Week #12 — Mega-Grace Upon Them
If you have never read The Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield, I highly recommend it. She is the foremost speaker of our time on the Christian imperative for a life of generous, hospitality-driven love. Butterfield was a tenured professor of feminist and women’s studies, and in a lesbian relationship, when the grace of Jesus Christ changed her heart and transformed her life. Understanding the conflict between her old life and the call to repentance and sanctification, she walked away from every part of it.
Today, Butterfield and her husband (who is her pastor) love their congregation and community by extending radically generous hospitality to all who will receive it. They have an open invitation to dinner at their house for as many as show up several nights each week. They have taken in people in need over the years. They have adopted and raised several children. They befriend and care for quite literally anyone and everyone—starting with the Church and extending that to the entire community.
Every time I read one of her books or hear her speak, I am struck by how amazingly uncommon it is. What the Butterfields do on a random Tuesday, many Christians won’t do across their entire lives. Perhaps that is the problem for you, and for me, and for many of us. In Acts 4:32-37, we see the early Church witness to the resurrection of Jesus by living in a similarly radical, generous way. They love and care for one another by using their own blessings to meet others’ needs, even when doing so comes at a significant personal cost.
If this same Gospel of grace animates us—and it does—then how should it shape our lives and decisions today? Read the passage and then explore that theme by discussing the questions below.
In Christ,
Pastor Ken
Week #12 — Questions
- In v32, we see the believers were then “of one heart and soul.” How does this profound unity help explain their remarkable generosity toward one another? Is such unity of heart and belief (doctrine) necessary for such living (practice)?
- The believers did not treat their possessions as their own; they shared them and their proceeds to meet the needs of all in the Church. Is this description of the early Church prescriptive for the Church today? Why or why not?
- All of this sure sounds like a Christian commune—and perhaps Christian communism or socialism. Why is it not that? What are the effects of actual communism or socialism upon a community like this?
- How does sacrificial generosity within the Church meet both physical and spiritual needs for the receiver? Share a time when generosity strengthened the faith of someone who received it.
- What does generous giving do inside the heart of the giver—spiritually, emotionally, or relationally? How have you experienced transformation through giving?
- Between v32 and v34, which are about sharing possessions and meeting needs, we find v33, which concerns the apostles’ powerful testimony of Christ’s resurrection. In what ways and to what extent is the resurrection linked with generous living?
- Read Acts 2:42-47. Between that passage and ours, the early Church experienced sound preaching, miraculous healings, rapid church growth, and fierce opposition, and yet the passages are so very similar. What do these similarities teach us about the ongoing work of the Spirit in the early church?
- The truth of the resurrection produces a new kind of community marked by generosity. What practical steps do you sense God calling you to take to embody that reality more fully? Does NAPC embody it well? How could we do so all the more?