Read Acts 4:34 slowly: "There was not a needy person among them." A whole community, so changed by the presence of God that nobody in it went without. Then Acts 19, where one man teaching in a rented hall sees the gospel reach an entire province in two years. Then Acts 17, where the believers get accused of having "turned the world upside down."
Now look at the church today. Most of us aren't turning anything upside down. Most of us aren't erasing need in our neighborhoods. So why not?
The Question We Skip
I think we skip this question on purpose. We have explanations ready. It was a different era. We shouldn't expect miracles like that anymore. The culture's changed. But an explanation isn't the same thing as an answer, and sometimes it's just a polite way to avoid the question.
It reminds me of putting off the dentist. You know something's wrong. You can feel it every time you chew. But looking at it means dealing with it, and dealing with it might hurt, so you cancel the appointment and the cavity keeps growing where you can't see it.
It's much easier to lower the bar on what "normal Christianity" looks like than to ask why our normal drifted so far from the New Testament's normal.
A Different Us, Not a Different God
God hasn't changed. Nowhere does Scripture say the power in Acts was a one generation event. Jesus told his disciples they'd do "greater works" than he did, not fewer (John 14:12). John writes that "as he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17). None of those promises came with an expiration date.
So if the power hasn't gone anywhere, something in us has to be in the way. Some obstruction, some compromise, something we're holding on to that keeps us from living the way those first believers did.
What I'm Sitting With
I'll admit this question got under my skin before it encouraged me. It's uncomfortable to put what I read in Acts next to what I actually walk in on an ordinary Tuesday. But there's a strange relief in naming the gap instead of explaining it away.
If the problem has a source, it can be found. If it can be found, it can be dealt with. That's what this whole series is for. Not to pile shame on ourselves for falling short, but to get honest enough to ask why, and to let God show us what's really in the way.