You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. You know, in the early church, there arose this religious disagreement that was so sharp and so pointed that it threatened to split the church right in half. Oh, and they argued about it, and they got so heated that they actually had to send somebody to Jerusalem to find out what to do.
So how exactly did they work this out, and how did they keep the church from becoming divided? We'll find out today on More Than Ink. And yes, this is More Than Ink. There's Dorothy right across from me. And there's Jim across from me. Here we are at our dining room table, and not only do we actually eat at this table, but we eat the Word too.
Wow, that's constraint. Oh, that's interesting. But we like to look at the Word together. We're delighted by these passages. And we're in a rip-roaring section of the Bible and Acts that just has a lot of great action, a lot of great dynamics that accompanies the movement of God's Gospel as it moves across the world. Yeah, and it's clear that God is moving the Gospel. These guys are just kind of going where He tells them and doing what He says to do.
Yeah, yeah. And so the Word proceeds through the ear. You know, we just last time, we finished chapter 14. And at the same time, we finished the first missionary journey that Paul went on. And you know, he left Antioch, which is in present-day Syria. It's actually present-day Turkey, but it's on the coast. And they went up into central Turkey and had some great adventures and came back.
So at the end of the last chapter, last time we were together, they just came back home. And home is Antioch. Antioch. And they had such great success among the Gentiles. Yes, yes. They left a huge wake of believers behind them in all these little places that they had visited.
Yeah. Trouble, certainly, and difficulty. But lots and lots of believers. So they came home to report to the church in Antioch how God had delivered the Gospel to the Gentiles. And they had responded. And I think that's the big takeaway from the first missionary journey is that the Gospel is open to the Gentiles. And they spent a lot of time celebrating it.
And it's just an incredible thing. Well, it turns out that as we start out today, news of this great change in the Gentile community has made its way down to Christianity Central, which is Jerusalem. And it's caused a little bit of concern.
So we're going to get a visit by the people in Jerusalem today to talk about the problems. Well, it's probably good to remember that Peter going to Cornelius had happened a little while before this. So, you know, Gentiles coming to faith in Christ is not necessarily, this is not the first time that had happened.
No. But this is the first time it had happened on a large scale. Right.
And they could probably take the Cornelius incident and write it off as like a one-off thing. Right. But now, no, Gentiles all through Asia Minor. I mean, it's remarkable.
It's really quite a change. And now we have Gentiles telling Gentiles up there. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's the big tidal wave that's going to cause a little bit of confrontation today. So if you're following, we're in chapter 15. Very famous section in Acts where the issue of Jews and Gentiles comes up and is focused on even bigger than in chapter 11.
So in chapter 11, they debated whether or not Gentiles could be part of it. But here it gets a little bit more complicated. It's bigger.
It's bigger. So read with us. We're starting out the first verse of chapter 15. Here we go. Okay. But some men came down from Judea who were teaching the brothers and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders and ask about this question. Okay. Let's stop there for a second. Okay.
Because it was interesting. So like we just said, you know, news of the so many Gentiles coming to Jesus. Right.
That has just traveled all over the place. And so the people down in, like what I just called, you know, Christianity Central, which is Jerusalem. It was also Judaism Central.
Judaism Central. From there, they're concerned about what they're hearing. And so some of them come up. They come up. Actually, it's always down from Jerusalem, even though you're going north here.
But they go all the way up to Antioch, which is no small travel. And they go up there and they confront Paul and say, you know, what is going on? They have to be circumcised. They have to, or another way of saying this, they have to become Jews.
Gentiles must become Jews. And this has kind of come real clear that these guys were self-directed. Yes. Right. They just, when they heard the news, said, we've got to go fix this.
They took the initiative and boom, and they went. And interestingly enough, they have a healthy discussion. Let's put it that way. No small controversy. No small controversy.
Now, you know, maybe in our present day, people would be more prone to say, you know, we just need to agree to disagree and so we're going to split up and it's going to cause division. Right. And we're just going to not have this conversation anymore. It's okay for us, not okay for you.
