April 16, 2023: “The Resurrected Life: Community, Friendship and the Work of the Holy Spirit” Week 1
Theme: The tree of the knowledge of good and evil
Scripture: Acts 2:46-47 and Genesis 3:8-13
Notes: We were created to live in community with one another and with God. In Acts 2, we hear the story of people becoming Christians. What followed for those who became Christians? They did not go their separate ways. They were gathered together by the Holy Spirit into a community, and it is within Christian Community that the resurrected life is lived. We are created for community. We can see this truth lived out in the Garden of Eden until Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Immediately, community was broken. What followed was like a tree that grew quickly. The roots of the tree were idolatry. The trunk of the tree was pride. Limbs shot off the trunk that include hyper-individualism, fear of the other and fear of rejection (fear can be broken down into rational, primal, and irrational fear). Christian life is different from this—a different tree so to speak.