I don't want to just know who you are anymore........ I want to share life.

 Acts 2:42-47

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

    For so long I went searching for the power of God, the miracles, signs and wonders, and saw many amazing things. After the search, I found myself unusually unsatisfied. I saw a man healed of cancer, legs grow, and many more things.......... but never a life grow and be healed. I never got to see the greatest miracle of all - The redemption of a life on a personal level.
    I've come to want more. I want to be interwoven into a community of believers that have a heart for God, each other, and the lost. In this picture of the 1st century church, we see a group of people doing just that. How are we when it comes to this concept of community? Are internally focused or do we ACTIVELY desire to see the lost won to Christ?
    My focus right now is first to know who I am in Christ and that starts with reading the word and seeking revelation for today. It says they, "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching". We can ask what does that mean for us? What is the apostles teaching? Well first we can accurately assume it is the Old Testament or the Tanakh.

"When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead."

    The only scripture the Jews recognized at that time would have been the Tanakh and the only place that would have had the prophetic statements of the suffering of Christ.
    We can also assume the four gospels were taught because the Apostles lived it. They had first hand testimony of who Christ is and so were , like any of would have, sharing the impact of Christ in their lives.
 Last, we can assume it was the letters of Paul, Peter, and John. We can see this because many historic figures site these letter for there spiritual arguments in later centuries such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian.
    So, We can reasonably assume that for us to devote ourselves to the apostles teaching is to study Genesis to Revelation. If we are to understand the first step to a interwoven community, we must make studying scripture our first daily priority. But never divorce it from fellowship with other believers. We are not made to be lone rangers..... but that's for the next blog :-)