The Others
Scripture Reading: Acts 1:12-26
I’ve always had a curious fascination with the “bit players,” the people who briefly appear on the stage of biblical history and disappear just as quickly. We can develop the idea (at least I can) that the only people doing anything during the first decades of church history were Peter and Paul. Just a moment's thought, makes us realize this isn’t true. Thomas and Matthew and Nathaniel were all active apostles, doing Christ’s work in their own assigned way. But God, for His own reasons, chose to convey the early history of Christianity through a few men.
But there were thousands of men and women whose lives mattered in the kingdom then. This text in Acts tells us that 120 gathered in prayer before Pentecost. We don’t know the names of the majority of them. Nevertheless, their lives mattered. The fact that we don’t know who they were, does not diminish the role they played in the planting of the first church in Christian history.
I point this out for two reasons. First, so that we wouldn’t succumb to the temptation to believe what we do in the kingdom is without value and pointless. Most of the heavy lifting goes unnoticed here. But that doesn’t mean it goes unnoticed there. Jesus will one day say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” Second, so that we wouldn’t be snared by the lure of fame. In today’s culture of social media “influencers,” the allure of being known is captivating. (Just a heads up – even the people who are “known” aren’t known. Take a trip with me to India and drop those names…you’ll get blank stares. The famous aren’t as famous as they think they are). And when we are motivated by being known here, it warps what drives us. We lose the sense of doing things for Christ’s sake and out of a love for people. We start to measure effectiveness by how many “likes” we get. It gets shown so it will be known. We disobey Christ, who told us to pray and give in secret so that no one knows except your heavenly Father.