Community that Marked the Acts 2 Church: Being Known and Loved

This article is an excerpt from the Bible study, Together: Community that Marked the Acts 2 Church by Ben Mandrell.

Modern language has given us many words and phrases to describe sincerity—authentic, genuine, true, the realest, legit, one hundred percent. And isn’t that what we all want? People we can be real with and who are real with us. You don’t always know when you’re in that type of a relationship, but Scripture holds it up as the model for the church. 

Even in the local church, many of us believe our relationships with other people are contingent upon keeping our worst parts hidden. We want to be fully known and truly loved, but we believe relating that way is too personal, too vulnerable, too risky. If other people really knew us, we would feel uncomfortably exposed, and for good reason—our carefully curated reputations would crash loudly to the floor in the center of the room where God’s people are gathered, just trying to have a good time. We imagine our real selves would then be politely excused from the room. 

 So we must unpack whatever baggage we’ve carried to make us think in such fearfully cautious terms and start over, allowing our relationship with God to be the foundation of our relationships with each other. That is, after all, how the earliest believers began relating to one another with sincere hearts: They understood their shared responsibility in Christ’s death and that they’d all been forgiven by Him (Acts 2:37-38). 

Love never ends. Ongoing revelation (prophecy) will one day end, but love will always remain. God is under no illusions about who you are. He knows your doubts, struggles, heartache, and questions—and He loves you. This is not a one-time truth you receive at salvation and then lose bit by bit with every unsanctified moment going forward. God’s love for you never ends. And because He loves you like that, He gives those difficult earthly realities good and holy purpose. 

The sincerity with which we can safely relate to God should inform our relationships with other believers. Because we are fully known and truly loved by Christ, we can be fully known and truly loved within His body, the church.