They don't take that approach. They say, no, we really have to hammer this out. And the reason is because this is all about salvation itself.
That's right. This has eternal ramifications. Yeah, it's a big deal. When it says Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension. You know, I looked at that word because dissension is a word we hear a lot in the culture that we live in.
This word literally means to stand up against. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Paul stood up against what they were saying. Right. And questioned them and brought out the argument. Right.
Right. So there's a strong disagreement and it's starting to cause probably the most serious first division inside the Christian community. So they say, look, let's go down south. Let's go down to Jerusalem. We'll talk to the apostles and the elders and we'll just kind of figure this out.
And so that's what they decide to do. Well, and it's interesting that there's an emphasis on the activity of the church here. It's the church all together that sent Paul and Barnabas down to Jerusalem or up to Jerusalem. Right. Now the up refers to the fact that Jerusalem is on a mountain.
Yeah. So it was the church that sent them. So the church sends them down. So now we change scenes and we're on our way down to Jerusalem to duke it out about circumcision and whether you need to become a Jew to be a Christian.
That's the question. So verse three. So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders. And they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said it is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.
Yeah. And that thing about keeping the law of Moses, that's really where it says basically, that's the catch phrase for you got to be a Jew. If you want to follow Jesus, if you want to be part of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, then you need to keep the law of Moses. You have to actually become a Jew. But historically, Gentiles, proselytes who came into Judaism had to go through a circumcision and a pledge to keep the law. So as a follower of Jesus, do you have to convert to Judaism?
Because that's what had happened before. They had people who were interested in the God of Abraham and so they would convert and they would become Jews. So it's interesting that it just never occurred to them that there was any other way to come in the narrow gate to Messiah.
Yeah. And what it's really challenging here, and this is why this is so difficult for them, is the role of the law in terms of following the true God. What is the role of the law in following the true God whose Messiah is Jesus? Where does the law fit?
Is it something we still need to do ceremonially? And so that's really the crux of the issue. And that issue, by the way, is going to be a difficult one throughout most of the New Testament.
Yeah, it's going to go on for a while. But most of us, we only think of the moral law when we refer to the law. We Gentiles in this century, we hear the word the law and we think, oh, the Ten Commandments. But from a Jewish point of view, the law, yes, contained all of the moral teaching of God, but much more weight of ceremonial law, sacrifices and washings and external things. So much.
I mean, kosher food laws, the separation of clothing types and fabric types. I mean, it was just overwhelming. Right. And at the core was circumcision because that's the mark of God's people. So let's push on and see how they, I mean, they made their case. Let's see what they do in verse six. They're claiming you got to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. So verse six, the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this manner. And after there had been much debate, again, the asking and answering of questions, much discussion, Peter stood up and said to them, brothers, you know that in the early days, God made a choice among you that my, by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God who knows the heart bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. Okay. Amen. Oh, that is a mouthful. Then Peter.
Yeah, I really like it. There was much debate and then Peter stood up. Well, this makes sense. Not only is Peter one of the apostles who walked with Jesus, so he's highly respected, but also he's the one that had the rooftop experience in Joppa. He's the one that saw it happen with Cornelius and his household in Caesarea back in chapter 10. I mean, he should be able to weigh in expertly here, but it's how he says what he says that I just find fascinating.
Yeah. And what do you find so interesting? Well, when you look at verse nine, he made no distinction between us. Who's the us? Gentiles and Jews. What do you mean he made no distinction between us? Aren't we God's people, the Jews would say? No, he made no distinction between us and them having cleansed their hearts by faith.
That's a fascinating... I thought we were, as speaking as a Jew, I thought we were cleansed by the ceremonies and the laws of the Obey. I thought that's what cleansed us. Isn't the day of atonement once a year, isn't that what cleanses us?
