A Family For All People

Written by Ian Jannaway

Discovering what caused the early church to flourish will help your faith to flourish too, what was so attractive? The idea is to make the church more attractive because of Jesus and not because of man. The main thing that held them together was the fact they had the resurrection to hold onto. This early church growth was encouraged and not forced.

In the early days, the church was the body of people-a household, the church operated more like a family and less like a company. Believers were ‘born again’ into a new family. The language used was familial-brother, sister, father, mother.

The apostle Paul writes to a dysfunctional church in Corinth, note the tone of Paul here-

1 Corinthians 4:14-15 

14 I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children.

 He then writes-

15 Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel

Paul writes to Timothy in Ephesus, from his jail in Rome-

1 Timothy 3:15 15 if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

Paul is talking about how the church should nurture, feed, mentor. Christianity was revolutionary in the way it was relational and took faith out of the temples and into the church.

In 1 Timothy 3:15 are two important words-

1/ Conduct. In Ephesus you would find Greek, Jew, men and women in the same service. This was a first, they had to learn how to conduct themselves together in a new way. This was God’s vision of a new way of doing things. This was a faith for all people-the Jesus way.

The conduct in God’s household is supposed to be a beacon for ALL humanity. When we are not connected to a family we are connected to a tribe, and tribes tend to be self-interested, directing anger or angst, they are just a gang.

2/ Truth. Jesus said “I am the truth” (John 14:6) Truth is universal, we follow his way, THE truth. John 15:15 says this  “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

Jesus now calls us his ‘friends’. He learned from his ‘father’ The birth of Christianity signalled the beginning of a new relationship between God and man-friendship.

This week let us look at our personal relationships and those in church, what do they look like, can they be improved?