One heart and soul

Good morning. And just one thing I want to tell you, this passage that Brad just read for us is without exception the most phenomenal, fantastic passage in the entire book of Acts, except for all the rest. Anyway, okay. So anyway, this passage here, which is Acts 4, 32 through 37, is actually a fairly brief passage, but there's a lot to bring out from it.

So we start with the day in which the church began, and that was recorded for us in Acts chapter 2. 3,000 approximately Jewish people were saved on that single day, which we see as the evidence is increasingly stacking up. That was May 24th, 33 AD. We've been examining the day on which John and Peter healed the man-born lame for chapters 3 and 4 here, and John and Peter's interaction then with the Sanhedrin, who, as we saw last week, let them go. So between those days, what did Dr. Luke do? He described from that May 24th day of Pentecost until this midsummer day, whenever that was, a few months time, Dr. Luke describes the character and activity of the church in Jerusalem. And that is Act 242-47. So then we have the approach that Dr. Luke takes as he describes certain events, and then he describes here's the next event that he describes. There's obviously a lot that goes on in between, but so what he does is he provides a summary.

And that's what he did in that Acts 2.42-47. He provides a summary from the day of Pentecost until this day. that took place when they healed, John and Peter healed the lame man, everything is summarized in Acts 2, 42 through 7.

This is what it was like during this time. And it doesn't mean that's what was continued all throughout the book of Acts. It doesn't mean that that's what is prescribed, necessarily. but rather that that's what happened between this time and the next. And that's very important for us to get a hold of. We'll be taking a look at that again.

Here is Acts 2.42-47, just so we look at that previous kind of summary of the time between.

Acts 2.42-47 says, And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, and to fellowship, and to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common. And they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all of the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who are being saved.

So what he was doing here is summarizing, this is the general summary of what took place between the day of Pentecost and the day that Peter and John went up to the temple to pray, encountered the man who was born lame, and healed him, and then the rest of the events in which 5,000 were saved that day.

And so this summarizes that in-between time, and those are a few months apart in those days. So after the day in which Peter and John healed the lame man, Dr. Luke gives us another description. So what we're looking at today is another description. This is what it was like from the time that Peter and John healed the lame man until the next event that was described. So this is another in-between description, and this is the summary of events from the time that Peter and John healed the lame man and the events that took place along with that, up to the time of the Ananias and Sapphira event that we'll be looking at, and that was definitely not a healing, right? And so that's Acts 5, 1 through 11. So this is the description of, here's what happened in between.

So one of the very important questions that comes up with the book of Acts How can we tell what's just transitional and just for us? Passages like Acts 2, 42-47 and Acts 4, 33-37 should be 32. How can we tell what was just for then and what is meant to apply for us right now in this the 21st century? The truth is, a great many Christians have splintered off by grabbing something in the middle of Acts, including these early passages here, and have then drawn conclusions about this is what the church should do. Let me give you a brief description of one of those. Years ago, as you know, I used to live on the farm.

We had in the surrounding areas, sometimes a county or two off to the east or to the north, other groups of Christians. And we maintained some contact with them. One of them to the north was led by a guy named Leon. And it was a Christian commune. And it was based on, hey, we're going to reproduce these things that are here in these passages. Now, this was a very interesting one because Leon had taught the people in his Christian commune that Christians should not express humor.

Now, when they're coming to our house, that was a real problem. You're coming to the Petermann's house. So this is going to be real difficult. Well, they had a real tough time with us because I greeted them at the back door, which was our front door. I greeted them at the back door with some kind of joking, you know, welcome and that sort of thing. And, of course, they kind of scowled at me at that. And the whole evening went that way where, you know, we were cracking jokes and laughing and they were scowling at us and trying to correct us.

But anyway, that's just what happens when people say, well, I'm going to take a particular time. And they didn't read about humor in there, so they assume that Christians aren't supposed to have any humor, right? And of course jesting is all jesting, right? That was their idea. So at any rate, it's possible for somebody to kind of glom on to something in here and say that's the norm.