He says no. Both of us, including the Jews, including the Jews are cleansed, their hearts are cleansed by faith. That includes the Jews too. So I think that's a fascinating way he puts it. He doesn't say they can be like us. He's saying basically that we are all on the same map.
The Jews have no extra advantage over anyone else. It's always by faith and it's a heart issue, it's not a behavior issue. If you remember at the end of that vision that Peter had with the unclean things coming down the sheet, the bottom line on that was God said to him, don't you call anything unclean that God has declared clean?
Right, right. And then the next day he drives that home to Peter by sending the Holy Spirit to this Gentile household. As evidence. Then began to respond to the coming of the Spirit the same way Peter and the 12 had. So the speaking of tongues, the evidence of the presence of the Spirit giving them utterance in praise of God. And in Cornelius' household, this is back in chapter 10 again, he actually says God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So there really is no distinction when he says that in verse 9 here. There is no distinction in terms of clean and unclean. Which is, I mean that's a radical shift in Jewish mindset. Radical. Because God said don't intermarry with those Gentiles because they'll basically dilute and convert, not convert but destroy your beliefs, your theology.
Don't even mix with them. Well and one of the things I love about this passage is that it's Peter who gets this eloquent opportunity to speak here. But it's Paul who had brought the question. Paul being a former Pharisee. And he would have been able to speak in Pharisaical terms that these guys would have understood.
He would have been quoting the Old Testament everywhere. But it's Peter who just says hey listen guys, I was there. I saw it.
I'm the first one. We have a common fisherman who's making his argument based on the first hand witness experience God has taken him to. But I also like what he goes to in verse 10. You're putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear.
And he's talking about the ineffectiveness of obeying the law in terms of changing anything really. So he's saying our fathers couldn't do it. And it's interesting because when you look at the history of Israel we just finished studying Nehemiah. You finish Nehemiah which is the last history before the first century of Jesus and they're going back to all their old ways. I mean they couldn't do it there and they couldn't do it at the beginning of the history of Israel.
I mean even when they first went in the desert they were making golden calves. So the fascinating thing is that from a Jewish perspective the law is how you obey God. But we could not do it he's saying. Even all of our fathers could not do it. So why are you laying this on another group of people?
Because it didn't work for us as Jews. Well and the yoke is an interesting picture because that's equipment that you put on an animal to equip it for work. Right. And burden it. To bear a burden or to pull a load, right? And remember Jesus said if you're weary beyond explanation, right, come to me, come unto the yoke with me. My burden is light.
My yoke is easy. Yeah that's a great way of looking at it because the law always was a burden. Right. And yet it was something God said here's the standard of righteousness that I require of my people. But how are we supposed to do it if we can't do it? And yet all along there were those, I mean David is what I have in mind, who understood that the law represented the heart, right? That the heart of the law didn't have anything to do with the ceremonial observance.
Right, right, right. And so I started thinking about that when Peter says now therefore why are you putting God to the test, right? Why are you testing God? Which is actually what God, like in Psalm 95 when he says of the Jews in the wilderness, they tested me, they tried me because they did not, their hearts always went astray and they did not know my ways, right? So they just missed the heart intent of the law.
They missed it. And then finally in 11, I love how he phrases, what I would have said there, what he does say, he says but we believe that we will be saved through grace. I would have said but we believe that they, the Gentiles will be saved. So what he's really trying to say is hey you Jews listen to me, we are saved through grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will. So I really like that. He personalizes his saying, talking from Jew to Jew, we are saved the same way.
The law is not what saves us. I just think it's just beautiful. It's eloquent and it really shows the presence of the Holy Spirit speaking through the fishermen rather than anything else.
Right, right. Well let's go on, verse 12. Okay, verse 12. And all the assembly fell silent, you think? They just didn't have anything to say in response to that. And they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. So prior to this they hadn't been willing to listen to the stories, right?
They were just all up in arms. But then they sat still and listened. Verse 13. After they finished speaking, James replied, Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, After this I will return and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen.
