New Testament scholar Gilberto Ruiz explores four traits of the early church,
drawing relevant insights for our church community today.
Communities have boundaries around which their identities are formed. Even if communities draw generous, expansive lines for inclusion, at some point they establish non-negotiable factors for membership.
Important as boundaries are, establishing and maintaining them is a tricky business and determines how we treat people. The early Christians established boundaries for their gatherings as a community. They certainly had to address questions of “who counts” as members of their group, a story told in the Acts of the Apostles, from which I offer four important takeaways for reflecting on our own community boundaries as a church today.
1. Within communities, members should support each other.
Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-37 depict the early church in idealistic fashion. These passages serve as instructive models for community life. We can see that the early church set boundaries. Joining the church meant devoting oneself to apostolic teaching, living in community, celebrating Eucharist, and praying (2:42).
These early Christians structured mutual support into their community life, including spiritual accompaniment and physical nourishment. The emphasis on participating in community activities “together” (2:44, 46) indicates the accompaniment that individual Christians received on their spiritual journeys. Though conversion often meant being ostracized from family and social networks, Christians could count on community support. They also shared goods in common, even selling property and possessions for equitable distribution among them (2:44-45; 4:32, 34-37). As a result, their physical needs were met, remarkably leaving “no needy person among them” (4:34).
Making such a community function well entails sacrifice and commitment. Not everyone went “all-in” on this communal approach, as the grim account of Ananias and Sapphira shows (5:1-11). But the lesson is clear: communities thrive when they are structured equitably to meet the needs of all their members.
2. Communities should be willing to reassess their boundaries.
Though boundaries are essential for a community’s identity, they are best kept flexible. The Jesus movement began as a Jewish movement. Early on, it faced the question of how to extend membership to Gentiles: Should they have to assume the Jewish identity-marker of circumcision?
Acts 15:1-35 narrates the decision of the Jerusalem Council: Gentiles had to keep certain dietary and moral restrictions that facilitated table fellowship with Jews, but otherwise, they could join the community precisely as they were and become fully fledged members. Acts 15 portrays this decision as the result of a composed, measured debate. But this was no easy matter. Paul’s account of these discussions in Galatians 2:1-10 gives us a sense of the conflict and controversy over this question. According to Acts 10, it took a divine revelation for Peter to recognize that Gentiles could be baptized into the community as equal members, and this was not without controversy (see Acts 11:1-18).
The sequence of events depicting Gentile inclusion into the church validates the practice of continually reassessing values, tenets, and even questions of core identity for community building and maintenance. Community members and leaders must ask themselves what grounds their identity as a community, and under what circumstances they should redraw their community lines.
The narrative of Acts acknowledges that these are difficult conversations—but they are also markers of communities that are willing to adapt and grow.
3. Communities should be oriented toward outreach and inclusion.
The discernment process to welcome Gentiles into the Jesus movement in Acts includes a particular lesson: communities ought to be oriented toward inclusion rather than insularity. It may not always live up to its inclusive vision, but on the whole Acts presents the boundaries of the Christian movement as outward-facing and broadly inclusive. The apostles perform healings that rehabilitate others outside the community who are in need (3:1-10), demonstrating wider social engagement. The entire book is structured to depict the expansive spread of the gospel from Jerusalem “to the ends of the earth” (1:8). And the decision to permit Gentiles to join the church without having to take on certain Jewish identity-markers indicates church leaders’ profound openness to other ways of being in the world. Thus, without dismissing the importance of establishing boundaries, Acts asks us to consider how we can draw boundaries that allow more diverse peoples to find a real place in our communities.
4. Rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance.
None of this is easy. To face the challenges of building and thriving in community, Acts leaves us with this final lesson. From the church’s inception, the Spirit is its driving force (Acts 2:1-41). Just as the Spirit empowered the early church to find its footing and be open to growth and change, so it can still empower us today—to develop means of mutual support, reassess our structures and practices, and remain open to new possibilities and people.
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