Download discussion questions: Mark 10; Acts 2; Acts 4
Again this week our group looked at three passages – one in the gospels and two near the beginning of Luke’s account of the church in the Acts of the Apostles. One feature was a degree of repetitiveness in the passages. Someone told me a long time ago, “If God says something once, it’s important. If He says it more than once, we really better pay attention!”
Mark’s Repetitive Account
The repetitive aspect in Mark 10:21-31 is in the form of a direct contrast between two statements of Jesus. The context is shortly after the familiar story of the rich young ruler.[1] The shocking demand of Jesus for the wealthy man to “sell all you have” prompted Peter’s “to have compromised his own family loyalty to follow Jesus:”[2] “See, we have left everything and followed you” (v. 28).
Our group compared the two statements Jesus made in response to Peter, things His followers may have left, and things they might expect to gain (v. 29-30). In both statements, Jesus provided a list, and a condition:
Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left
. house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands,
. for my sake and for the gospel
who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time,
. houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands,
. with persecutions,
Jesus concluded with a promise of eternal life in the age to come, but the focus of the context (and of our discussion) was His emphasis on the “now in this time” part of His answer. Our discussion noted several observations about the repeated yet contrasting lists.
- One person pointed out the confusing nature of the multiple negatives (“no one … who will not…”). A possible positive rewording might be “whoever has left…will receive…” – I think the logic of that is accurate.
- One subtle difference is the number of houses – since most people would only have one house, they only had one to leave. But Jesus describes the gain as plural – “houses.”
- There is also a significant omission in the second list. While a follower of Jesus may leave a father, “father” is not mentioned in the second list, the things that will be gained. If Jesus was indeed describing a new perspective on family, He was clear that this new greatly extended family would still have only one Father.
- The two lists also contain a contrast between the conjunctions used. The items in the list of things to be left are connected by the conjunction “or” (ἢ, ē). Logicians (or computer programmers) recognize that “or” statements mean “if any of the conditions are met.” Even if you didn’t leave a father or mother or lose a house or lands, if you were estranged from a brother, then that “or” condition is met. However, the list of the hundredfold gains connects the items with “and” (καὶ, kai), meaning that all the items are included. Jesus is describing an amazing trade – leave any of those valued relationships or possessions and gain a hundredfold of the entire second list!
- Another omission from both lists is a spouse – a husband or wife. Someone in our group commented that the relationship between husband and wife was not to be replicated a hundredfold. That relationship is of a different type than the first-century Mediterranean family Jesus and His hearers understood. “The closest family bond in ancient Mediterranean society was not the bond of marriage. It was the bond between siblings.”[3]
- The conditions are quite different for the two lists.
-
- Leaving “for My sake and for the Gospel” implies that leaving a family for trivial or selfish reasons doesn’t qualify. He is describing when unavoidable disputes arise, when loyalty to Jesus would be compromised. Peter maintained a relationship with his mother-in-law, as recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 8:14; Mark 1:30; Luke 4:38). But in the case of divided devotion, the choice would be clear. “Whatever the nature of his ongoing relations with the members of his family of origin were, Peter’s primary family, loyalty-wise, would now be the surrogate family of God.”[4]
- The condition Jesus added to the list of the hundredfold gains is sobering. “With persecutions” is the all-encompassing accompaniment of those desirable blessings. It is even possible that the “hundredfold” description includes the persecutions. Jesus was describing an almost inconceivable estrangement from one’s blood-related family, and even the lavish benefits He offered included a concerning caveat.
-
Jesus was emphasizing the intimate bonds of family as a model for His followers. He wanted them (and us) to see the significance of those natural bonds as a model for His “surrogate family.” The bonds among that new family were (and are) even deeper. The hundredfold brothers and sisters He described would have communicated that depth. “The most intimate and highly charged relationship for people in the world of Jesus and the early Christians—the bond among brothers and sisters.”[5]
The words of Jesus and the events in Acts and the teaching of Paul in Philippians point to the followers of Jesus, the church, as a family. For us to understand the weight and depth of that commitment, we need to adjust our thinking to the first-century environment of those words and writings.
Jesus assumed that His followers would relate to one another according to the standards of solidarity shared by families in the Mediterranean world. Jesus promised Peter, who claimed to have compromised his own family loyalty to follow Jesus, that Peter would enjoy family-like relationships with others who have made such a sacrifice (“brothers and sisters, mothers and children”), and that he would also find life’s necessary physical resources—such as shelter (“houses”) and food (“fields”)—in the context of the new community.[6]
One question that came up in our discussion concerned the original hearers of the words Jesus spoke about leaving and gaining a hundredfold. How did they understand what He was saying? He had spoken in parables before. Was this another parabolic exaggeration? Was He speaking in some kind of spiritual way, that what we get would be “as good as” a hundred houses, brothers, sisters, etc.? Or would they have taken Him to be making a factual statement? Looking back through our eyes, knowing “the rest of the story” can make it difficult to imagine what His listeners were thinking.
