Acts 2:46-47 Inductive Bible Study: Unity 3/12

Acts 2:42 says, "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers."

Acts 2:43 says, "Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles."

Acts 2:44-45 says, "Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all as anyone had need."

Acts 2:46-47 says, "So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved."

Again we see that intense unity. They were in the word daily in the temple together. We see that eating together is a big part of unity. That sounds silly but if you think about it, you don't have dinner with people until you are close to them. And then the dinner table is most often where fellowship happens. We spend so much of our lives eating so they did it together.

I love that they had simplicity of heart. I think of what Pastor Steve said when we were first learning the IBS process: Keep It Simple Silly. Don't overcomplicate things. Know what is important. Love God. Love each other. Everything else flows from that. They were joyful, praising God and had favor with everyone. I think these people were such an amazing example for the church. They knew what was important: God and then, fellowship. They were continually in the Word and praying and fellowshipping. And out of that came unity and harmony. They shared everything they had and no one cared about material things. They cared about the needs of others. And with this unity came joy and simplicity. Praise poured out of their hearts and from the wording, it seems that they had favor with all of the people, even non believers. That in particular doesn't seem to be common today. The term "Christian" doesn't have a good connotation among nonbelievers today which is so sad. So how do we go about having favor with everyone? By doing all the things mentioned in the previous verses. It will just happen when we are walking that closely with God, experiencing that intensely what He is doing and fellowshipping that much with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Having favor with everyone isn't something that we should try to do. It should just be something that flows from applying the example of these other verses.

I love the last part of this verse. "And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." The Lord added. It doesn't even say that it was something that the people had to do or the apostles had to work at but the Lord Himself added to the church daily. There is no doubt in my mind that this was a result of the example that this church was setting. And it's so cool because all of this was just because they were obedient. They loved God, and wanted to know Him more and because of that desire, they were in the Word and praying continually and out of that grew so much good stuff. I want to live after this example. Not ritualistically. I just want to love God and do something about it. Not just talk about it but live it out in everything I do and say. I really believe if we all lived like that, churches would look like this church in these verses.

Application:
Today, I will write Keep It Simple on my hand to remember what is important.