Marginal Theology: SNAP Back to Reality

By Chadwick Walenga

So, you join this thing. This new movement. This... way.  First Century or 21st Century.

What’s different?

Not just in your head. Not just some new ideas you believe. Not because of where you grew up.  But on Monday morning. When the sun comes up and you have to go to the market, and you have to deal with your neighbor, and the legion patrol walks by.

What actually changes?

It changes in how you're held. How you're supported. It's not just a solo flight. The encouragement isn't just a pat on the back. It’s communal. It's practical, like a shared meal or a full wallet when yours is empty. It's verbal, like a friend reminding you, daily, to stay true when things get hard. And it's spiritual, this deep sense of shared hope. That's what changes.

And it all starts with this sentence. Just a few words.

"Jesus is Lord."

In the first century, this phrase wasn’t a popular worship song on Sunday morning or a prayer before a meal in a fancy ballroom.  So…

It sounds simple to us. Pious, maybe. Something you put on a bumper sticker. But in their first century world? In the Empire? That was... that was like lighting a fuse.

Because everyone knew who "Lord" was. Caesar. Caesar was Lord. His face was on the money. His armies kept the "peace." His power was total. So when this little group of people, meeting in a back room, starts saying, "No, actually, Jesus is Lord"... that's not just a prayer or a catchy tune. That's a political declaration.

It's treason.

If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar... isn't. Not ultimately.

You're announcing your allegiance. You're saying, "We live under a different king." This isn't just a new club. It's a counter-empire.

See, Rome knew how to fix the world. With a sword. With force. With power and expansion. You get in line, or the legion gets you in line.

But these people, their "good news," was that the world gets put right in a completely different way. Not by ruling over people, but by serving them. By showing kindness. Peace. Especially to the people the Empire stepped on. The poor. The forgotten. The ones on the "underside" of power. You don't rule them. You wash their feet.

And the whole community was meant to be a living, breathing picture of this kind of power.

So, if you say "Jesus is Lord," and not Caesar, what does that do to your wallet? What does it do to your house?

And that's not a 2,000-year-old question. That’s a right-now, Sunday through Saturday morning question. 

You see the news. 

You see the lines already getting longer at the food distributions around the county. It's hitting home. Just a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and the benefits people were counting on are paused. You see the panic. And that ancient question lands right on your doorstep. What does "Jesus is Lord" do to your wallet, today?

This is where it gets really beautiful. And really... costly.

Their economics flowed right out of their allegiance. It was all about radical fellowship. Radical generosity.

They said they were "one in heart and mind." And then they proved it. They had... listen to this... all things in common.

This wasn't just putting an extra coin in the offering box. People were selling their property, their possessions, and bringing the money to make sure everyone was cared for. The goal? That there would be "no needy persons among them."

Imagine that. A community with no poverty. Not as a distant dream, but as the daily plan.

Now, was this some kind of brief, utopian flash in the pan? Probably not everyone liquidating everything on day one. It was more like... a radical availability. A new mindset. What's "mine" is suddenly held loosely. It's available for the community's needs. They were building their own safety net, right there, with each other. They were, in the most practical, financial way, carrying each other's burdens.

And the hospitality... my goodness. The door was always open. For the traveling teacher, for the person fleeing persecution, for the friend in prison. Giving a meal, a bed—that was just what you did. It was love in action.

Think about being willing to visit someone in a state prison, to be seen with them, to bring them food, knowing it makes you a target. They had friends who "were not ashamed of his chains." 

What a line.

And you can't share your money like that if you can't share your life. You need incredible honesty. So they did. They were encouraged to confess their sins... to each other. To pray for each other's healing—not just physical, but relational. The healing of friendships. This was a community trying to live with no masks, no hypocrisy.

And maybe the most explosive part of all? Who was in the room.

This community shattered the Roman social rulebook. All those lines that kept people in their place? Jew and Gentile. Slave and free. Rich and poor. Male and female.

Gone.

In Christ, they said, there is "no distinction."

Think about that. The wealthy Roman landowner, the person who owned other people, is now sitting at the same table, sharing the same loaf of bread, with someone who, outside that room, is their legal property.  But inside? Inside, they are "brother" and "sister." This isn't just tolerance. It's a whole new creation. It’s social anarchy, in the best way.

So... what powers this? What keeps this going? Because this is hard. It's risky. It costs you.

It comes down to their hope. It all comes back to the resurrection.

But not in the way we sometimes think. This wasn't about just... escaping. Getting out of this broken world and flying off to heaven somewhere else.

No. Their hope was bigger. It wasn't about abandoning creation, it was about the renewal of creation. Restoration. God is going to put this world, the whole cosmos, back together.

They saw it like this: there's the "present age," which is broken and under the sway of all the wrong powers. And then there's the "age to come," which is God's full, beautiful reign.

And what they believed, what got them out of bed in the morning, was that in Jesus's resurrection, the "age to come" had already started. It had broken into the present. It wasn't just a future promise. It was a present reality.

And that's what the community was. All of it. The sharing, the equality, the service.

It wasn't just them trying to be good people. It was them living out a foretaste. A little sample of what the new, restored world already looks like. They were living the future, now.

That's what let them endure suffering, even death. They weren't just gritting their teeth. They had, as one of them said, "the joy of the Holy Spirit" in the middle of it all. Because they were tasting the new world, right there in their life together. That big, cosmic restoration made the small, present sacrifice make sense.

So, in the end, what is this thing?

It's not a set of beliefs you just agree to. It's a way you live. A set of radical, observable, costly actions.

Saying "Jesus is Lord" wasn't a ticket to the afterlife. It was a whole new operating manual for this life. It immediately changed how you used your money, who you ate with, and where your ultimate allegiance truly was.

And the community itself—this bizarre, beautiful, upside-down family of slaves and owners, rich and poor, all sharing one life—that was the proof. That was the sign to the world that their claim about this new king was actually true.

Their daily life was the message.

So in the end, that was their encouragement. It wasn't a separate program. It was the whole thing. The practical support, the radical sharing, the constant verbal reminders to keep going—reminding each other that you "must go through many hardships"—and to spur each other on to love. It all flowed from that one, central hope. The life of the "age to come" wasn't just a future dream; it was the fuel for their daily, communal life, sustaining them with joy right in the middle of their struggles. That shared life was the encouragement. That life was the message.

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