“They replied, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with your entire household’“ (Acts 16:31 NLT).
“Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?'” (John 4:28-29 NIV).
The Greek word for home is oikos.
Throughout the New Testament we see a repeating story that begins with an individual who believes and then immediately shares their new found faith with their own oikos. This is what created such momentum in the early church. People didn’t leave their family, friends, and neighbors behind. Instead, they immediately “went back” to them and told them of their new life in Jesus.
In the modern church we often pull new believers out of their own oikos without a thought of the consequences. We mean well. We want them to join our church family and be part of what we’re doing. But we forget that the Lord wants to use them to reach their whole family. By the time we get them all “cleaned-up” and “Christianized,” they may have lost the connectivity and passion that would have been present at first.
The Samaritan woman that Jesus encountered at the well near the city of Sychar had to be the least likely evangelist for reaching that town. But Jesus had no problem releasing her for service. She had such a sense of urgency that she left her “water jar” at the well and ran back to her town to tell them the Good News.
How can we experience the momentum that occurred in the early church? I think one way is to release and commission people to go back to their own oikos until everyone has heard.