The First One Hundred Years of the Church (Part 2)

Now, after accepting that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the first thing that this early and very Jewish Church had to confront which distinguished them from their non-believing Jewish brethren was how to finance the Church. The old Jewish priesthood and Temple had relied on the tithing system of Torah to support them, but the Church didn't have a devoted and reliable system for financing its activities. In the book of Acts, we read: "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) Continuing, we are informed: "There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet." (Acts 4:34-37) So, the voluntary generosity of the membership supplied the needs of the Church and financed its activities.

In this connection, however, it cannot be over emphasized that the Church was financed by voluntary contributions - in stark contrast to the compulsory system outlined by Torah to support the Temple and priesthood. Nevertheless, this same source informs us that God endorsed and encouraged this method of giving by way of a special miraculous event. In the very next chapter, we are informed that a married couple decided to sell a piece of land and give the proceeds to the Church. Unfortunately, they also decided to deceive the apostles about those proceeds and kept part of the money which they had received from the sale for themselves. The Holy Spirit, however, revealed what they had done to Peter; and when he confronted them, they both dropped dead on the spot! As we can well imagine, this event had a profound impact on the membership of the Church and encouraged both honesty and generosity in giving (Acts 5:1-11).

Once again, the author related that this period was marked by numerous miraculous healings by the apostles and growth in numbers. Also, we are informed that Christians were in the habit of gathering in the vicinity of Solomon's Portico, near the Temple complex (Acts 5:12-16). And, despite intense persecution by the religious leaders of the Jews, the apostles continued to boldly proclaim the good news about Jesus as the promised Deliverer (Acts 5:17-42).

Indeed, the young Church began to experience growing pains almost as fast as the number of believers increased. Apparently, the Greek-speaking members began complaining that their members were not being treated the same way as the native Jews of the congregation. To resolve these disputes, the Church appointed seven deacons to oversee the distribution, and two men named Stephen and Philip emerged as leaders of the group (Acts 6:1-6). Even so, we are informed that: "the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith." (Acts 6:7)

However, this tremendous growth did not come without a cost. Some of the Jews who heard Stephen's message accused him of speaking against God, Moses, the Temple, and the Law and hauled him before the Jewish religious leaders to answer their charges against him (Acts 6:8-15). As a consequence, we are told that the High Priest himself asked Stephen to explain his teachings. Nevertheless, Stephen calmly pointed out the hypocrisy of the Jewish authorities in dealing with both the Law and the Prophets, and that they had betrayed and murdered Jesus! Needless to say, the Jews were outraged by Stephen's message and promptly proceeded to stone him to death (Acts 7:1-60).

Now it happened that, among the mob who stoned Stephen, there was a young Jew from Tarsus named Saul - who felt inspired to begin persecuting the Christian Church. Indeed, we are informed by our source that Saul arrested Christians in their homes for contradicting the Jewish leadership and carried them off to prison (Acts 8:1-3)! And, although this persecution forced some of the Christians to flee from Jerusalem and Judaea, it did have the effect of spreading the message of Christ outside of the narrow confines to which it had previously been concentrated (Acts 8:4-40). Indeed, we are informed that Saul felt compelled to chase Christians all the way to Damascus (Acts 9:1-2)! Little did he or anyone else realize at the time, however, that God was about to use Saul to transform the Church into a global phenomenon. The days of the small insular community of Jewish believers were numbered!