And so it's important for us to be able to distinguish what's normal and what's not. And so we're going to be taking a look at that as we've done in our prior studies of Scripture. We're going to be taking a look at and employing the principle of comparison and contrast. As I was sharing with somebody earlier here in our time this morning, this is a most undiscovered and most powerful principle of understanding scripture. And I'll say this, that much of the schism over the decades and centuries of church history, and by the way we now have 30,000 Christian denominations, much of the schism and division among Christians is based on a failure to compare and contrast. Huge principle.

We'll look at what is the same, that's comparison, and what is different using other scripture. And by the way, we're going to violate a cultural dictum as we do that. You know that you can't compare apples and oranges. You know what we're going to do? We're going to compare apples and oranges. Isn't that great? Okay, so here we go.

So why does this matter? There are some who have said that we ought to do just like the early church did back in the early chapters of the book of Acts. There are others who say that everything was so different that you can't determine anything about what you do now. And there are some who say that the early church of Acts described socialism. Isn't that great? So they tell us that all Christians should be socialists. I hope you knew that. So anyway, we're going to be taking a look at that one too.

Here's Acts 4.32, and the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them. And of course, this is what Leon told the folks in the Christian commune, right? No personal property, you know? You don't even get to have your own toothbrush. Sorry about that. Okay. Congregation. This word is translated congregation, and it's interesting.

It's not a word that is used exclusively or especially of those who we would call the church, the body of Christ. And those terms or terms was would discover, show up later. But it's used here. We're going to see words shortly that do have a specific application among us in the church, the body of Christ. And those are four different terms. I'll call them terms, not just words.

One is church. We're going to see the word church show up in the next chapter. The next one is brethren. And brethren, disciples, and the faith show up in Acts 6, 1 through 7 for the first time. All three of those terms, or in case of brethren, disciples, words, all three of those show up in that one passage for the first time. And so that'll be a very special one to kind of hover over and take a look at those words. because they continue to have significance for at least chapters within Acts, if not on into the rest of the church and even eternity.

It talks about those who believed. This is more than just those who believe something or other. Have you ever talked about people of faith? And that includes people who are Muslims, like people over our back fence. Or the people who are Mormons, like the people who live next door to us. So, people of faith. But that's not what this is talking about. These aren't just people who believe something. The truth is, everybody believes something. And as we've said before, everybody has faith. It's just a question of where you put it. Everybody has faith. Everybody is a person of faith. It's just a question of where do I put it.

This refers to those who believe that Christ died for their sins, was buried, and rose again. That's the gospel. If you're looking for a nice presentation of that, that's 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 3 and 4. A very nice, succinct statement of that content of the gospel.

So, this means that they were not counted among them those who, one, asked Jesus into their heart. I could warn you, never ask Jesus into your heart. Be careful. And please don't tell somebody to ask Jesus into their heart. That's the most dangerous thing to do because it fails to deal with the issues and the content of the gospel.

Another one is make a commitment to Christ. I think Mike was telling me about someone who who was having what they thought was an evangelistic event here, and Mike said something like, it was too bad nobody was saved. Because at the end, they asked people to make a commitment to Christ. How many times did Christ ask people to make a commitment to Christ? He didn't. The commitment to Christ thing was being committed as a disciple, but that doesn't get you saved.

Next, they tried really hard to be like Jesus. So you can buy that in the Christian bookstores. They'll use WWJD. You know, What Would Jesus Do? And you try really hard to do what Jesus did. You know how saved that will get you? Nothing. This is one reason why people will come along and say, well, I tried Christianity and it didn't work for me. You know what? They didn't try Christianity. Because none of these are Christianity. None of them are Christianity.

It says, however, in there that they were one heart and one soul. That's what Dr. Luke wrote. One heart and soul. He meant that they had a spiritual oneness or a unity that was based on their inward reality. That's the thing. It started with a spiritual reality inside. Then, we've got something else to look at here. There were special circumstances.

