how the church in Acts still serves as a faithful guide for the churches of today.
 

Confessing • Gathering • Praying • Giving • Engaging

CHAPTER 1

CONFESSING CHURCH:
We Believe in Jesus

Grounding all activity in the central confession of Jesus as the Messiah was a central characteristic of the early church as detailed in the book of Acts.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42–47)

What Makes a Church?

When the Lord got a hold on my life, I (Adam) began attending a church as the result of a friend’s invitation. Looking back these many years later, I realize that I unintentionally viewed church as more of a department store than a place of worship. The central question lurking behind all my observations was, “Does it have what I need?” I was a consumer seeking to receive, ignorant of the call to serve and love others in community. My time needed to be well spent and my needs met. Shortly after I began attending this church, it became a refuge: a home away from home. A love for the people blossomed in my heart. I soon invited others to church, to join me in this wonderful journey. However, my invitation to them focused around individual preferences, like I was pointing out trinkets at a sales booth. I promoted my church to others based on how it would accommodate them, serve them, and fulfill them. I was too young and immature to think past this approach to bigger questions, like these:

• Does this church proclaim biblical beliefs and doctrine?

• Does it have a biblical leadership structure?

• Does it foster and celebrate biblical community?

• Does it engage culture with the gospel?

• Does it make much of Jesus and challenge people to live in obedience to him?

By fixating on the programs and services of the church, as good and helpful as they were, I missed what it means for the church to be the church.

These many years later, as I talk to people, coach and encourage leaders within various denominations, and work with parachurch organizations, I find we tend to promote dynamic preaching, a meaningful worship experience, good programming for children, and a solid youth ministry. Now, do not get me wrong: I hope that our churches have all of these. Yet in the midst of these more experience-oriented programs, we must not lose sight of the central confession that defines and determines a Christian church. What makes a Christian church is not just its activity in gathering but its confession of specific truths. This word confession is not one commonly used in our culture, but it is an important concept that makes all the difference. Confession is central to church, and without it, a true Christian church cannot exist. Additionally, when this confession is in place, it grounds and brings purpose to all other activities, programs, and experiences—but we are getting ahead of ourselves. First, we must discuss what is meant by the word confession and why it is so important.

Confessing Love

My wife, Adrienne, and I met when I was fifteen. Here is the story of how we did, and how I came to love this amazing woman. At fifteen I was dysfunctional on many levels. I was dealing with some deep emotional scars from so much that had happened in my life already. I was even wrestling with whether I wanted to live. One night, I was in a horrible car accident that should have taken my life. God used that event to give me a desire not just to live, but to find and live out his purpose for my life. I began searching as never before.

A couple of weeks later, sitting in class at school, a young man named Chad invited me to church. Chad and his parents began picking me up and taking me to the Wednesday night youth group. This place was safe and quickly became my refuge. That first Wednesday night, I walked in wearing my cool leather jacket and reeking of cologne—a little really does go a long way, but I just felt a little more would go a little further. Frankly, I was ridiculous. But that night, several people, including Adrienne, took time to talk to me. They genuinely seemed to want to get to know me, to hear my story, and to encourage me in my walk with God. It was like precious ointment on my wounded soul.

Adrienne, two other students, and I quickly became the best of friends. They were regularly picking me up for church, and we were all together every weekend, with rare exceptions. These people were my family during this time, and God began a great work in my life. Through this youth group, our amazing youth pastor, his wife, and these friends, I sensed a call into full-time vocational ministry.

Adrienne and I had a great friendship during this season of my life. We never dated; we simply cherished our friendship and challenged each other to cling to Christ. She was one year ahead of me in school. After graduating, she went to college in Tennessee, while two months into my senior year, I became convinced that the Lord was leading me to serve in the military as a missionary. One evening right before leaving for the military, while Adrienne was home visiting for the summer, I was hanging out at her house. As we were enjoying each other’s company, suddenly I looked deep into her eyes and realized for the first time that I saw her as more than a friend. That evening, I kissed her. Shortly after that night, I left for boot camp, and Adrienne began her sophomore year of college. We never spoke of the kiss.

