Wherever such people gather in Christ’s name, there is the church. It might be a grand cathedral, a converted warehouse, a school hall, or a living room. The location is incidental. The essence lies in the people themselves: those called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.
If you ask a group of believers what comes to mind when they hear the word “church,” you will get a range of answers. Some think of a building with a steeple, others of a Sunday service, still others of programs and ministries. Acts 2 offers something deeper and more compelling: a portrait of a people shaped by the risen Christ and the power of the Spirit.
The scene is Pentecost in Jerusalem. Peter stands before a vast crowd and proclaims that the Jesus they crucified has been raised from the dead and exalted by God as both Lord and Christ. His message cuts to the heart. When the listeners cry out, “What shall we do?” Peter replies: “Repent…and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” About three thousand people respond in faith and are added to the fledgling church that very day.
What follows is not a strategy document or a program schedule, but a description of a community transformed. It is here, in Acts 2:42–47, that we begin to see what a model church looks like, even, and perhaps especially, for our modern world.
What Is a Christian?
Before we can define the church, we must clarify what it means to be a Christian.
At its heart, a Christian is someone who has been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Sin has ruptured the relationship between a holy God and sinful people. Reconciliation means that the parties who were at odds have been brought back together in peace. Christ stands in the middle, bearing the offense of our sin and restoring fellowship with God.
But reconciliation with God does not remain a private, vertical experience. It creates a new horizontal reality as well. Those who are reconciled to God are reconciled to God’s people. Scripture will not allow us to claim that we are right with God while remaining hardened against our brothers and sisters. The message of 1 John is unambiguous: love for God and love for fellow believers are inseparable.
Jesus captured this in His summary of the law. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord with heart, soul, and mind. The second, inseparable from the first, is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Left to ourselves, we do not have the capacity to love enemies, forgive those who wrong us, or serve those who may never repay us. That kind of love is the fruit of reconciliation, not its cause.
What Is the Church?
Once we understand what a Christian is, the nature of the church comes into sharper focus.
The church is first and foremost a people, not a place. Our everyday speech can obscure this. We say, “I’m going to church,” and usually mean a building or a service. Yet when Scripture speaks of the church, it does not have bricks, stained glass, or steeples in view. It has a people in view.
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