Now, special circumstances, you may have heard that in some of the lawyer and cop shows, right? And what that means, that's legal terminology that draws a different conclusion that would otherwise be the case. Being charged with this and this and this with special circumstances. It alters what would otherwise be the usual decision and the usual accusation, right?

In this case, there were special circumstances in Jerusalem back then which brought about the one heart and soul that Dr. Luke describes. Very important distinction. So one of the things we put it here to use sort of colloquialisms, it goes from heart and soul to hearth and bowl, right?

The oneness of heart and soul that was present among the believers in Christ there in Jerusalem was not only in the spiritual realm. It wasn't simply, you know, you guys are one but I can't quite tell, right? But rather, that oneness of spiritual realm translated into expressing it between believers who were there. Everything was held in common and was shared among them under those special circumstances. In these special circumstances, holding things in common was the way of life, as Dr. Luke describes it, among believers in Jerusalem, in those early months of the church, with all twelve apostles present.

Here's Acts 4.33, And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and the abundant grace was upon them all.

So great power, and one of the things you'll notice on the slide that's here and also in your handout, by the way, I apologize for the slides, we had a power outage and all of a sudden everything electronic decided, time to change, right? And so that's what we got. So this is the best we can do on a short notice, but we'll try to get back up to where it was.

Anyway, great power, lots of references, and these are all the references where that term great power shows up in the Old Testament and on into the New. And what it turns out, except for one Old Testament passage and one New Testament passage, great power in the Bible is from God. All those instances where it shows up, with one exception in the old and one exception in the new, is from God. That's the pattern we find here, as the apostles' testimony is accompanied with great power. So why is this great power expressed through the apostles, and why is it because the apostles are there? The primary reason is to validate and draw attention to their testimony to the resurrection.

You guys need to listen to me, because after all, I just healed this lame man that you've been walking by for about four decades, and he's now healed after begging and being lame for more than four decades. And because of that, you need to listen to me. Peter was not trying to draw attention to himself. As a matter of fact, he claimed the name of Jesus Christ, and there's nothing even recorded that he even said his own name. So he wasn't trying to draw attention to himself, but the attention was being drawn to Jesus Christ through the miracles and the great power that's being demonstrated.

One of the key points there is testimony to the resurrection. The apostles are not going about the city of Jerusalem claiming to believe in a resurrection in the future, because the Pharisees were already teaching that. There will be a resurrection in the future, and that's true, but that's not what we're talking about here. The apostles were going about the city of Jerusalem claiming to have seen Christ crucified, buried, and resurrected with their own eyes. All of them saw Him crucified. A number of them, including a number of the women, saw Him buried, and they all saw Him resurrected, and multiple times.

We show a picture of Thomas here seeing Christ. Imagine, here's Thomas. Ten of the disciples have seen Christ resurrected. They've seen Him personally. He walked into the room without the doors being opened. And all ten of them are saying, Thomas, we've seen Him! He's resurrected! He's alive! And Thomas says, uh-uh. For a week he says, uh-uh. And then what happens here? They're right.

My Lord and my God. He is stunningly convinced. Stunningly convinced. So this testimony to the resurrection was a primary purpose of and an absolute qualification requirement for each of the apostles. That's from Acts 122. They all must have seen the Lord resurrected.

It's not the only one, but it is a primary one. So what kind of testimony are we talking about? The apostles, rather than spouting just this uplifting idea or myth, proclaimed and confirmed historical fact. We have seen it with our own eyes. All 12 of us here are here to witness. Oh, we got some women too, but you wouldn't believe them, right? And there's a bunch of others, but at least we 12 are specifically appointed to testify. And by the way, that's more than two or three, isn't it? Supposed to have two or three witnesses? How's 12 do, right?

