From the preface of J.B. Phillips translation of Acts, “The Young Church In Action:”
“It is impossible to spend several months in close study of the remarkable short book, conventionally known as the Acts of the Apostles, without being profoundly stirred and to be honest, disturbed. The reader is stirred because he is seeing Christianity, the real thing, in action for the first time in human history. The newborn Church, as vulnerable as any human child, having neither money, influence nor power in any ordinary sense, is setting forth joyfully and courageously to win the pagan world for God through Christ. The young Church, like all young creatures, is appealing in its simplicity and its singleheartedness. Here we are seeing the Church in its first youth, valiant and unspoiled — a body of ordinary men and women joined in an unconquerable fellowship never before seen on this earth.
“Yet we cannot help feeling disturbed as well as moved, for this is surely the Church as it was meant to be. It is vigorous and flexible, for these are the days before it . . . . became fat and short of breath through prosperity, or muscle bound by over organization. These men did not make ‘acts of faith’ they believed. They did not ‘say their prayers,’ they really prayed. They did not hold conferences on psychosomatic medicine, they simply healed the sick. But if they were uncomplicated and naive by modern standards, we have ruefully to admit that they were open on the God-ward side in a way that is almost unknown today.”
Recent Comments