Acts 7:4

4. Scattered abroad… every where Luke repeats the scattering, as if to assure us of the totality of the dispersion. The Pentecostal Church forever disappeared, and of it the subsequently gathered Jerusalem Church was but an indifferent successor.

Twice did it appear to the hostile Jews that the life of Christianity was closed: first, when Christ was slain and his disciples apparently overwhelmed; second, when Stephen was martyred and the Church dispersed. Both these sad events were preceded by a brilliant but transient popularity of Christianity with the masses. Before the crucifixion the raising of Lazarus seemed to give almost a triumph to Jesus over the authorities. And before this martyrdom, the bold apostles, at two successive arraignments, seemed to come off by popular favour almost victorious over the Sanhedrin. But in the case of Stephen the terrible charge of hostility to the temple seemed to be so substantiated, and the bloody vengeance inflicted upon him so appalling, that the victory of hostile Judaism seemed to be complete; and the downfall of the Pentecostal Church appeared like the extinction of Christianity. (See note on Acts 4:1.)

Preaching the word But the death of the Pentecostal Church was but its resurrection into a Missionary Church. Unconsciously missionary it probably originally was; for it was through the returning Pentecostal visitors at their various homes, by whom even the first germs of Christianity at Rome may have been planted. But this Jerusalem body was really absorbed in the home intensification of its own piety. That beautiful structure must break into countless fragments, and each fragment scattered abroad must become the nucleus of a new Church. Young Christianity must not conclude to be merely one self-luminous spot, but must radiate the world through. She must learn that the world is not now to be ended, but to be converted. The pentecostal emblems of universality must now begin to be realized.

Every where… preaching Those dispersed Christians are, every man, an itinerant preacher! They wait for no “holy orders” forsooth; ask no bishop’s permit to hold prayer-meetings, and do not refuse to exhort or preach because they have received no license. Work is better than formal machinery. Saving souls is better even than churchly order; for no churchly order is established and is good for any thing, only for saving souls and doing good to men. A large share of the wide spread growth of Methodism historically arises not only from the fact that her itinerancy is this scattering abroad organized into system, but also from the fact that her laymen so often have such a spiritual life in themselves that when flung out of the reach of the regular ministry they forthwith, like these dispersed ones, set about the work of preaching the word themselves. Such vitality in such circumstances every earnest Christian should show forth whether he possess the parchment or not. The church order that does not rejoice in this freedom sacrifices the spirit to the form. It idolizes the machinery at the expense of all the machinery is good for. The electrical apparatus was made for the fluid, not the fluid for the apparatus.