The apostles, as they spoke, all consistently proclaimed that they were witnesses of Christ's resurrection. We've underlined that there, and up in the top where we've got the scripture references, 315, 532, and 1039, is where they say, we are witnesses. Starting with Christ's crucifixion, and then His burial, and then His resurrection, we are witnesses. Additionally, the events in Acts 2-4 took place from May 24th through the midsummer of 33 AD, just a few months, all in Jerusalem, where there were many who would like to have been able to prove the apostles wrong. If you were one of the Jewish leaders, especially one of the Sadducees, where you don't believe in a resurrection, oh, this must have been great. So anyway, so here's the Jewish leaders.

They were desperate to be able to prove these guys were wrong. When they brought John and Peter up in front of them, did they say, hey, this resurrection thing didn't take place, you guys shut up about that. Is that what they said? They didn't even bring it up. I think they were scared. I think they were scared. they would like to have been able to prove the apostles wrong but they could not and there is not the slightest evidence that any of them tried to prove them wrong. It may be a truth that they didn't like but they couldn't prove the apostles wrong. Here you have a map and it's on the bottom of page two of your handout. This is just a map of Jerusalem. You see the scale in feet there, a thousand feet on the lower right, and you see how close these things are from one place to the next.

You want to say, okay, where did we have the Last Supper? That's in this upper room that's over in the lower left-hand corner. Yeah, this is where we had the Last Supper, and this is where Jesus said this, and this, and this, and this, and all of us were there.

And we can testify to that fact. And then we walked over to Garden of Gethsemane. And we see that upper middle. We walked over the Garden of Gethsemane. And that's where Jesus prayed. And this is what he prayed. And then they came and arrested him. About 600 men. Peter tried to stop it. cutting off the high priest servant's ear, right? That'll fix them, right? So Peter tried to stop it.

Then they went from Gethsemane over to, which you see there's the palatial mansion that's in the middle on the left-hand side. They went there to the palatial mansion. They had the trial in a 33 by 21 foot room. where, from the courtyard, Peter and John could see the trial taking place. At the end of Peter's denials, Peter looked at the Lord. They met eyes. The Lord looked at him. That's when he realized, oh, I've denied Christ.

They took Jesus back and forth between Herod's palace, there first, and then over to Hasmonean palace. The Herod's palace that you see in the center left, that is where Pilate's palace was located. The Hasmonean palace that you see nearby was where Herod Antipas' palace was located. So from Herod's palace to Hasmonean palace back to Herod's place. And then they took Jesus off to beat him. That was either at the south end of the Herod's palace or over at the fortress Antonia that you see just north of the temple area, right?

From there, they took him over to Golgotha, outside the Ganoth, the garden gate. And then right nearby, we're talking like two or three hundred feet away, they buried Jesus in the tomb. And do you see how close all that stuff is? And He rose again from that tomb. It was right across the garden from where He was crucified.

It would have been real easy for anybody to come and say, Nah, He wasn't crucified. Oh yeah, let's go take a look at the place. All these soldiers are still around, let's ask them. Especially that centurion who said this was the Son of God. Let's talk to him about this. Let's go to the tomb. It'd be real easy to just go up to the tomb and say, look, there's a body in here. It's a new tomb, so nobody else was buried in there but Jesus. The body's still there. It would have been real easy. Nobody ever did it. They didn't even ask the disciples, hey, let's go for a little walk and look at these things. Why? The evidence was all against them.

Let's take a look then here. Overwhelming grace upon them all. Abundant grace starts, of course, from the Lord Himself. This is, as Paul talks about later, the wealth, the riches of His grace. There's no other place for abundant grace to start from in the entire universe. The only place. But this abundant grace was not just grace from the Lord to these believers, but grace that was expressed through them.

Grace must be understood as more than just something like God is just not as uptight about sin as He used to be. That's not what grace is. The song Amazing Grace, believe it or not, is Oprah's favorite hymn. Because you know what she thinks? God's not as uptight about sin as He used to be. That's not true, is it?

