100 Monkeys

On Sunday morning, I shared with you the story of the monkeys who learned to wash their sweet potatoes in order to eliminate dirt that disagreed with their tastes. You'll recall that the washing trend grew slowly until the hundredth monkey started washing dirty sweet potatoes. At that point, it became a phenomenon that literally took on a life of its own.

It strikes me that this is exactly what happened in the early church.

If you read the book of Acts, which is the history of the first century church, it is a book about the struggles, triumphs, and persecution of those first followers of Christ.

I find it so interesting that there was such a widespread movement to eradicate this group of believers that literally had started with a ragtag group of people with little or no credentials. Why were they considered so dangerous? They had no education to speak of. They were not among the elite. They were not the ones who held political power. Why not just let them "do their thing" and let it just die out naturally?

The answer to that is simple. This ragtag group, the first followers of Christ, were literally turning the world upside down (see Acts 17:6). After the day of Pentecost when the fire of heaven came down and they received the Holy Spirit, they were from that point on a force to be reckoned with.

We don't know how many people were there in the house that day, but we do know that it couldn't have very many by the very fact that they were in a house. The point is that the gospel began to spread and the church began to grow exponentially from very humble beginnings.

A handful of men and women with no credentials allowed God to use them in a way that 2000 years later the Church continues to grow and thrive. That is their legacy. What will yours be?

Think about it, and tell me what you think?