I love the picture Acts 17 paints of the early church – at least portions of it, because the townspeople rounding up unsavory characters into a riot because they don’t like the stuff that Paul is saying sounds like a Grimm fairytale. So not that part.
The part that I appreciate is the picture it paints of people wanting to understand the gospel and Paul eagerly trying to explain it to them. The excitement that Paul instilled in the Jews in Berea excites me as well, that they “welcomed the message very eagerly and examined the scriptures every day to see whether these things were so”.
Personally, I believe that the early church generated a lot more excitement around the gospel than we seem to be able to in our modern world. This is reasonable in the sense that it was a much, much more recent series of events for them than it is for us. Some two thousand years do make a difference in how exciting and relevant something seems. However, I wish the church as a whole was still able to get excited over not only the gospel but the ways that God is moving in our world today.
I never really considered what the early church must have been like until I started attending Second City church in Harrisburg. Because in a lot of ways, I think that the early church would have been like that. Second City, in my opinion, has retained some of the joy and excitement than is largely lost in other churches I have attended. Every part of the service, no matter whether it is reading the scriptures or sending the children to children’s church is full to bursting with the joy and excitement of what God has done for us as believers. And I believe that my view of my faith has changed dramatically because of that.
Caroline's Encounters 