Christianity was always intended by God to be a ‘movement’ – spreading out in ever widening circles from Jerusalem to Judah then into Samaria and continuing throughout the whole earth!
Christianity was always intended by God to be a ‘movement’ – spreading out in ever widening circles from Jerusalem to Judah then into Samaria and continuing throughout the whole earth! Luke, the writer of the Book of Acts, understood this! He recorded the activities of those who were spearheading this advance. He began with Peter, James and John and the other apostles, then focused only on the activities of Peter and John.
In Acts 9 we see Peter going on a missionary trip without John – at this point John’s name drops from the record and Luke records only the movements of Peter. After Acts 12 Peter’s name is only mentioned once (Acts 15 – where he recounts what God did through him in the past). From this point on Luke turns his attention to Paul and continues with Paul until the end of his account!
The answer as to why is quite simple – Luke was documenting the advance of the world Christian movement. Paul was a “regions beyond’ apostle and was at the forefront of Christianity’s advance up until the time Luke concluded his writings and his treaties to Theophilus (Acts 1:1).
Once we move from a movement to an organization we lose the spirit of the New Testament! Organizations grow out of movements, but they must always be subordinate! There are around 600,000,000 believers in the world today in about 4,000,000 local churches. Can we imagine what would happen if all these believers and churches captured Luke’s understanding of Christianity being a ‘movement?’
