The Church Age

The Book of Acts has SO much to teach us as a church...as the true Body of Christ.  The Book of Acts is also very real about the many struggles of the early church and several of these issues are played out for us in the reading of these two chapters today.  I think it is vital that we take a moment here to look at the "big picture" of history, or as I have heard it said..."His-Story".  The period of time that we are currently living in is labeled by many theologians as "The Church Age".  It is my understanding that this is the period of time between Christ's ascension and The Rapture of the Church prior to the start of The Great Tribulation.  During this time, the Israelites have been put on "hold" and the burden of spreading the Gospel falls to us...the Gentiles.  God's people rejected Jesus as the Messiah, except for the relatively few Messianic Jews that are in the world and in heaven that chose to NOT follow the widely held belief that Jesus is NOT the Messiah. 

Because of Paul's missionary journeys to areas of the known world at that time, we as Americans have been given the grace of hearing the Gospel.  If Paul had not done what he did for the development of the church and the spread of the Gospel, this Good News would not have spread to Europe and as a result, to the "New World"...America.  I think that it is also interesting to note here that Paul was specifically chosen to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, even though he could have been considered the "Jew of all Jews".  God specifically set him aside and chose him to have the enormous task of spreading the Gospel to the Gentile world.  And leave it to our God to chose the most notorious persecutor of followers of The Way for this very task!

And so we find ourselves at the beginning of Paul's missionary journeys that began in Chapter 13.  Paul and Barnabas have joined forces together to take on the ministry of spreading the Gospel to the Gentile world.  I just love Barnabas and Mrs. Barbara did such a great job of challenging us to "Be a Barnabas" in her post on Thursday.  My Legacy Bible has this to say about this incredible man:

"He was the first leader to recognize Paul's genuine conversion, vouching for him to those who still didn't believe that the former vicious persecutor was now a follower of Jesus."

 How incredibly hard this must have been for him to do at times.  Yet I wonder if maybe it was really all that hard for Barnabas seeing as how God had given him the spiritual gift of encouragement, which by definition has a great deal of discernment that comes with it.
 

We also see a VERY important thing in these first missionary journeys of Paul and Barnabas.  They did NOT just go and make converts of these areas of the world and then leave saying, "I hope you all will be okay.  Our work is done here.  We must go make more converts elsewhere."  Although the actual conversion process is vitally important, it does NOT end there!  These new believers MUST be discipled!  And that is exactly what Paul and Barnabas did with these new churches that they helped to establish.  They would go back and spend time there "strengthening the churches" (chapter 15 verse 41).  THIS IS WHAT THE CHURCH AGE IS ALL ABOUT!!!  WE ARE TO MAKE DISCIPLES, NOT JUST CONVERTS!!!  And this process takes time and a lot of energy to be invested by us.  But this is what we are commanded to do by Jesus in the Great Commission..."Therefore go and make DISCIPLES of all nations..." (Matthew 28:19).

Then we see some very interesting and familiar things that happen among the new believers...CONFLICT.  If you have been a member of any church for very long you know that conflict is inevitable because the church is made up of sinful people.  How we handle that conflict is so very key!  An issue about the new Gentile believers not being circumcised became a HUGE dividing line among the young church.  So...meetings were held, key believers such as Peter and James came forward and gave their testimony about this issue, an agreement was reached, and a clear communication was sent out regarding their decision to the Gentile believers...done.  Unfortunately, as we all know, this was the first of MANY conflicts the Body of Christ would come to experience, but at least we are given a clear example of how to handle conflict among the church in the amazing book!



Then we see a startling and very strong conflict between Paul and Barnabas.  The disagreement over taking John Mark on another missionary journey was so strong, Paul and Barnabas split company over the matter.  Wow...I have to be honest here...it just really bothers me that these two men that are in history as some of the greatest believers that ever walked this earth could not compromise on some level and resolve this conflict.  Are you feeling me on this one?  But here is the thing...by this conflict causing them to split, their incredible leadership abilities and their boldness for the Gospel was also split and therefore able to spread to more places than if they had stayed together as a team.  Barnabas was apparently supposed to disciple John Mark and mentor him so that he could become all he needed to be to be effective for the spread of the Gospel.  And Scripture DOES let us know that Paul forgave John Mark for deserting them on that first missionary journey, because he calls for Mark to come to him in 2 Timothy 4:11.

So...how do we handle conflict that we may find ourselves in the middle of at church or anywhere else for that matter?  Do we handle it in a Christlike way and keep the goal of spreading the Gospel as the most important thing to be done over getting our own agenda accomplished?  And what are we doing for the spread of the Gospel during this critical time we are in called the Church Age?  We are not here during this time by accident!  And our time is VERY short...He is coming for us soon!