Right after boot camp, my youth pastor, who also worked with the college and young adults in our church, invited me to a college retreat. I was especially excited when I discovered Adrienne was going to be there too. Thatweekend, as we all hung out and walked, I held her hand, still never mentioning the kiss. Avoiding the issue was not going to fly with her, however. She wanted to know what I was doing and where we were with our relationship. I remember saying something like, “I care deeply for you and cherish our friendship, but I can’t go further. I’m not going to date you unless I know you are the woman I’m going to marry.”

Then, with amazing confidence, she looked at me and said, “Well, I already know I’m going to marry you.”

I laughed out loud and responded, “No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do,” she replied calmly.

“Well, I don’t know that.”

What she said next shocked me even more: “That’s okay. I’ll wait on you.”

About three months later, I was in a military training school. I could not stop thinking and praying about our conversation. I remember thinking about the type of woman I wanted to be with when I was seventy years old, after fifty years of marriage. Adrienne is exactly the type of woman I want to be with, I thought, so why should I keep looking for what I’ve already found? It was then that I committed and decided to confess my love for her and ask her to be my girlfriend. In doing so, it was as if I was asking her to marry me one day, because that purpose was behind it.

What is the point of this story, other than providing a lot of detail about my past? The point is this: a moment came, through a variety of divinely directed circumstances, when I realized my genuine love and commitment to Adrienne, and I confessed it to her.

What Does “Confession” Actually Mean?

Confession is more than just silent belief. It is the expression and proclamation of beliefs for an individual or a collective group of people. A confession is proclaimed both privately and publicly. In confessing my love for Adrienne, I was proclaiming what I believed to be true. A confession can either be written or spoken, but more than that, a confession must be believed and lived. Its truth must show in the way the one who confesses it lives.

The church has confessed her beliefs in written documents since her inception in the first-century AD. These confessions are found in the writings of individuals (such as the apostle Paul and early church fathers) and in the writings of groups and councils (such as the First London Baptist Confession andthe Westminster Confession of Faith).¹ Early in the history of the church, a number of doctrines arose that set apart individuals as Christians and groups as Christian churches.² Among these doctrines were a biblical understanding of the Trinity, that Christ was born of a virgin, and that the Bible is the Word of God.³ These doctrines, among others, were seen as most distinctive of Christianity and among the most essential biblical doctrines. Affirming these accepted beliefs set individuals apart as orthodox Christians; however, even before these, there was and still is today a confession even more central and foundational, as it has been central since the beginning of Jesus’s ministry.

This confession was at the heart of Jesus’s interactions with his own disciples. This most central confession of the church is found in Acts 5:42: “And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.” This central confession that “Jesus is the Christ” is the root to the trunk of the early church and is found all over the book of Acts (e.g., 2:22–36; 3:13–26; 4:10–12; 5:42; 8:12; 10:34–43; 11:17; 16:31; 17:2–3; 18:5, 28; 20:21; 24:24). Acts is an important text for understanding the central confession of the early church because this book outlines the movement of the Spirit of God in and through the disciples as they take the message and Spirit of Jesus to the ends of the earth.⁴ The central confession that Jesus is the Christ is what animates the disciples and pushes them to action: actions that are documented in the book of Acts. This truth that Jesus is the Christ is the central confession of the church. The Scriptures lay this out quite clearly. In Matthew 16 we read:

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (vv. 15–18)

Peter here clearly and succinctly confesses Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah of Israel, but what is most important about this passage is Jesus’s reaction. Jesus affirms this truth wholeheartedly. He may as well have said, “You are absolutely right! That is correct!” However, notice that he goes beyond simply acknowledging Peter’s confession as theologically correct; Jesus suggests that this confession is the foundation of the church. Jesus as the Christ is the truth on which the church is to be built. It is the foundational truth that buttresses all others for the people of God and all creation. But, what exactly does that mean?

The title “Christ” means “Anointed One.” The title is applied to Jesus and is used to show that Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah. The Messiah is the anticipated Old Testament figure who is to be the fulfillment of the promises of God. The promise of the Messiah goes all the way back to Gen 3:15. After Adam and Eve rebel against God by disobeying his command not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there are consequences. Among other things, they have to leave the goodness of Eden, but there is also a great promise. God says to the snake, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (v. 15). This promised one will defeat evil forever, but in the process the snake will bite his heel.

Later in the book of Genesis, God (eventually) chooses a man named Abraham through whose descendants the world will be blessed. The implication is that the Messiah will be the preeminent one among those descendants. Soon the narrative winds its way to one of those ...