청년부 2012년도 설교 본문을 사도행전으로 시작합니다.
많은 고민 가운데 시작한 본문이었습니다. 늘 어떤 공동체를 새로 세울 때마다 "고린도 전서"가 저에겐 주요 본문이었습니다. 그런데, 이번에는 아무리 기도해도 마음이 계속 사도행전에 머물러 나가지를 않았습니다.
두려운 마음으로 이것이 하나님의 음성이라 생각하고 사도행전의 첫 시작을 어제 하였습니다. 너무나 청년들에게 하고 싶은 말들이 많이 떠올랐지만, 참아내고 눌러내느라 너무 힘이 들었습니다. 그리고 오늘 다시 사도행전을 봅니다. 그런데, Dr. Fernando의 글을 만나게 되면서, 사도행전이 주님의 뜻이었다는 확신을 갖게 되었습니다.
내가 그동안 생각하였지만 드러내 놓고 말하지 못했던 현대 교회 공동체 특히 이민 교회의 젊은이들의 상황을 그대로 대변해 놓은 글이었습니다.
청년들에게 2012년도 사도행전이 변화의 복음이 되길 소망합니다. 그의 글을 함께 실어봅니다.
Acts as a Radical Challenge to Today’s Church
COMTEMPORARY CHRISTIANS WHO read Acts with an open mind will find themselves challenged with pointed applications by what happened in the early church. I will mention only a few here…
• To a society where individualism reigns and where the church also seems to have adopted a style of community life that “guards the privacy of the individual,” the early church presents a radical community where the members held all things in common.
• To a society where selfishness is sometimes admired and each one is left to fend for himself or herself, Acts presents a group of Christians who were so committed to Christ and the cause of the gospel that they were willing to sacrifice their desires for the good of others.
• To a society where pluralism defines truth as something subjective and personal, Acts presents a church that based its life on certain objective facts about God and Christ – facts that were not only personally truth but also universally valid and therefore had to be presented to the entire world.
• To a society that denies absolute truth and therefore shuns apologetics and persuasion in evangelism in favor of dialogue, Acts presents a church that persuaded people until they were convinced of the truth of the Gospel. Instead of aiming at mutual enrichment as the main aim of interreligious encounter, as many do today, the early church proclaimed Christ as supreme Lord with conversation in view.
• In an age where specialization has hit evangelism so much that we rarely find churches that emphasize healing also emphasizing apologetics, Acts presents a church where the same individuals performed healings and preached highly reasoned, apologetic messages.
• In an age where many churches spend so much time, money, and energy on self-preservation and improvement, Acts presents churches that released their most capable people for reaching the lost.
• In an age where many churches look to excellence in techniques to bring success, Acts presents a church that depended on the Holy Spirit and gave top priority to prayer and moral purity.
• In an age when many avenues are available to avoid suffering and therefore many Christians have left out suffering from their understanding of the Christian life, Acts presents a church that took on suffering for the cause of Christ and considered it a basic ingredient of discipleship.
Ajith Fernando, Introduction of The NIV Application Commentary: Acts, 1998 Zondervan, Grand Rapids
