The effects the city has on 'country folk'

Tim Keller is a very intelligent man. He has seen his church in New York grow through his insights into the human condition and his cross-centred preaching. He sees things that I would never see, and yet as soon as he says them it all makes sense. The most basic thing I heard was in his sermon on the chapter of Acts where Antioch church is planted and flourishes. In this passage it ends the story saying 'this is place where the disciples were first called Christians.' A simple phrase that, after listening to Keller's insights, carries so much weight. Why? The city of Antioch was a thriving city. The message I have based this on can be downloaded here.

The Roman empire was full of thriving cities. Some were so large they could be easily compared with some of the biggest cities we see today. Antioch contained, probably, about 1 million people. What happened with Antioch, however, is something of an oddity, but not unheard of. It was designed as a multi cultural centre. The architects involved with the building of this populous decided to build walls all the way around to protect it from outsiders. Then, because of it's diversity, the inside of the city had walls surrounding various neighbourhoods. Why? To protect the city people from each other. Withing the city there would have been many conflicting cultures, and what better way to keep a city together but divide it up? There will have been violence breakout when some young man would step on someone else's robe in a market, but they could always find refuge in their own neighbourhood.

Why do I say all this? So a city has lots of different people in it, so what? So does Leeds, or Toronto. Just this: the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. Why? They were another culture. And this culture was not one that seperated itself from the rest of the city people, but it brought different cultures together. The Holy Spirit unites. They needed a name to label this strange group of people that were changing the workings of the city.

What does this have to do with 'country folk'? I was one once. A little village with a small church that would sing songs about Jesus every Sunday, and be nice to each other. Lovely. A great culture. The early church described in Acts saw many people's lives changed through the amazing story of Jesus. But the first 10 or so chapters has this focus of the Jews. All the evangelists (the people who were gifted in preaching the Gospel, or good news) saw many converts from the people they were most familiar with. The Jews were religious, and they knew the scriptures that pointed to Jesus. It was easy to take the scriptures, show them that they were about Jesus, show them their religiosity would not save them, and see them join the other disciples. What the Gospel touching Antioch showed these evangelists, and all who had come to believe, was that the Gospel wasn't just available to those who knew Jewish history, and who had been involved in Judaism. This Gospel could change anyone's life. But they only found that out by taking it to a great city. A multi cultural, diverse city. A city like Antioch.

Moving to Leeds showed me the power of the Gospel. I was in a church of 30 or 40, everyone had lived in the village since before they were born and had all grown up to know their place. They were in the church and served Jesus wonderfully, but all I saw were these people who had grown up in church joining the church. What I saw in Leeds was a city church, in fact, many city churches touching the people through the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins to bring us to God. And the people were not the people I had known of church before, but people from all walks of life, from all kinds of histories, whether students or professionals, young or old, locals or international, they were all changed by the work of the Holy Spirit and united to the same churches, through that same Spirit. Each time I see something like this it makes my God even bigger, even more powerful, and I think it's incredible that this big God loves me.