Grace is something far greater than that. As a matter of fact, it's so great we're going to spend the rest of eternity, through the rolling ages to come, with God demonstrating, showing visibly His grace, the wealth, the riches of His grace. Grace is also, as Scripture makes clear, we have in 2 Corinthians 12 and Hebrews 13. Grace is a sufficiency. Grace is a strength. Grace is far more than God just is not as uptight about sin as it used to be.

Here's Acts 4.34 and 35.

For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles' feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need. So what was interesting, those who owned real estate sold it, or at least that appears to be a common pattern among them. They placed the proceeds there at the feet of the apostles, and the apostles then distributed the proceeds and passed it out among the believers there who were present. So in that special set of circumstances, there was nobody among them who was in need. And we're going to see that this was a special set of circumstances.

Matter of fact, the Apostle Paul writes to the church at Corinth, and he writes, there's two words for poor in the Greek. He says, some of you are that super, super poor, barely maintaining existence poor, right? Some of you are, right? So even there, by the time Paul is writing the letter to the Corinthians, and that's before he goes to Rome, right?

Even there. That was not the situation like you see here. So we're going to see that this, what's described here by Dr. Luke in Acts chapter 4, is a special set of circumstances. Also, we're going to have mixed examples coming right up. What do I mean by that? In the passages right ahead of us, we're going to see an example of how that selling and giving worked out really well. And then right after that, we're going to see that there are big problems showing up. Uh-oh, right?

Then while at first everyone was sharing equally, placing everything at the apostles' feet, there were some problems in the sharing, and the apostles were overloaded. So chapter 5 is the problems, and chapter 6 is the other problems. More problems. So the apostles would soon say, we need deacons right here, right now. That's chapter 6. The first seven verses in chapter 6 are going to get that settled. So, anyway, those examples are coming right up. Here's Acts 4, 36 and 37.

Now Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, who was also called Barnabas by the apostles, which translated means son of encouragement, and who owned a tract of land, sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. So here's a great example and an introduction here to the person of Barnabas, mentioned not only as we go through the book of Acts in the chapter 15, but also into the letters of the Apostle Paul. So he's called Joseph of the tribe of Levi, that means he was a Levite. He was at least qualified to work then in the temple alongside the priests, not as a priest, but doing the things that the priests would leave to the Levites, because only the priests could do. We're going to see again in our exploration of the Book of Acts, he provides a great example for a number of different things. This Joseph, also known as Barnabas, The one who sells his apparently undeveloped piece of property and gives the proceeds to the apostles for them to use to meet the needs of the believers. He, however, sells, and he's the good example, we're going to get the next example in chapter 5 of Ananias and Zephyra, and that's not such a good example.

Here is Cyprus, where he is from. You have it on the bottom of page 3 in your handout, at least I sure hope so. And Cyprus is shown there as a dark island on the east end of the Mediterranean. As we go through the book of Acts, this part of the Mediterranean world is going to become much more familiar with this as we see a lot of Paul's missionary journeys, and the first one along with Barnabas. is going to involve a lot of this part of the territory. The lines and labels that you see on there are actually the modern locations of things and the modern boundaries, but nonetheless Cyprus is still identifiable as an island there in the eastern Mediterranean and Israel is also identifiable.

He's called the Son of Encouragement. He has this nickname Joseph being his formal name here, he gained this Aramaic nickname translates as son of encouragement and is carried over into our language or transliterated as Barnabas. So his actual Aramaic name was something like Barnaboo or something more like that. So we're going to see how Barnabas is truly the son of encouragement in other times, in other ways.

The next time we're going to see him is in Acts chapter 9. Here's a complete listing of places where he shows up. Keep Barnabas then in the back of your mind through the book of Acts since we're going to see him here in chapter 9. He is going to be amazing. He's going to be brave. We're going to see that God gives him very special appointments. and a very special role within the early church there.

So, we come to some very, very important questions. How can we tell what was meant just for those times and what is meant for us today, including Dirty Hair Eager? So what is meant for us today? How do we tell? And by the way, that is a big, big, big issue because not being able to tell has caused a great deal of schism among people in the church. Even among people whom we would say, yeah, we agree with these people in great part. They've failed to apply this principle as they should. So we'll apply the principle of comparison and contrast, that is, what's the same and what's different, see?

So you see a picture of these two guys, and what do you see that's the same? They're both looking in the same direction. They're both, looks like, possibly males, right? They're both bald on top. They both have red shirts, right? So what's different? Well, one thing that's different is quite a difference in age. I would guess that's a father and a son, but quite a difference in age, right? They may have other differences not immediately apparent. Certainly the size of their shirts is different, right?

Okay. Here's an example, another comparison and contrast. Here's Nancy's mom. Here's Nancy and here's Becky, a few years back. So here you see what is the same. They're all three females. Matter of fact, there's family lineage. What's different? Well, I'm sure you can tell. Becky at this point is somewhere around four or five years old, I would guess. So anyway, Nancy's mom is in this picture. She's home with the Lord now.

So, anyway, it's an instance where you can compare. There are some things that are similar, and there's certainly quite a bit of contrast as well. Now, here's the one we're talking about. People say you can't compare apples and oranges. Well, yes, you can. Okay? Here's how they compare. They're both fruit grown on trees, and you can give juice or you can eat them raw, right?

And so for the oranges, they're tropical. They have a thick peel. They came to Europe from India, so that's a significant difference. The apples are moderate to subtropical climates. They have a thin peel and they originated in their diversity in Turkey, so different origin for them.

We could also point to other things, right? But the point being, you can make a comparison to apples and oranges, unlike our little, you know, piece of wisdom that we usually pass on. You can't compare them? Oh yes, you can. What's the same? What's different? And we can ask that of any passage in the Bible. So here's Abraham offering up his son Isaac, as God told him to. So why don't I do that? Well, something's different, right? Is Abraham a good guy? Yeah. Abraham a man of faith? Yeah. Did he do what God told him to? Yeah. Am I supposed to do that?

No. So, we'll apply this principle of comparison and contrast, what's the same and what's different, as we go through the book of Acts, including here. One, we look for special, unique circumstances and conditions with changes during the book of Acts or afterwards. Did the apostles always stick around Jerusalem? No. As a matter of fact, as it turns out, we know how James died. We have accounts outside the Bible of how all the rest of the apostles died.

You know, they all died in foreign countries, those other eleven, all died in foreign countries, Paul too. They went, some of them died up in Europe, some of them died in North Africa, and some of them died as far east as India. Thomas, you know, the one who said, nah, you guys are crazy. I'm not believing a thing you guys say, even if there's all ten of you.

That's the guy that went to Madras, India. and died in Madras, India. And on the way, he stopped and gave the gospel to the Babylonian Jews, because he could speak Aramaic and so could they. But then he went on to another place where they didn't speak Aramaic. That's where he gave his life.

Lots of changes, but they didn't stick around Jerusalem. Changes during the book of Acts. Did they stick around Jerusalem all during the book of Acts? Not really. They started going other places, right? So, changes during the book of Acts and changes afterwards.

Secondly, we look for confirmation that things are the same in the rest of the New Testament. So here's the Apostle Paul. He's giving instructions about collections to the Corinthians at the end of 1st Corinthians and again in 2nd Corinthians, which is really 2nd Corinthians and 4th Corinthians, because of the other letters, right? But he gives instructions on giving at the end of each one of those letters.

Does he tell them, be sure you sell your houses? No, he does not, right? He does not do that. Are there still poor among them? Yes, there are. Does he go and fix it? No, he does not. Right? So, there are things that are different, and the New Testament will either confirm, yep, everything is the same, or it will tell you what's different. We could give another example that's one of my favorites.

Here's the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says you must forgive in order to be forgiven. This is Jesus speaking to the Jews. Then Paul, Ephesians 4.32 writes to the believers in Ephesus and he says forgive because you've been forgiven. So were the Jews that Jesus addressed in Matthew chapter 5 and chapter 6 and chapter 7, were they supposed to forgive? Yes they were. Were the believers that Paul wrote to in Ephesus supposed to forgive? Yes, they were.

