After the forty days, before Christ went to the heavens, based upon what He had shown the disciples as revelations, an issue came out, that is, the vision. In this vision Christ firstly charged His disciples to go out, based upon what they had seen, to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:45-47). At the end of His stay with the disciples, He charged them to be His witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8), and then before His ascension He charged the disciples to go and disciple the nations and teach them all that He had commanded them based upon the revelation that all authority had been given to Him in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18-20). After His ascension into the heavens, on the day of Pentecost, the first thing He did as the initiation of God’s move on the earth to establish the churches was to pour out the Spirit of power (Himself as the consummated all-inclusive Spirit) upon the disciples (Acts 2:1-4, 17, 33). This was God’s move, but His move was going on with Peter’s move and with the move of the one hundred twenty.
The revelations in the Lord’s earthly ministry began from the incarnation and consummated with His resurrection. Then He ascended and that began another ministry, His heavenly ministry.
After the Lord showed the early disciples the revelations of His earthly ministry, based upon which He presented them a vision for His move, they joined the Lord with His first move for the carrying out of His New Testament economy in raising up the church in Jerusalem among the Jews (Acts 8:1). The first thing accomplished in God’s move with Peter’s move was to set up a church in Jerusalem. This was altogether new to the Jews.
Based upon the same revelations and visions, the Lord, through the Jews’ persecution in Jerusalem, moved most of the early believers to bring the gospel to Judea, Samaria, and even to Africa through the eunuch of Ethiopia (Cush, eastern Africa), in the Lord’s move (Acts 8:1, 4-5, 26-39). The Lord raised up a persecution by the Jews to drive all of the Jewish believers out of Jerusalem. Eventually, one of them even met a eunuch from Ethiopia, and through him God’s move went to Ethiopia.
Based upon the same revelations, the Lord gave the vision to Peter that the Lord wanted him to move on together with Him to spread His New Testament economy to the Gentiles as a beginning from the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion (Acts 10:1-33). From the Jews the Lord moved to the Gentiles through Peter. The Lord showed Peter a vision but Peter hesitated. Peter, of course, was a Jew, and he told the Lord that from his youth he had never eaten anything unclean. But in the vision from the Lord, the Lord told him, “The things that God has cleansed, do not make common” (v. 15). Peter had to contact the Gentiles with the gospel to follow God’s move. Then God would move in his move. The church was raised up in the house of a centurion of the Roman Empire, Cornelius. This was the Lord’s move accomplished by His move within Peter’s move.
Then the Lord gave a further vision to the apostle Paul and the other four prophets and teachers in the church in Antioch, that they should go, in moving together with the Lord for the carrying out of His New Testament economy, to evangelize all of Asia Minor. Paul and his co-workers did this by three gospel trips (Acts 13:1-14:28; 15:40-18:22; 18:23- 21:17). Through those gospel trips, Paul evangelized Asia Minor and established churches in city after city.
By the Lord’s move shown in the above four points the Lord covered Asia and Africa and initiated His church among the Gentiles.
Home | First | Prev | Next