The
life-transforming power of Pentecost brought into being a new social phenomenon:
the Christian community. Three thousand people
(followed soon by many others as well) were suddenly converted to Christ, and
their lives were turned upside-down by experiencing conviction of sin, repentance
and faith, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
Whether
it was a ceremonially clean, religious Jew in Jerusalem; a demon-possessed
slave girl or a rough, ungodly jailer in Philippi; or someone who had lived a
debauched and immoral lifestyle in Corinth, the experience of repentance and forsaking
sin brought people into new life in the kingdom of God. This Spirit-empowered life led to (and still
leads to) the rooting and embedding of kingdom values in their hearts, and
therefore into a new daily lifestyle which reflected purity, the fear of God, and
freedom from sinful bondages. It created
a new life in people, a new life which contrasted markedly and often radically
with their old life (2 Cor. 5:17).
After
the life-transforming power of God brought them into this new life, the early
Christian community in Jerusalem – and those other nuclei of believers which
sprang into being in other towns and provinces as the gospel spread – were gelled
together by the Holy Spirit into deep spiritual unity with one another. They had all experienced the same kind
of life transformation, they all had the same revelation of heart faith in Christ,
and they all possessed the same empowering presence of the Holy Spirit within
them. This gelled them
together as a new spiritual family, and their life together was characterised
by deep joy, much grace, generosity and practical love for one another. The love of God for one another was poured
out into their hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).
Luke
outlines to us the following characteristics of the early Christian communities
in Jerusalem and Samaria:
‘They
devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone
was filled with awe… 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 favour of all the people.’
(Acts 2:42-47)
‘All the
believers were one in heart and mind. No
one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything
they had… much grace was upon them all. There
were no needy persons among them. For from
time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from
the sales, and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone
as he had need.’
(Acts 4:32-35)
‘So
there was great joy in that city.’
(Acts 8:8)
However,
this new God-fearing social phenomenon, with its influence for good in people’s
lives, also created challenges for Christians.
The effectual preaching of the gospel resulting in repentance from
sin brings disruption to established and long-embedded patterns of sinful bondage
in society, especially when it affects people’s vested interests. I relate in detail in a later blog how the conversion of great numbers of people to the
Christian faith brought dismay to the Jewish religious leaders who then
proceeded to persecute the Christian community.
Similarly, the disenfranchised owners of the slave girl in Philippi, and
those men in Ephesus who made shrines to be used in the worship of the false
goddess Diana, became so angry over their loss of income that they spoke evil
against the new faith and kicked up a ruckus against its leaders.
The
emergence and establishment of the new Christian community brought about a clash
between two spiritual kingdoms, and hence a clash between a new lifestyle of
spiritual freedom and one of prevailing and embedded sinful bondages. The
early believers were sarcastically described as having ‘turned the world
upside-down,’ (AV; or, as the NIV puts it, had ‘caused trouble all over the
world’, Acts 17:6), so great were the effects of their empowered ministries on
people’s lives wherever they went. Of
course, it begs the comment, often stated by many Christians today, that
actually they were turning the world the right-way up and making people’s lives
the way they should be!
Furthermore,
as it grew and became established, this new Christian community began to embed
itself naturally into surrounding society and to affect and influence it for
good. As authentic, biblical Christianity
becomes rooted and established in society, it begins to sow seeds into it of
powerful change for good. This may be
through the slower, relatively quiet influence of many Christians over time, but
also through the influence of radical and courageous activist Christian reformers.
The Christian faith acts like yeast and so, in time, this then brings about
positive change in the general values of society, affecting the lives of believers
and non-believers alike for good (cf. 1 Cor. 5:6-8). For
example, many commentators believe that it was the seeds of Christian teaching
and influence which eventually brought about the ending of slavery in the Roman
Empire (cf. Eph. 6:5-9, Philmn. vv.1-25), and it certainly brought about the
ending of paganism (with its associated immorality) in the Empire in the fourth
century AD.
Duncan
Campbell believed that, for any given revival to be considered as true
revival, then it must affect the surrounding community in a visible way. It cannot simply remain within the church
community, but must necessarily spill over and affect society outside, whether
on a local or national level. Revival is
when a community becomes saturated with God, and its power will necessarily affect
this surrounding community, bringing much positive change. He said that ordinary employment would stop
for a while, because people would be so focused on seeking God and getting
their lives right with him. Drinking bars
would close down, simply because people would stop drinking alcohol. Crime levels would drop, because many people
would be convicted of their sin and converted.[1]
In the revival referred to in a previous blog in which the Holy Spirit came upon a
community of native Americans in 1745, there were very significant social effects. David Brainerd recorded that these native Americans
abandoned their idolatry, their marriages were restored, drunkenness virtually disappeared,
and people became honest and repaid their debts. Whereas many of the men had previously wasted
their money on excessive drinking, they now spent it honourably on family and
communal needs. Brainerd summed it up by
saying that their community was filled with love.[2]
The revival historian Dr. J. Edwin
Orr described the social effects of the 1904 Welsh Revival as astounding. He gave the examples of judges being
presented with white gloves, because there were no new cases to try. For a while, there were no robberies, no burglaries,
no rapes, no murders and no embezzlements. The police found themselves without anything
to do, so they simply attended church services like everyone else. The level of drunkenness was halved, and many
public houses went bankrupt. There is
even a well-known anecdote that ponies (which were used down the mines to pull the
trucks of coal) stopped working, because they did not understand the words that
the miners were saying to them. They were
used to being sworn at by the miners, but the miners had cleaned up their
language, so the ponies had to learn the sounds of new words! The revival also affected sexual and moral
standards, with a 44% drop in illegitimate birth rates in Radnorshire and
Merionethshire within a year of the revival.[3]
The Korean revival of 1907 also had
similar social effects in the surrounding communities. Believers in churches were gripped by a burning
passion to reach the lost in their community, and as a consequence drunkards,
gamblers, adulterers, murderers, thieves and the self-righteous were transformed
through finding faith in Christ.[4] As one writer noted, in revival, hands that before
were limp and unwilling to do anything for Jesus, become willing to do an
honest day’s work, rather than idling, standing around and wasting time.[5]
The
widening influence of revival upon a society always brings about much change
for good, not simply in terms of personal repentance on an individual level,
but also, as the yeast of Christian teaching spreads and affects society, in
terms of the rising up of Christian philanthropic activity, the care of orphans,
ministry to down-and-outs, drug addicts and alcoholics, Christian influence in
political life and law-making, medical work, education, temperance, the desire
for social justice, and so on. Many
commentators have gone on record to say that it was John Wesley’s preaching and
the Methodist revival of the mid-1700s that saved England from a political revolution
similar to that which happened in France in 1789, so great were its influences
on the social life of England.
[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Campbell_(revivalist),
accessed 13.03.2020.
[2] See http://www.evanwiggs.com/revival/history/1-1700.html,
accessed 13.03.2020.
[3] Orr, Dr. J.E. from The Role of Prayer in Spiritual
Awakening, available at http://revival-library.org/index.php/resources-menu/revival-anecdotes/prayer,
accessed 04.03.2020.
[4] See http://phpreston.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/10_Greatest_Revivals.pdf.
[5] From Grubb, N. (Comp. and Ed.). This is That: The Spirit of Revival, https://www.gospeltruth.net/spiritofrevival.htm,
accessed 15.06.2020.
