Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [172]
Following this miraculous event, the disciples had become apostles charged with taking the message out to the world. Peter and the others began to preach fearlessly about Jesus as the Messiah. On a single day, after Peter speaks, three thousand converts are reported. Now filled with the Holy Spirit, they begin to heal and work wonders. Peter is able to heal even when his shadow falls on the sick, and he even raises a woman named Tabitha (or Dorcas, in Greek) from the dead.
The Christian tradition of “speaking in tongues,” which generally is used to mean uttering an unintelligible, ecstatic speech, rather than speaking in a foreign language, was derived from this first Pentecost. In contemporary Christianity, “Pentecostal” churches are generally a movement of fundamentalist Protestant churches that emphasize being “born again” in the Holy Spirit. Their services typically include “faith healing” through “laying on hands” and “speaking in tongues.” Although many conventional, mainstream Christian churches had relinquished these practices over the years, the recent success of the revivalist Pentecostal movement, once dismissed as “holy rollers” and charlatans, has sparked acceptance of the so-called “charismatic” movement within the more traditional, and staid, Christian churches.
What happens when you don’t pay your dues to church?
The reports in Acts show how the early church grew as a “communistic” society in which everyone shared. There is a utopian state of harmony depicted in these first days of the Christian community, although they are not yet called “Christians.” A young man named Matthias was elected to replace Judas as one of the Twelve, and the group prospered and made collective decisions and enjoyed common ownership of goods, making the early Christians in Jerusalem a practical model for the kibbutz.
This utopian idea didn’t always work perfectly. Doing as Jesus had taught and selling one’s goods and forking the proceeds over for the common good or relief of the poor was clearly practiced in the early community of followers. A virtuous convert named Barnabas sold a field and gave it all to the apostles. On the other hand there were Ananias and Sapphira. They had agreed to sell their property also, but Ananias, according to Acts, “with his wife’s connivance,” kept back part of the proceeds from their real estate deal. When Peter asks Ananias how he could do such a thing as lie to the Holy Spirit, Ananias falls down dead. Three hours later, not knowing what happened, Sapphira is asked the same question. When she lies, she drops dead as well. The story ends with a threatening note for all those who haven’t paid their church dues: “And a great fear came upon the whole church and on all who heard it.” (Acts 5:11 NJB)
It is rather sad to contemplate that the church was growing on goodwill but then fear had to replace the spirit of generosity.
BIBLICAL VOICES
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.”
When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen…. Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. (Acts 7:51-58)
Why was Stephen stoned?
One of the earliest members of the growing followers of Jesus, Stephen was tried by the Sanhedrin, or Jewish council, for blasphemy. In a stinging indictment of the people of Israel who disobeyed God, he had accused them of resisting God and the Holy Spirit. The council believed Stephen spoke against the Temple, saying