That's the same. That compares. The reason that the Jews were supposed to forgive is because they had to in order to be forgiven. The Jews and Gentiles in Ephesus were to forgive because they had been forgiven. That's different. Christians get all messed up because they don't recognize what's the same forgiveness and what's different. Forgiveness under the law, you're forgiven if. Forgiveness under grace, you're forgiven. Now let's talk about your sin problem. So like Acts 22, the body of Christ is right to focus on the apostles' teaching and fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayer. So that's comparison, what's the same.

But we haven't had any apostles around to teach us. Have you known any apostles? I haven't. I've known some pretty great guys, but never an apostle. So the apostles' teaching looks like teaching from the Bible, which the apostles and prophets wrote. Apostles and prophets appeared three times in Ephesians. Apostles and prophets, apostles and prophets, apostles and prophets. We don't have any apostles, but we do have their teaching.

So the opportunities are not identical, but similar. I could send as many invitations as I want, but I'm not going to get any of the apostles showing up as guest speakers at Holly Hills. Not going to happen. Not even if all three elders sign. Not happening. Here's another comparison and contrast.

The early chapters of Acts, that only tells about the believers in Jerusalem. who were all apparently Jews, they were Jews or Jewish converts, and all under all 12 of the apostles at once. By the way, outside of that never happened again. You don't get all 12 apostles at once, and by the time Acts chapter 12 comes around, James is killed by the sword, John's older brother, killed by the sword. You never again have 12 apostles. Not those 12, right? Until Paul is on the scene. Okay.

Everyone was within walking distance of the places where Jesus had been, including the location of the Last Supper to the empty tomb. What we walked through there in that map of Jerusalem. Everybody was in walking... Can you imagine that? Somebody says, yeah, Jesus, yeah, he didn't resurrect. What a bunch of garbage. Peter or John or any other guys could have said, hey, let's take a walk. I came here on, they wouldn't say this, but I'll say it. I came here on April 5th, 33 AD, and this tomb was empty. And Peter and I saw it empty at the same time. And we had seen it not empty. We'd seen Christ put in it just two days before.

In Jerusalem, the vicinity hosting guests was almost mandatory according to Jewish customs. And not so much everywhere else. People come knocking on your door and they say, hey, we need a place to stay. You say, good luck. But in Jerusalem, you wouldn't do that. So later in Acts in the New Testament, by later in Acts, all the apostles were not in Jerusalem. The gospel went different places with Very different customs, and an apostle might be present, but that wasn't usually the case. Selling one's real estate was not a Christian custom.

Later on, even some precautions. If someone won't work, let him not eat. There were signs and wonders. We don't have a lot of that now. The Lord can heal. I have either seen or heard of a fairly close, to the situation where someone's been healed, but that doesn't happen commonly now.

So are Christians supposed to be socialists? Because after all, everybody shared everything in common, right? So that's not the same thing as the government enforcing, you're going to share, right? And if you don't want to share, what happens? you get arrested or you know whatever so that's different and they share between believer and unbeliever alike to distribute without regard for anyone's contribution or ability to contribute one heart and soul the conditions there were described by Dr. Luke as one heart and soul But later on what we read is exhortation towards oneness.

That's where we read Philippians 1.27, Romans 15, 1 Corinthians 1.10, Ephesians 4.1-10, examples of the call to oneness of believers and on a basis of their position The unity of their position being what they already have.

So a call to oneness. There doesn't appear to be a call to oneness here. It simply happened because of special circumstances. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the very special circumstances you put us in. And we thank you for that. We know that for each individual one of us, as well as for us as a church body, you have purpose in everything that takes place. And we thank you for that. What a comforting thought that is. We just pray that throughout the course of this day that you might bring these truths home to our hearts. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.