Seeing The KingdomSample

How Do They Love Like That? The Christian’s primary calling in life may be understood as making the invisible Kingdom visible. One of the most dramatic ways that the Kingdom of God comes to light in a community is through the love that Christians express for one another. Most people know a little about love. But the kind of love that God can engender within a community of believers is unlike anything people typically encounter. In Acts 6 thousands of people had come to know the presence of Christ’s Kingdom and were born again into that eternal realm. They began to join together for worship, study, and prayer. They shared their possessions with one another and stood firm, but loving, against the threats of those who sought to silence their witness. A situation arose which must have caused every opponent of the Gospel to rub his hands together in expectation: “Now we’ll see this fraud exposed for what it really is!” In the daily sharing of food, one group of women was being overlooked. They weren’t from the original community, those who’d been born and raised in Jerusalem, or, at least, in Palestine. These people had come from abroad, from the lands of the Gentiles. But the Christians in Jerusalem had received them as their own. Except that now a problem arose, one that threatened to split the Jerusalem church into factions. “It was just too good to be true,” must have been the way many outsiders, looking on, surmised this situation. Surely the break-up of this movement was at hand. Instead, the apostles led the people to resolve this challenge smoothly and lovingly, in a way that kept peace, met the needs of everyone, and created a new generation of leaders to serve the needs of the community. Here was evidence of real, selfless love, love that cares enough to do whatever it takes to meet the needs of others. The result of this situation was that the Word of the Kingdom continued to grow Next steps: What are some manifestations of love, in or through your congregation, that might convince your community of the truth of the Gospel?