Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart
and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his
own, but they had everything in common. (Acts 4:32)
As soon as I saw
Luke’s description of the early church as “of one heart and soul”, I felt two
bursts of negative emotions. One was a sorrow that my 60+ years of church life
betrayed that most church people do not want this. The other was that the
period of my life when it felt like we had this was so short-lived.
I don’t imagine we
would benefit too much from a left-brain elaboration of what we believe about the
unity and harmony of Jesus’ church. It’s all there in the Bible. And it is clearer
than most church folks seem to notice!
How would I
summarize the reasons that so many church-going people have no interest in
pursuing the “one heart and soul reality in the church?
The shortest answer
is: SELF!
Yes, the selfish
old heart loves to live in the flesh (“sark” in the Greek). This is the earthly
part of us that has no attachment to God. The majority of church people I have
ever known speak out of their sarks, their fleshly interests. And we all know
there can be no oneness of heart and soul when everyone’s hearts are attached
to the flesh and their souls are living nothing more than their earthly
existence in a religious kind of way. Not only does everyone have their own
ideas of what to do and how to do it, but they can never be in unity with the
few who are seeking the “one heart and soul” experience through daily faith in Jesus
Christ.
There is good
reason that Jesus summarized being his disciple as, “If anyone would come after
me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke
9:23). Only when we want to come after him, we want to deny ourselves, we want
to take up our cross daily, and we want to follow Jesus, can we hope to have
unity in the Spirit through the bond of peace (the cross that crucifies us to
sin and makes us alive to Jesus).
This is also a good
explanation for the problem of disunity in the church. Church people want to
attend church, not “come after” Jesus. They want what their sarky selves want, not
denying themselves. They want safety, comfort, and acceptance in the world, not
the notoriety of taking up their cross on a daily basis. And they want Jesus to
follow them and bless them in what they are doing, not to follow Jesus wherever
he leads and join him in whatever he does.
How do I feel about
this?
Part of me can
still feel the joy of when I saw people fall in love with God’s word, enjoy getting
to know God for real, unite to know and do God’s will, and love one another in
the love and life of Christ. When I heard people pouring out their hearts to
God in repentance for leaving him out of church life for so long, and crying to
know him the way the Scriptures were teaching them, it was the most wonderful
feeling of realness I have ever known.
Why did it end? And
why has it been gone for such a long time in so many churches and
denominations?
Because people
discovered something inside them that they would not include in their pursuit
of knowing God. And as soon as they chose to start handling that in their sarks
(flesh), relying on the old hearts that are deceitful and wicked instead of the
new heart that longs to be like Jesus, the selfishness infected everything. We
saw the cancer of self-centeredness and self-justification invade the church. We
witnessed the lure of self-interest send people heading in so many different and
divisive directions. And we experienced the horrible poison of self-protection turning
people from loving one another to sacrificing anyone who got in their way.
Yes, I’m talking
about our home churches as much as any of the institutional churches we have
been in. And yes, that all comes to mind as I see how the Spirit-filled early
church was “of one heart and soul”. It makes me want to repent for everything
we are doing to seek our own ways, and to let myself hunger and thirst for this
righteousness.
After all, if our
Savior prayed, “that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:11), even “that
they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and
loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23), then we must let ourselves
desire this to the fullest possible extent and then be “eager to maintain the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).
© 2025
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
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