Location: Israel
Time: Circa 50 A.D.
Primary Scriptures: Acts 2:43-47 and Acts 4:32-36 — The unity, generosity, and faith of the early Christian community.
Barnabas, known as the “Son of Encouragement,” addresses a group of new believers gathered under the shade of an ancient fig tree. His words carry the warmth and strength of a man who has witnessed the power of God’s Spirit transforming lives and building a new kind of community.
Barnabas:
When you hear the stories of the first days after Jesus’ resurrection, you might imagine that everything happened quickly, like a fire spreading through dry fields. But in truth, it was the work of God’s Spirit moving among us, knitting us together as a community in ways we could never have imagined. I was there, and I want to tell you how we came to believe in Jesus and how we lived out that belief as one body.
Most of us, in the beginning, were Jewish. We grew up with the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs of our faith. We were taught the laws of Moses and the traditions of our elders. We knew what it meant to belong to a community, to live by rules that shaped our relationships with God and with one another. But when Jesus came, He fulfilled the promises we had been waiting for, and He brought something entirely new: eternal life, not just in the world to come, but here and now, through faith in Him.
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