Introduction
As I embark on my journey through Acts, and possibly the New Testament letters, I must take a moment to consider 2 items. First, my preconceptions. The second, my strategy.
Preconceptions.
I grew up in a ‘traditional’ Pentecostal church, an Assemblies of God. There I was taught the fundamentals of being a Christian. How to be saved, making a willful decision to serve God, and live the way Jesus showed us, turning away from our sins to live holy lives. The role of water baptism, to show that we have made this choice. Who the Holy Spirit is. The nature of our triune God. And many more issues that define Christians.
Part of this is the History of the church. The forming of denominations, and the leadership structure in our denomination, and in our church. We had a pastor who led us spiritually, and a church council who led in all other matters.
After moving to the Netherlands, I joined another church (Christian Fellowship Ministries) which proclaimed to be a book of Acts church. I had moved to the Netherlands and needed/wanted a place to worship God with others. They had a different leadership view and church structure. This church leadership was centered around one man. The pastor has absolute power over the church. The pastor in Zwolle had absolute leadership over all the churches in the Europe and China. And in the United States is a strange little man with total authority over the whole denomination, worldwide.
As the years went by, I realized this church had issues. The movement started and led by Wayman Mitchell can even be labeled as a cult, called Waymanism, because of their practices based on the special revelation of Wayman. (Definition of a cult is a movement following one man as if he were God, or the receiver of special revelation of God).
And since leaving the group, I have heard many more denominations, churches, home groups, and individuals claiming to do things as Acts describes. But they can’t all be true, can they? Is a church a group of no more than 10 meeting in a living room, or up to 100.000 meeting a huge building dedicated to the activities of the group? Is the church supposed to be out in the streets shouting hell and damnation to every passerby, or must it quietly provide help to those in need? Must Christians meet at a designated time and place, or is a Christian supposed to be loosed on their own? Is leadership supposed to be authoritarian, or is the group supposed to be democratic? Must there be a group, and if so, must there be a leader?
These are the questions I have started to raise myself. And I realized that my answers are the usual church taught answers. I am not going to say they are wrong. But I want to make up my own mind. I did this with the Creation-Evolution debate, and with the question on end times. I went through these issues with God and left my preconceived ideas behind to see what I would find. And I have decided to do this again on the issue of the church.
Strategy
My plan is to just start reading Acts. I will be reading from multiple English translations: King James Version, New King James Version, English Standard Version, Christian Standard Bible, Amplified Bible, and a Greek English Interlinear Bible. I will also be using Usher’s Annals of the World to create historical context as I need it. I will read paragraph by paragraph to see if I can learn anything as to the makeup of a church and/or a Christian life. I will make note all I learn, and adjust the image as I progress through more paragraphs. This means I will be having a very skewed idea of a church in the beginning, but as I progress, I hope that I will end up with a biblical view on the church and Christianity.
I will also be presenting what I find in articles/videos as I go. Join me on my journey and together we can grow into what Jesus wants us to be as Christians and as a church.