"All who believed were together and had all things in common..." Acts 2:44
Church Pattern 30 AD
Is community real or ideal, imaginary or actual, a utopia of the mind or a pattern for how the church should be? Where can Christians look today to see believers living the same way they did in the first church in Acts 2 and 4? They may have a concept of this, but does the concept have any reality to it? Most refer to that chapter in biblical history as an unattainable ideal. The thought that this is the way the church is supposed to be has probably never entered the minds of most people.

It is also easy to read about the holy nation in 1 Peter 2:9 and think of it merely as an ideal. In this sense, an ideal is a concept with no reality attached to it, or one that exists in the imagination only (i.e., a mental image). Therefore, this holy nation is reduced to nothing more than a spiritual concept. But this is not the Word of God. In reality, that holy nation had a vibrant social life. It is disturbing that this life, so well documented in Acts 2 and 4, is today disregarded and even disqualified.