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Imagine what it must have been like when Jesus ascended into heaven two thousand years ago.
Just a few weeks earlier, the apostles, fearing for their lives, had scattered at Gethsemane. Peter denied that he even knew Jesus, and many who had hailed Jesus as the coming king were now crying out, “Crucify him!”
When Jesus rose, the apostles were overjoyed at seeing him again, but they were still ill prepared for the task of preaching the gospel and building the church. They didn’t have any catechism or papal encyclicals to guide them. They had no church buildings, no retreat centers, and no canon law. They were pioneers on a brand new venture. All they had to draw on were their memories of Jesus and the promise of something new happening around Pentecost. If they had the ability to make computerized projections for the survival of this fledgling church, they would probably have been too overwhelmed…
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Yes, the Spirit acts from within to without. Externals are fine, it depends on what “room” you are coming from.
When i read world among us i feel i need 2 grow spiritual everyday. I pray God continue 2 help u people grow in faith. Thank u joe n wau crew.
The apostles and first believers were so determined to preach the gospel because perhaps they, as Paul, had been so firmly grasped and surcharged by the Holy Spirit that they can not NOT preach it! As Paul said, he must preach! Being totalized by Christ as was Paul means that the most incredibily wonderful thing possible had grasped Paul, totally igrasped him in all dimensions of his being. From now on everything is changed. Paul’s take on the law now surpassed by faith in Christ, his take on creation as pointing to the New Adam, his take on all history and on salvation history,his interpretation of scripture, his take on his own people, his take on God’s hidden plan of salvation now revealed as Christ/ Church, his take on God’s love revealed in the Christ, and his take on the meaning of human life period. Paul’s and eveyone’s life has ultimate significance because he ( all) has been buried with Christ, dead to the old humanity, yet much alive in the new humanity. Paul does not live as “Paul” anymore but as “ Christ in me!” Such good news virtually compels one to spread it. So, as the article asks ,” What made first believers preach? “ It is this. Once one is really transformed and saved in Christ, he/she realizes that God intends all to be saved and come to the knowledge of Christ, if and only if one has really, genuinely received the gospel and has been born from above by it. Evangelization is inherent to salvation/transformation.