LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 95

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Last fall, a Muslim graduate student at Concordia University in
Irvine came to faith as the Spirit worked through her business
professor. Now it might have been simpler and even safer for a
convert from Islam to be baptized in private, but she wanted to
be baptized in the community that shared Jesus with her. At her
request, she was baptized in one of our chapel services, and we
rejoiced. That was a blessed day. But let me tell you what followed.
People she met at that service connected her to my congregation.
She was gladly welcomed by the saints, has been confirmed in the
faith, and is a blessing in the life together of St. Paul’s Lutheran
Church of Irvine. But the story gets even better. God used her
Baptism to open doors, and several other students were baptized
not long afterward. Her Baptism became part of the witness that
led even more people into life together.
Several members of my extended family and many of our friends
have adopted children—blessings for which we are thankful. Most
of these families brought many relatives to the court for the formal
adoption. They wanted to be there to rejoice when those children
became members of the family in the same way that family and
friends want to rush to the hospital to see newborns. The relationships are not just between parents and children but with their
entire family.
We recognize this in our baptismal liturgy when we say:
In Holy Baptism God has made you members of His Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, and heirs with us of all the treasures
of heaven in the one holy Christian and apostolic Church.
We receive you in Jesus’ name as our brothers and sisters in
Christ, that together we might hear His Word, receive His
gifts and proclaim the praises of Him who called us out of
darkness into His marvelous light.
And the congregation responds:
Amen. We welcome you in the name of the Lord. (LSB, p. 271)
When you say those words, mean them! We are confessing what
God has declared. We are welcoming the newly baptized to
life together.

The Early Church Models Koinonia
The Book of Acts provides the remarkable account of Pentecost.
The gathered crowds were confronted by the miraculous gifts of
the Spirit, and they listened as Peter proclaimed the Gospel. At the
conclusion of Peter’s message, Acts 2:41 says, “Those who received
his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three
thousand souls.” What a remarkable day that was in the life of the
Church. But I wonder if that first generation of Christians was
tempted to respond in ways that tempt us today?
Given the opportunity, would Peter have set himself up as a consultant or opened his own personal training academy—perhaps
touring to promote his book, Peter’s Pentecost Pastoral Principles?
Would critics arise to questions motives? Who does he think he
is? What’s he really up to?
Would some have complained about the speed in which those
3,000 reached Baptism? Shouldn’t they have redirected them into a
lengthy program to ensure that they were really ready for Baptism?
Surely there might have been debate about the numbers. Might
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Philip have argued that the individualized catechesis he provided
the Ethiopian was more relational and caring than the group Baptism? Why do we act like the 3,000 are more important than one?
And would Peter have argued that numbers proved the superiority
of his preaching—shouldn’t you have 3,000 too?
Would there have been 3,000 posts on Facebook adding “Baptized”
to their timelines—followed by a flurry of likes, congratulations,
and deriding comments?
Would they have debated cultural diversity? What do we do with
these people? Do we need to have a dozen new services? How will
this change us? Maybe we should send them back to their own
people. Someone else should help them.
Facing a Pentecost moment, would we have been distracted by
things such as these rather than rejoice that the Holy Spirit worked
faith where and when He pleased?
I’m being somewhat facetious here, but let’s not fall into the mistake
of romanticizing the Early Church as if it were free from sin and
human influences. The Early Church did have tensions like these.
They struggled over persons, personalities, ethnicities, languages,
places, and traditions. Some of those tensions weren’t fully resolved
because they didn’t need to be! Their unity wasn’t in culture or in
personalities, but in Christ—in the apostolic teaching, in their
Baptism, at the Table. Sharing those important things put their
human differences into perspective, and they realized, as Paul told
the Corinthians, that God equips His Church with a diversity of
gifts and persons united with one Lord, one faith, one Baptism,
one God and Father of all (Eph. 4:5–6).
So instead, look at what the Early Church really did. The next verse,
Acts 2:42, says, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching
and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
Following Baptism, they did not drift off on individual, isolated
paths. They were integrated into the Church—and they belonged.
Though there were some bumps on the road, the believers found a
place for one another and began to live as the people of God. They
lived in their Baptism. They lived life together.
They united around the apostles’ teaching—teaching we have in
the Scriptures.
They joined in the breaking of the bread, just as we do when we
gather at the altar according to Christ’s institution.
They joined with their fellow believers in prayer.
Put these together, and you see what they were doing. United in
faith, they joined in worship, and the life that was begun, sustained,
and nurtured there spread out to express itself in many ways. It
was fellowship. Life together.
Scripture uses the interesting word koinonia to describe what
they, and we, share. There may be simpler ways that the life of
the Church could be described, but koinonia doesn’t want to be
constrained—it is a rich, bountiful gift from God that is expressed
in many different ways.
First John 1:3–7 describes the heart of koinonia, here translated
as fellowship:
That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you,
so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our
2 0 1 3 C o n v e n t io n P r o c e e d i n g s

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