I thought it only fitting to start off our church history blogs with the very first church. Before Christ ascended into heaven, He gave his disciples the famous Great Commission. Many confuse this command and hold that Christ was speaking of missions. While He no doubt had missions in mind, His primary focus was on making disciples. Matthew 28:16-20 reads:
16 “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The call of the Apostles was to go make disciples. They would do this by baptizing and by teaching them to obey all of Christ’s commands. As the gospel message spread, men and women out of all nations would come to trust in Christ. This universal body of believers that has been bought by the blood of Christ is called the catholic church. Please note: this is not speaking of the Roman Catholic Church. The lowercase catholic simply means universal. So the catholic church is the unified body of believers across all of the world. The disciples task was to take the gospel to all nations, make disciples, and grow the catholic church.
So who exactly were the Apostles? Many interchange the terms disciples and apostles, but they aren’t exactly the same. The word disciple simply means a “learner.” A disciple was one who learned under the teaching of Christ during His earthly ministry. The word apostle means “one who is sent.” All apostles had to be disciples at one point, but not all disciples would become apostles. The apostles had 3 criteria: they had to be a disciple of Christ Jesus during His earthly ministry, an eyewitness of His resurrection, and directly commissioned by Christ Himself. There were 12 disciples commissioned by Christ (Matthias was added after Judas’ death). Paul was the exception for the criteria as he was not technically a disciple or an eyewitness of the resurrection, but he was no doubt commissioned by Christ and confirmed by the other apostles as an apostle himself.
This leads us into the book of Acts. The very reason why this book is titled Acts is because it records the initial acts of the Apostles upon the ascension of Christ to heaven. Most affirm the authorship of Luke the physician for the book of Acts. The date of this book is debated, but it is believed that it was written before or around 64 AD. In this book we get an in depth look of how the apostles acted upon the Great Commission given to them by Jesus Christ. The gospel spreads as sermons are preached, missions are taken, and churches are formed. Acts 2 details some major events. The day of Pentecost arrived, the apostles were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues, Peter preached a powerful sermon, and many came to faith in Christ. After all these powerful events, Luke records this in verses 41-47:
“42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
This was the beginning of the church. Sproul notes in the Reformation Study Bible: “This initial survey of the activities to which believers single-mindedly devoted themselves summarizes the characteristics of the church’s life together and the essential elements needed in Christian discipleship.” The Greek word for fellowship here is koinonia which denotes a partnership, communion, or unification. That unification of the Spirit guided the fellowship of these believers as they sat under the faithful preaching of the apostles, partook of the Lord’s Supper, freely shared the resources the Lord had given them with each other, and did life together with joyful praise to God. This paints a beautiful picture of what the church should look like from generation to generation until the Lord’s return: a group of believers unified by the Spirit doing life together with the sole purpose of the glory of God. As a result, the Lord rewarded the fruit of their faithfulness, adding to the church day by day. We see this day by day addition still being granted by the Lord as the church continues to grow.
And so this is where it all began. We have no church history without the first church. Without the faithful obedience of the apostles, there would be no church to build upon by the early church fathers. There would be no church for Rome to deform. There would be no church for the Reformers to reform. And there would be no church for us today. Praise God for the holy catholic and apostolic church.
Soli Deo Gloria