Luke’s Repetitive Account
Whatever Jesus’ original hearers thought of His words, perhaps the accounts of the newborn church can illustrate how that lavish “hundredfold” promise actually worked out in the experience of the early believers. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke, the “historian and theologian,” describes the practices of the early church in the weeks after Pentecost. “Luke’s account of the early days in Jerusalem should not be dismissed as a piece of idealism.”[7]
What Luke was describing was the outworking of what a hundredfold increase would look like for the early Christians. Immediately after Pentecost, they had not a hundred new brothers and sisters, but thousands (Acts 2:41, 4:4) and growing. Luke described the initial common life (Acts 2:42-45). Then after several events in rapid succession (healing, preaching, arrest, rebuke, threats in Acts 3:1-4:31), he offers another similar description (Acts 4:32-37). A reasonable question would be, “Why?” Why present such a similar description of their common life so soon after his first narrative? Clearly the immediate and radical practical effect of the gospel got Luke’s attention. “What set Luke’s heart aflame was the community that resulted from Peter’s gospel presentation.”[8]
Our group looked at the two passages by seeing similar comments in Acts 4 interspersed with the original statements in Acts 2:
Acts 2:42-45
. Acts 4:32-37
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching
. And with great power the apostles were giving
. their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus (v. 33)
and the fellowship,
. were of one heart and soul (v. 32)
to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
. —
43 And awe came upon every soul, and
many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
. —
44 And all who believed were together
. were of one heart and soul (v. 32)
and had all things in common.
. had everything in common. (v. 32)
45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings
. owners of lands or houses sold them (v. 34)
and distributing the proceeds to all,
. and it was distributed to each (v. 35)
as any had need.
. as any had need (v. 35)
Luke’s repeated emphasis was on the common life (κοινωνίᾳ, koinōnia) of the believers. “It can scarcely be doubted that Luke wanted such extraordinary examples of Christian generosity and social concern to act as an ideal and an incentive to those within and those entering the later church.”[9]
The grammar and the wider context provide help in understanding and applying the” ongoing activity”[10] of early church:
The present tense of the temporal participle for “sold” (πωλοῦντες [pōlountes]) suggests that the liquidation of property was a regular occurrence and happened over a period of time…. His words can be taken to mean that “the owners sold some of the property they possessed and brought the prices of what they sold to the apostles.” Nor does Luke say that all owners of lands and houses sold everything; according to 12:12-13 a believer named Mary still owned a house about ten years later…. The imperfect tense of “brought” (ἒφερον [epheron]) is probably iterative. Again and again, believers sold property and made the proceeds available for those in need.[11]
Along with his attention to the common life of the church, Luke continued to note the numerical growth (Acts 2:47b, Acts 4:4) as well as the incipient opposition (Acts 4:18-21).
So why were so many drawn in, when being a Jesus-follower was dangerous? [Early church historian Alan Kreider] says it’s because life together simply transformed people into people who acted like Jesus. It was very attractive, in a disordered culture of addictions with a widening gap between rich and poor, to see people who were truly free. They were modeling an alternative society, one that looked like the kingdom of God.[12]
Modeling an Alternative Society
The model which the early church was living was the extension of the first-century family.
The point is not that they gave up all their wealth but rather that they lived a common life, meeting together and eating together in each other’s houses, even to the extent of sharing their property so that there were resources to help the poor…. There was a kind of family community in which each person held his goods at the disposal of others…. Each was willing to dispose of his possessions as need arose.[13]
That alternative society, as Jesus said in the Mark 10 passage, was based on deliberate choices “for My sake and the gospel.” We might take that condition to focus exclusively on the devotion of individual believers to Jesus. But that is not the emphasis of Jesus or of His first followers.
The Bible does not identify a Christian’s devotional life as the primary indication of love for God. Nor do personal morality or financial generosity make the cut. Instead, Scripture turns repeatedly to the quality of our relationships – particularly with our fellow Christians – as the foremost evidence of genuine love for God. Jesus put it like this: “By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).[14]
Likewise, those first followers saw their devotion to Jesus expressed in commitment to one another.
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:20-21)
The half-brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem church expressed that commitment in even more practical terms.
14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14-17)
This perspective on the church as a family is essential to becoming truly “joyful, passionate disciples” of Jesus. Our twenty-first century ideas of church and our American ideas of family need radical readjustment. As we continue to study first-century family values, may we see each other as brothers and sisters who comprise the hundredfold return on whatever we have sacrificed to follow Jesus.
[1] The story of “the rich young ruler” is a familiar description, but interestingly none of the gospel accounts describe him this way. He was certainly rich (as attested by all three Synoptics: Matthew 19:22, Mark 10:22, Luke 18:23), young (only mentioned by one of the gospel writers: Matthew 19:20, 22), and a ruler (ἄρχων, archōn), specified only by Luke (Luke 18:18). This is an interesting example of the benefit of comparing different gospel accounts to increase our understanding of events in the life of Jesus.
[2] Joseph H. Hellerman, When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision for Authentic Christian Community (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2009), 65.
[3] Joseph H. Hellerman, When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision for Authentic Christian Community (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2009), 40.
[4] Joseph H. Hellerman, When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision for Authentic Christian Community (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2009), 70.
[5] Joseph H. Hellerman, When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision for Authentic Christian Community (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2009), 39.
[6] Joseph H. Hellerman, When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision for Authentic Christian Community (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2009), 65.
[7] I. Howard Marshall, Luke: Historian & Theologian, New Testament Profiles (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 208.
[8] Joseph H. Hellerman, When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision for Authentic Christian Community (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2009), 129-130.
[9] David G. Peterson, The Acts of the Apostles, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009), 206.
[10] Eckhard J. Schnabel, Acts, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2012), 182.
[11] Eckhard J. Schnabel, Acts, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2012), 272.
[12] Brant Hansen, Blessed Are the Misfits: Great News for Believers who are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, or Just Feel Like They’re Missing Something (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2017), 64.
[13] I. Howard Marshall, Luke: Historian & Theologian, New Testament Profiles (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 208; cf. note 3; emphasis added.
[14] Joseph H. Hellerman, Embracing Shared Ministry: Power and Status in the Early Church and Why It Matters Today (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2013), 282.