I will rebuild its ruins and I will restore it that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord. And all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord who makes these things known of old. Ah, good move, James, good move. By the way, this James is not James the brother of John who was executed by Herod.
This is the half brother of Jesus. Right. Who was the recognized authoritative voice in the church.
Right, right. Commonly in church history he's called James the just. I don't know why he gets that.
But he does a great thing. Evidently he's the one who can speak authoritatively here. After listening to Barnabas and Paul and prior to that Peter, he says, Okay, I think I get it here. So it says in 14, Simeon, that's you know, remember that's the other name, Simon for Peter. So he related how God first visited the Gentiles and of course he's referring again back to chapter 10 with Cornelius, right? Again it's his experience, he saw this, he's a witness to these things. He says God visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name.
Yes. Not just the Jewish people who bear his name. I thought the Jews were a people of his name. Well they are, but God's name is bigger than that. Yeah, so God is adding, he's actually giving the moniker of the people of his name to the Gentiles that are drawn to him. It's really interesting to me that he quotes from Amos when there are other passages that say the same thing, but he chooses this one from Amos.
Yeah, it's a good one. He says, I will rebuild the ruins of the house of David and I will restore it that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by my name. Right, right. Yeah, that almost is an oxymoron phrase, Gentiles who are called by my name.
Right, wait, I thought they were outsiders. To a normal Jew you'd say, wait, we are called by his name. His name is on our people, not on them, and yet here it is way back in Amos saying, yeah, but a time's coming, time's coming when God's going to draw out of the Gentile community people for his own name. Well, and you know, the Jews regarded the name as so holy, they never actually said the name. Right, right. They said, Hashem, the name. Hashem, yeah. To this very day they do that. Right. Yeah, to this very day. You know, we'll go in church service and we'll hear it, Lord or God, or they'll say Hashem, Hashem, Hashem, the name says, the name commands, the name, da, da, da, yeah.
Won't even say the name. But yeah, so he quotes Amos. Now this is a tried and true way to adjudicate discussions about differences in theology. Let's go to God's Word. Right.
He doesn't pull rank. James could have said, hey, listen, I'm the brother of Jesus, so what I say goes. He says, no, look, I've heard everything that's been said and you know what, it rings true as I test it against God's Word, listen to the words of Amos. Right. And then he reads God's Word and who's going to argue with Amos?
You can't. Well, and he doesn't say the words of the prophet. He says the words of the prophets implying others, the other prophets had said similar things. Others say similar things. But he chooses this one from Amos because it's so specific.
Yeah. And I might just underscore the obvious here, which is when it comes, really when it comes to debates, theological debates inside churches, no leader has any authority other than how much he can connect to what God's Word says. If you cannot connect to what God's Word says, your authority doesn't mean anything, really. And so this is what Jesus' brother James is doing here as well. Let's appeal to God's Word because that is the ultimate authority over all of us. And it is the truth that overrules all of our opinions and all of our kind of broken reasoning. This the Word always rules. Let's go to the Word. And so his last word is reading the Word. I just love that.
That's the way things always should be. So he's speaking as himself though in verse 19. He says, Therefore, my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.
For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he's read every Sabbath in the synagogues. This is interesting. It's really an interesting list. Yeah, it's an interesting list because it.
Go ahead. Well, I was going to say it stems from the fact of what he says in 21 where he says, you know, there's Jews in every one of these cities. So what he's really saying is we want you to do what will not be an offense to the Jews or antagonize the Jewish populations. That's basically what he's saying. I mean, there's a lot of things you shouldn't be doing.
There's a lot. He doesn't say anything about stealing, but that's not his point. What he's pulled out is stuff that would be especially antagonizing to a Jew if he did this, even though they're free to do it. Well, because there were lots of Jews who had come to Christ, right? And these accusations were being made by those who were believers. It says back in verse five, some believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees. But it's possible for believers in Christ to still hold to tenets of the law that are very important to them. And it will break any kind of possibility for fellowship between Gentile and Jewish believers. If the Gentiles persist in doing things that are really not important, but they're very important in terms of unity. Yeah, so this is really an accommodation to unity in the Jewish community, what he's picked out. I mean, three of them have to do with food laws, after all. And later on, when you read some of Paul's letters, Paul says, I'm free to do any of these things.
