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"Unlike those who have resided in the city for some time, newcomers are often the city's contribution to potential church growth," Conn and Ortiz wrote. "Generally speaking, they tend to be more disoriented, not yet settled. They are looking for new roots, trying to fit into a setting that is unfamiliar."

Even outside the Book of Acts, themes of place and mobility weave throughout the biblical storyline from creation, to fall, then redemption, and finally consummation. God created Adam and Eve in his own image and placed them in the Garden of Eden, commanding them to subdue the earth (Gen. 1:28; 2:15). When Adam and Eve disobeyed the command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17), God banished them from the garden (Gen. 3:23–24). In a similar judgment, the Lord cursed Cain to be a wanderer on the earth after he killed his brother, Abel (Gen. 4:12). A few chapters later, the whole earth conspired to build a city and tower that would reach to heaven, "lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth" (Gen. 11:4). But the Lord came down and confused their language, doing exactly what they feared by dispersing them "over the face of all the earth" (Gen. 11:7–9).

By the dawn of the New Testament, the Jews had returned to their homeland from exile centuries earlier. And even though they lived under Roman authority, this was the "fullness of time" (Gal. 4:4), precisely the moment and place God ordained for his incarnate Son. Born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, the Son of Man had no place to rest his head during his earthly ministry (Luke 9:58). After his death and resurrection, Jesus likewise told his disciples to go into all nations to baptize and teach new disciples (Matt. 28:18–20). After his ascension, when the apostles wavered on this commitment and remained huddled in Jerusalem, God scattered them to preach the word, first to Samaria (Acts 8:4) and ultimately to the capital city of Rome itself.

So we see in the biblical narrative the call to settle in the Promised Land, the curse of exile, and the command to leave everything and spread the gospel around the world. Yet this time of transience is itself transient. Christians long for the day to come when the holy city, the new Jerusalem, will descend from heaven. Then, God will dwell with his people (Rev. 21:1–3). That Jerusalem will resemble today's globalized cities with worshipers representing every tribe, language, people, and nation (Rev. 7:9). But if we never settle in the meantime, we may never invest our time, talents, and treasure into making our communities healthy and beautiful, the kinds of places that give the world a foretaste of this new Jerusalem to come.

Collin Hansen is a CT editor at large and author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists.

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May (Web-only) 2009, Vol. 53