The Life of The FIrst Christians in Jerusalem: A Model Community

THE ROLE OF THE
SOCIETY FOR
INTEGRAL HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT
LESSON 01
The Life of the First

Christians in Jerusalem:
A Model Community
Objectives
● Reflectively analyze the life of the first Christian community
in Jerusalem as a model community that listened to the
Apostles’ teachings, shared goods with one another,
prayed and praised God together, and enjoyed the favor of
all people. (Acts 2:42-47; cf. 4:21.33; 5:13; 6)
● Explain the importance of reading and praying of the Word

of God and the “breaking of bread” (Holy Eucharist) in
building a Christian community.
● Pray solemnly together the Acts of the Apostles 2:42-4

INTRODUCTIO
N
Read silently the Bible passage.
The Acts of the Apostles 2:42-47

42 They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the
communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.
43 Awe came upon everyone, and many wonders and signs were done
through the apostles
44 All who believed were together and had all things in common;
they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all
according to each one’s need.
46 Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area
and to breaking bread in their homes. They ate their meals with exultation and
sincerity of heart,
47 praising God and enjoying favor with all the people. And every day the Lord
added to their number those who were being saved.
With what Why did you
line/word of the choose that
passage struck line/word? Share
you most? your experience.
“They were continually devoting
themselves to the apostles’ teaching and
to fellowship, to the breaking of bread
GRADE and to prayer.”
9 (AA 2:42-47)
CLE
The Birth
of the Christian (Acts 2
:1-13)
Community
The day of Pentecost is the
The Holy Spirit in the liturgy
birthday of the Church. becomes the teacher of the people about
It was the time when the Holy the faith. The life and mission of Christ is
Spirit descended to empower the perpetuated in the Church by the power
apostles and disciples heralding the of communion initiated by the Holy
beginning of the Church’s age. The Spirit.
risen Christ makes His presence active
in the Church’s liturgy and sacraments. The Holy Spirit guides the
Church in her life of prayer by preparing
The celebration of prayers the faithful to meet the Lord, and making
and sacraments in the Church is Christ’s memory present in the faith of
through the dynamism of the Holy Spirit. the people through active participation in
By the fruits of Christ’s Paschal Mystery the liturgy and in prayer celebrations.
God’s salvation is dispensed.
The Characteristics of
(Acts 2
the First Christian :42-47
)
Community
First, it was a community of The community in Acts 2:42-47 was the result of
thousands of people being “born from above” (John
converts. The first step to a vibrant
3:3). And such people seek to form the radical
Christian community is that most of its Christian community that is described here.
members need to be converts. (I say
“most” because in any outreach-focused Second, the community life is
church there will be non-believers among arises from what God had done in their lives,
the community.) not from a church program. This community
flowed from their relationship with God..
But this should not be so. The
Three, the community made early Christians met daily to hear the
great demands upon those involved, apostles’ teachings, take communion, eat
both on their time and their together, and serve one another. They had
possessions. It’s true that being jobs. They had families. But there was so
involved in a church can be draining. much joy about their faith that they threw
Churches burn out a lot of their
themselves into a demanding community.
members by overloading them with
Undoubtably this joy flowed from their
responsibilities or chores.
salvation. But they didn’t just have joy in
their individual salvation, but also a joy in
Some people, though, want a great the corporate aspect of the salvation, that is,
Christian community without it that they were the saved people of God.
making any demands on their time
except for an hour or so on Sunday
morning.
The Growth and
Mission of the first
Christian Disciples in (Acts 6
)
Jerusalem
That Jerusalem was the effective centre of the earliest Christian Church is
certain. Even if Luke has selected his material in portraying the early days,
as he has suppressed the Marcan hint of resurrection appearances in
Galilee (cf. Chap. 9), the Galilean communities appear to have played little
part in the development of the Church, and the apostles and brethren of
Jesus seem either to have remained in the neighborhood of Jerusalem from
the time of the crucifixion or to have taken up residence there within a
comparatively short time. Nor is there any adequate reason for doubting that
Luke’s account of the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, confused as it is,
describes the decisive moment in the history of the Church, which first
started it on its work of proclaiming the faith which it had learned to others.
The nature of the earliest community stands out clearly in the narrative of Acts. Bound
together in fellowship by their common possession of the Spirit (Acts 2:38) and their common
belief in the Messiahship of Jesus (Acts 2:36), they came naturally to worship and to ‘break
bread’ as a united body (Acts 2:42), and ‘had all things common ’ (Acts 4:32)..
This latter mission marked an
In the course of time the important step, as the Samaritans held
community was naturally subject to the Law of Moses as a sacred book but
development. The Church grew in were bitter enemies of the Jewish nation:
numbers, and new problems were the Christians in admitting them to the
created by this growth. Not all the Church were already on the way to
converts maintained their first acceptance of Gentiles. It is possible
enthusiasm, and there were cases of that in isolated cases Gentiles had
deceit (Acts 5:1-11) and of grumbling already been accepted in special
(Acts 6:1). The apostles, busy as they circumstances. Some scholars hold that
were with the ‘ministry of the word’ (Acts the Hellenist Christians of Acts 6:1 were
6:4), had to delegate some of their Gentiles, and not, as has been generally
functions to seven deacons. Persecution assumed, Greek-speaking Jews; neither
hampered the work and led to the death the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26 ff.) nor
of Stephen and the dispersion of many Cornelius, the centurion of Caesarea
Christians through Palestine, where they (Acts 10:1 ff.) were proselytes to
found new opportunities of evangelism Judaism, though both were clearly
among both Jews and Samaritans (8:1). sympathetic to its teachings.
In considering the acceptance of these ‘outsiders’, it is
essential to remember the part played in the Christian community
by the Spirit (cf. Chap. 26 for the place of prophets in the Church).
The authority of the apostles was real, but the guidance of the Spirit
was unhesitatingly accepted by them as by other Christians. In this
matter the teaching of Jesus, as we have seen (Chap. 11), gave
support to the teaching of the Spirit, and the problems about the
terms on which Gentiles could be admitted had yet to become acute.
“Certainly, as members of the Church, we
should not stand apart from others. All should
regard us as friends and neighbors, like the
apostles, who ‘enjoyed the good will of all the
REMEMBE people’ (Acts 2:47; cf. 4:21.33; 5:13). Yet at

the same time we must dare to be different, to
point to ideals other than those of this world,
R! testifying to the beauty of generosity, service,
purity, perseverance, forgiveness, fidelity, to
our personal vocation, prayer, the pursuit of
justice and the common good, love for the
poor, and social friendship.” (Christus Vivit
36)
Thanks!
Do yo
Answer the Summative Assessment, or the any q u have
uestio
given activity provided in your Google ns?
Classroom.
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THE ROLE OF THE

The Life of the First

● Explain the importance of reading and praying of the Word

● Pray solemnly together the Acts of the Apostles 2:42-4

The Acts of the Apostles 2:42-47

REMEMBE people’ (Acts 2:47; cf. 4:21.33; 5:13). Yet at

CREDITS: This presentation template was created by

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