Acts Overview
A few weeks back, I shared that our time in Acts will be a complex(not complicated) adventure. A few points to explain:
Acts is a long book and covers around 30 years. The books that follow Acts in the New Testament fall roughly within this time period, so Acts serves as a narrative covering much of the NT.
Acts is church history, but not the entirety of church history(or even the strict beginning). It is our history, and it is the story of how Christ’s promise(perhaps while the church was most vulnerable in its infancy) endured.
Acts is the church in its infancy, and the remainder of Acts and the New Testament tells of its development and maturation (we will see this development in Acts and through other NT books).
There is much to be said about Acts that will be said in subsequent articles.
What does all this mean? There are many implications:
One example of what this means is that we will take time to look at the beginnings of the Philippian Church in Acts 16, followed by a series through Philippians. Many webs will be woven!
Grace Harbor is a church in maturation. Grace Harbor was planted 9 years ago this month. Where we were in 2017 and where we are now are not different in mission from Christ's command(to make disciples), but clarity on what that looks like for us as a local church body called Grace Harbor at this juncture is important.
The next year will be given to the study, proclamation and application of God’s Word, growth in worship, and submission to Christ. But it will also include clarity in some areas of what we believe about the church, how pastors are to shepherd and how members are to serve the body, and how specifically we seek to pursue this as a growing church body.
Two words come to mind when I think about the next year: clarity and charity. It is both kind to be clear and to be charitable. At Grace Harbor, doctrine, philosophy, and distinctive convictions all matter. To say that “doctrine doesn’t matter” is, in fact, a doctrinal statement. We want to be clear on that, while both practicing and encouraging charity.
We do not believe that Baptists, Catholics, or Eastern Orthodox own the market on the Kingdom of Heaven or on the claim as the “true church”, but rather that all who by faith trust in Christ’s atoning work for their righteousness belong to Christ.
Acts provides the church with a way to reflect on how the Spirit fills and empowers the church today, and how it is a normal part of the church’s life to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18), and I would include “ to observe all that [He] commanded…”(Matthew 28:20). The New Testament that follows(we affirm) relates this command primarily to the gathered, local church.