I really can. But I'm not going to because it's just going to antagonize my fellow Jews. Well, it's interesting. He says these things so that the new Gentile believers are not antagonizing the Jews. But he says, it's my judgment that we shouldn't trouble the Gentiles who are coming to believe. Well, that word means to make trouble for them, to annoy them, to harass them.
Don't make their road any harder. Right, right, right. That's exactly right. Because pork is not mentioned here. So it's sort of like, why would we trouble the Gentiles to give up their bacon when it doesn't really make any difference? Right, that doesn't seem to be the issue. That's not the issue. But the issue is minimizing the antagonism to the Jewish community who are also believers.
It's really about creating unity. It's not meant to be an exhaustive list of do's and don'ts from a moral perspective. But it's clearly aimed at that. And I mean, he's pulling out stuff that comes largely out of Leviticus 17 and 18. I mean, these are things that God put on the nation of Israel.
And they're easily offended. Well, okay, they're pretty centrally, but the blood is a centrally important idea, right? The life is in the blood, right? The blood that's given on the altar makes atonement for your sins, right? So while they're all kind of putting that together, and understanding how that really represents the blood of Christ, don't be doing things with blood that just make this a harder road for all of you. Right.
So just do these things. And that will maximize our ability to have unity in the Jewish Christian community. Why does he text sexual immorality in the middle of this list? Well, because that's interesting, too. Because if you get to Leviticus 17, there's a lot about the marital sexual beliefs that are there. And I think they're especially sensitive to that in the Jewish community. Because if you think about the contrast between the Jewish community and the secular community at the time, secular communities really whacked down in terms of sexual stuff. So if you really want to offend a Jew quickly, you know, offend him in the sexual category, because they hold themselves to be very pure compared to the rest of the world that way. So I think it's the same kind of idea, to tell you the truth.
I mean, there's a lot of things that he left out that are important. It's true, it's true. But I think for the Jew who's a Christian, they're especially sensitive to the food things and sexual purity in marriage, which is what comes from Leviticus, I think it's 17. Or generally sexually promiscuous lifestyle, which was characteristic of the Gentile cultures. Yeah, exactly. So it's interesting that, you know, when we talk about this passage next week, what the response of the Gentile believers will be, because they rejoice over it, they feel encouraged, they feel welcomed. Yeah, it's good news. Yeah, yeah. And you know, later on, you know, the this thing we're looking at right here is something that Paul will visit over and over again in his letters, you know, even I remember you read Galatians, it's pretty much at the heart of Galatians, and they're going back to the law in many respects.
And he's saying, what's going on? I mean, I'll just read one section in Galatians three. He says, Listen, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law?
Right? Or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? So this is an issue that will come back over and over again, it'll plague the early church because the early church was a sect of Judaism. Right.
And so it seems like it's kind of tearing in half here. What is the role of the law? What is the role of righteousness?
What is the role of faith and grace? I mean, how do these two worlds interact? And it's not an understatement to say that this is the collision of two gigantic worlds, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and how do you make sense of them?
And that's what's been talked about here in chapter 15. Well, the discussion has just opened. It just opened. Keep going. It just opened and wisely, James quotes from Amos, and you know, there's just no debating that there are Gentiles who are going to be called by God's name.
So get used to it. And there you go. Yeah, yeah, the Scriptures together with God's witness himself. Yeah, Peter, that Peter speaks of. So we're going to recap this a bit when we come back because we got to write a letter about this. So I'm Jim, and I'm Dorothy. And we'll come back next time and we'll see exactly what they say and how they say it to the church there here on More Than Eek. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself, and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. Man, that's pretty good. I think maybe we should leave that alone. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.
