"Enabled" to Love One Another

5/2/2008

“And being let go, they went to their own company…” Peter and John got together with their friends. Persecution drives people together. It is an important ingredient for the unity of the body of Christ. If we all confronted this hostile world together, we would be drawn closer to one another. For many of us, Christianity is a matter of wearing fashionable clothes at church and gossiping about other churchgoers. We involve ourselves with insignificant things. If we were confronting the world, we would receive so much persecution that we wouldn’t have time for such silly matters. We would be driven together for the love and security of the body. If we confronted unbelievers, we would become more unified. Because we don’t do that, we have a placid, innocuous existence. The lack of persecution keeps us from needing one another. In Acts 4:32, we read that everyone was “of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that any of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.” If anyone had a need, someone else met it (vv. 33-35). (John MacArthur) 2:52 p.m.