It Ain't Easy

This brought Barnabas and Saul into sharp dispute and debate with them … Peter got up and addressed them, “… Now then why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?  No!” (Acts 15:2, 7, 10)

Unity is a lovely idea … until it has to get worked out by people like us!  

Our current series is challenging us to learn how to disagree deeply when we must, and to love even more deeply while doing so.  Unity is both our starting point—we are all members of Christ’s one Body—and a goal towards which we must strive and work.

This week we’re looking at Acts 15, the early church’s first major disagreement.  And it wasn’t a disagreement about side issues, but about the core of the Gospel itself.

It seems straightforward enough: Jesus is the Messiah of Israel.  Jesus fulfills the prophecies and promises of Israel’s Scriptures.  Jesus is the liberator like Moses, the king like David, the prophet like Elijah, the Suffering Servant promised in Isaiah 53.  How much more obvious could it be?  If you want to follow Christ, you must do so through the door of Jewish observance.  How can you follow Jesus apart from following the Law and the Prophets?

And then, these crazy “radicals”: Paul, who’s really a hot potato, and Peter, who ought to know better.  Peter claims that God himself sent him to preach the Good News of Jesus to Gentiles.  And then endorsed and authenticated Peter’s going to the house of a Roman centurion by pouring out the Holy Spirit upon … Gentiles (Acts 10-11).  And Paul has gone Peter several better: Paul has been traveling the eastern Mediterranean basin, sharing the Good News first in the synagogues and then with … Gentiles.  And the Gentiles have been responding, repenting and putting their faith in Jesus!  And Paul has not been requiring, or even asking, Gentiles to be circumcised or to keep kosher and Sabbath!

Enough is enough!  As Acts 15 opens, “Some men came down from Judea to Antioch [the hub-city for Paul’s mission to the Gentiles] and were teaching … “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved” (15:1).  Just a few verses later, “Some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses” (15:5).

Will the real Christians … please … stand … up?

What I’d like us to notice are the ways in which the church worked together to discern the will of God in this matter.  Discernment is different from creating pro-and-con lists, majority-rules voting, compromise by splitting the difference, or most all of the decision-making tools with which we are so familiar.  Let’s notice three elements of how they discerned the Lord’s will.

First, it took time—and they gave it the time needed.  You can read Acts 15 in a couple of minutes; the actual process took far longer.

Second, they assumed that it was the Lord who had steered them into this place, uncomfortable as it was.  Their center-of-reference was not Peter, nor Paul, not the Jewish nor the Gentiles participants.  The core question: “Lord, what are you doing here?  What are you saying to us?  How are you calling us to respond to you?

Third, they paid close attention to Scripture and the Spirit.  The Spirit who inspires Scripture cannot then “do” things that violate or contradict Scripture … and the Spirit really does know the Bible better than we do!

It wasn’t easy then, and it ain’t easy now.  Not all disagreements will get settled this side of kingdom come, as we will see in coming weeks.  Unity isn’t easy—but that does not mean it isn’t worth pursuing.

It’s hard to stay hostile towards someone for whom you are praying.  Pick someone with whom you are currently “at odds,” and start praying for them … and be looking for God’s initial answers to those prayers!

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