From the Home Place

October 2, 2025

Yesterday, I spent my day working on this ‘ol house by myself, again. One of the things that has been really good for me in this process though, is getting to work with my dear friend Jeff two days most weeks. He comes down from South Dakota to share his immense construction experience with me. The amazing part is that Jeff has shown me ways to get the same result with less effort and expense, and that has been a really good thing!

But, when it comes to our Christian life, shortcuts are extremely costly. You see, in biblical times, a person couldn’t get on the internet and research “religion.” Nor could they order a dozen different books on anything and everything pertaining on how to live a Christian life. Heck, they couldn’t even read blogs on the Web!

How in the world did Jesus ever expect these poor folks to learn the deeper truths of walking with Him? By living life together, that’s how. If we go back to biblical times, the Temple was where the only copy of a few of the Old Testament books were kept. Jews could go there and listen to readings from those scrolls, but they could not have a copy of their own. Gentiles could stand outside and hopefully be able to hear a bit of such readings. Other than that, everyone had to live life together, talking and sharing about what Jesus was saying.

Look at Acts 2, the church is born, the Holy Spirit now indwells all believers and people like Luke, John, Matthew and Paul are starting to write down in letter form, the inspired words of God. Eventually those letters would be compiled into a book called The Bible. That Bible would be condensed into a smaller version by a group of theologians and priests into what is called “the Cannon of Scripture.” In due time, the Bible would be mass produced and available for those who could afford one.

But because of the expense of the Bible, and the fact that most people couldn’t read, one man decided to teach others how to read, using the Bible as their textbook, thus Sunday School was born!. Using the Bible to teach kids how to read – what an amazing idea, perhaps we should try it again?

Fast forward to today, and we all have more Bibles than we can keep track of and most of them go unread because we are too busy reading Facebook and running to “Bible” studies, that are usually just a book someone has written about a topic from the Bible. Our shortcut method of discipleship.

I’m sorry, but please allow me to jump on my pony and ride – We call ourselves “Bible-believing Christians,” and we don’t even carry one with us on Sunday morning when we go to church! Today, I share two verses with you, “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe: and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.”(Acts 2:42-43)

Not to negate the “wonders and signs” but I just want to get back to “feeling a sense of awe!” I want to find myself in the presence of our awe-mazing God! Where did it go, how did we lose it? Perhaps the answer is found in one word from verse 42, “devoting.” The verse says, “they were continually devoting themselves.” The word “devoting” means to “attach oneself to, or to wait on.” Two things we busy American Christians are not very good at.

We seldom “attach” ourselves to any one topic for very long and we are really bad at “waiting.” Oh and you think we are falling short on those two topics, allow me to add Verse 44, “All those who had believed were together and had all things in common.” Ouch! “What’s mine is mine…”

Oh then there is the church growth method mentioned in Verse 46, “Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart,” “v.47 – “praising God and having favor with all the people, And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

There probably isn’t a church in America that can genuinely claim “with one mind.” We are so fractured on opinion that we seldom can find unity and as such, we lack the “awe.”

So, if your church is trying small groups of some kind, get involved! Participate, “attach” yourself, “with sincerity of heart” and watch what God will do! Don’t hurry home after the study ends, stay and visit. Though I will never negate the value of reading the Bible, I think the real power of Acts two was the way the Holy Spirit encouraged people to live life together!

Hey, it worked once long ago, why not try it again?

Being awe-mazed with you, Neal