Accommodations

For the past couple of months my sister and I have been doing another trans-continental study, this time on the book of Acts. Conveniently, our college group at church also began a study on Acts a few weeks ago. Although I've read bits and pieces of Acts throughout recent years, I had never taken the time to really delve into it and break it down verse by verse. In the perfect timing of the Lord, I am now studying it each day- a perfect wrap-up for my time here in the states.

This past weekend a small group of us watched a video about the first 1,000 years of Christianity as it relates to the reading of Acts. We talked for a while about accommodations and how, in Jerusalem, the Jewish converts to Christianity felt that Paul was making accommodations for the Gentiles so that they could accept Christ and the new religion. The question was then posed: "What sort of accommodations are we making in the church today?"

Initially we discussed how we leave little room for necessary change when we bring someone to the Lord. Paul taught with a sense of urgency because of the inevitable persecution; he needed for as many people to hear the word as he could possibly reach.  On the flip-side, we have urgency in the modern church so that we can add to our attendance and grow the local church. While there are certainly benefits to boosting attendance that include the sharing of the gospel and a true conversion, I think often time that is not the central goal. If our urgency were to return to that of Paul, of sharing the word of Christ across all nations and continents, surely the church will grow equally as efficiently.  We are, in a sense, accommodating for a lack of outreach and ministry in the church, as well as a lack of real change in conversion. 

Paul urged the new converts that they must be diligent in prayer and fellowship. Acts 2:42-47 says that they were devoted to the fellowship, teaching, communion, and prayer...everyday. Do we make accommodations today so that this devotion is no longer 'necessary'? Is it suddenly okay and acceptable to have fellowship and prayer just one or two days each week and communion once a month? Something tells me the Lord is not satisfied with that. Even as Christians who are not new to the faith, we sometimes spend less time in the word, in prayer, in teaching, in fellowship. We accommodate for ourselves and our lifestyles.

I think the big difference between Paul's accommodations and our own is that he was accommodating for others and we tend to accommodate for ourselves.  We accommodate for non-Christian attitudes, negativity, lack of prayer, lack of ministry, lack of fellowship, and we attribute it to busy schedules, work, non-necessity, etc. Of course, not each person is guilty of this each day, but at some point I am sure that we are all guilty of each of those accommodations to a certain degree.  For us, accommodations quickly turn into excuses to not have the same urgency as Paul and to accommodate for ourselves rather than for the needs of others.

At the end of it all, I have had to ask myself: What accommodations am I making for myself? For others?

And what is the remedy, the grand fix for these accommodations? I think it is simple: A return to the basics- teaching, the fellowship, communion, and prayer. As far as the accommodations for others, I think we have to return to Paul's basic, but powerful, urgency- to share the word and the love of the Lord. In this way, an accommodation becomes a positive rather than a negative action.

My prayer is that we will all begin to accommodate for ourselves less and for others more and that we will return to Paul's urgency of spreading the word and truly changing lives through the Lord.
I also pray that, when I return to Honduras, I will follow in Paul's footsteps in order to reach the unreachable and lead the lost back to their Father.

Shout out to FCC college group for bringing up some discussion points on the history of Christianity, Acts, and accommodations.