Generation One: Discovering Keys to a Fruitful Life from the First Generation of the Church
By Adam Parrish
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About this ebook
If you hang around any given church in America long enough, you will eventually hear someone say, God only calls us to be faithful! It is a quaint little saying that sounds good as it rolls off the lips. But there is a serious problem with it: it just isnt true. God calls us to be more than faithful. He calls us to be fruitful. John the Baptist put it simply, Produce fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8), and Jesus Himself said, This is to my Fathers glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples (John 15:8).
Too many have settled merely for a faithful life. They faithfully attend church, faithfully give of their finances, and faithfully try to be nice to people. Thats commendable, but do you long for something more than that? Does your heart cry out for a life that transcends faithful duty and actually bears fruitfruit that will last for eternity? Then this book was written with you in mind. Using humor, inspiration, and everyday illustrations, pastor and author Adam Parrish looks to the first generation of the Church for instruction and inspiration to help us fulfill Gods call to be fruitful.
Adam Parrish
Adam has been pastoring in various capacities since 1996, and holds his Master of Divinity from Nazarene Theological Seminary. His ministry passion is to present the truth of God’s Word in an inspirational, thought-provoking, and humorous way. He is a very blessed husband and a proud father of three boys.
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Generation One - Adam Parrish
Copyright © 2013 Adam Parrish.
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Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV
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ISBN: 978-1-4908-0119-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4908-0120-9 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013912283
WestBow Press rev. date: 07/24/2013
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 Why Don’t We Talk about This More?
Chapter 2 The Gift
Chapter 3 Life Together
Chapter 4 A Miraculous Healing
Chapter 5 The First Martyr
Chapter 6 A Dramatic Conversion
Chapter 7 Preparing for Change
Chapter 8 A New Name
Chapter 9 A Miraculous Deliverance
Chapter 10 Conflict!
Chapter 11 Hearing the Spirit
Chapter 12 Bloom Where You Are Planted
Author’s Note
For Pastors
Appendix
Sources
Endnotes
I thank my wife and sons, who are daily reminders of God’s grace in my life. The joy they bring me is more than I deserve!
I also thank the incredible people of Faith Community Church of the Nazarene. They were guinea pigs who heard this book preached before it became a book. They also provided a sabbatical that helped me finish it!
I express gratefulness to my parents, whose steadfast model of the Christian faith has always stood as an example to my brother, Deven, and me.
Most of all, I want to give praise to God, who one night long ago, while I prayed in an empty sanctuary with Jim Finch, called me to feed His sheep (John 21) and preach the gospel (Isaiah 61). My prayer is that this book will help fulfill that calling on a wider scale than I have done to date!
Introduction
I have a startling news flash that will shock and surprise you. Are you ready? Here it is. The church is not perfect! You might need to catch your breath after that astonishing revelation! Okay, I’m being a little sarcastic. The truth is that the church really isn’t perfect, and that is no surprise to anyone. The church today isn’t perfect, and neither was the church we read about in the book of Acts. There is a simple reason for this. The church has always been composed of these curious, imperfect beings we call people. The church is not perfect because people are not perfect.
But in spite of all her imperfections and blemishes, I have to say that I unabashedly love the church. The church is the vehicle our loving and gracious God has chosen to carry the life-changing message of His love and grace. Indeed, the very fact that He has chosen this imperfect institution for such a world-changing mission is evidence in itself of His grace. I once heard someone say something to this effect: The church is the only institution whose membership is limited to those who know they don’t belong.
None of us deserves to take part in what God wants to do in the world. But by His grace, He calls us to do just that. He calls us to live fruitful lives through the power of His Spirit within us—lives of love, grace, and mercy. He calls us to be more than faithful. He calls us to be fruitful.
I believe most of us want to live fruitful lives: lives that matter, lives that make a difference. I know our own selfishness often overpowers that desire. But the desire is there. The question is, How do we give flesh to that desire—how do we live lives that truly matter and make a difference?
To get answers on these matters, we have to start with God’s love letter to us: the Bible. And I believe the best place to start in the Bible is the New Testament’s book of Acts. In this account of the early church, we see individuals and the church collectively bearing fruit for God’s kingdom. And as I will point out later in this work, they were operating purely on the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They did it without church-growth conferences or pastors’ sermon series that are turned into books!
If that is true, then why shouldn’t we look to the first generation of the church for wisdom in how to live fruitful lives? We look to them not because they were perfect but because they were effective. They took the mission given to them by the mouth of Jesus Himself, and they ran with it.
If a generation is defined as forty years, then there have been approximately fifty generations of the church so far. Some have been more fruitful than others. All have made mistakes and blunders. But there are at least two things they all have in common: All are composed of sinful, imperfect people who have accepted God’s gracious gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. And all have a mission to proclaim the message of that salvation to the ends of the earth—no matter our circumstances.
Jesus said that when the whole world has had a chance to respond to the gospel, the end will come (Matthew 24:14). If I’m reading that correctly, it means we have a part to play in the timing of Jesus’ return! Will we be the generation that accomplishes this task? And if so, how do we do it? As Generation 50, we could do a lot worse than to draw inspiration from Generation 1.
Chapter 1
Why Don’t We Talk about This More?
If I asked you to name the two greatest events in the history of Christianity, it would be pretty easy, right? The crucifixion and resurrection, hands down. What if I asked you to name a third? Pentecost, perhaps? Pentecost was, after all, the birth of the church! Okay, now what if I asked you to name a fourth? If you’d say Paul’s conversion, that’s not a bad choice. In fact, we might debate more than a few things for that spot.
But if I were answering that question (which I am, because I’m writing this book!), I would choose that glorious, yet often overlooked event recorded at the beginning of Luke’s second volume, otherwise known as the book of Acts.
In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave