Portugal’s victory over England yesterday brought loud cheers, dancing, arms waving and huge smiles from both the fans and the players. The response was different for the English side. Tears, head in hands and silence expressed the disappointment of elimination.
When you look at your personal calendar and read the words “Meeting” at 7:00 pm”, how do you feel? Is there excitement? Do you phone up your friends or family and say: “You won’t believe this, but this is such good news I just had to let you know. I’ve got a meeting tonight! I wanted to call you and share this. Isn’t that exciting? Aren’t you excited for me?”
For many of us the words “meeting” written on our schedule is less than exciting. Add the word “conflict” to our understanding of what will take place at the meeting and we may well feel a migraine coming on.
Meetings are inconvenient, time consuming, demanding and, sometimes, a waste of time. Yet meetings give direction to the future, resolve issues, energize, bring change and provide a forum for people to work together. Without meetings, little would be accomplished.
Acts 15 is the story of a meeting called to resolve a conflict. It is not an exaggeration to say that the meeting described in Acts 15 changed the course of history and has a direct impact on each of us here.
The meeting was called over the issue: “How is a person saved?” Look with me to the first verse of Acts 15 to find the setting. “Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved." Those are strong words.
The last half of Acts 15: 5 spells out the position more clearly. We read: "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the Law of Moses."
To better understand the conflict, notice the words “the Gentiles”. Is how a Gentile saved different than how a Jew is saved?
To answer that question, we need to look back to two examples of people coming to Christ. First, we recall Peter’s words to the Jewish crowd in Acts 2 at the end of his sermon on the day of Pentecost. The crowd had asked him how they were to respond to his sermon on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins…”
Peter’s answer is similar to that found in the second instance: Paul and Silas’ response to the Gentile jailor in Philippi when he asked them what he needed to do to be saved. They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household,” (Acts 16: 30, 31).
According to the men from Jerusalem there was a huge difference between saying to a Jew “You must repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ” and saying that to a Gentile. A male Jew was already circumcised and submitting to the law (in theory). Therefore all that was needed was to believe.
Not so for a Gentile – that is a non-Jew. Faith alone in Jesus was not enough. A Gentile must also be circumcised and come under the law. Only then could a Gentile be saved. At the beginning of the church, the first Christians were all Jewish. But ten or twelve years down the road, things were changing. The change was noticed in the city of Antioch. At Antioch many of the converts were non-Jewish. According to these teachers who came from Jerusalem, non-Jews had to do more than just put their faith in Jesus. They also needed to convert to Judaism. The real question here was: “What does it take for a non-Jew to be saved?”
Can you hear the whispers among the new believers in Antioch? Some within the new church who knew quite a bit about Judaism may have said, “I thought this was too easy. It didn’t sound right to me. I had a friend who converted over to Judaism and he had to go through all that stuff. I am surprised at Paul and Barnabas. I thought what they were saying was too good to be true.” Others may have been saying. “If this is what it takes to be saved, I’m out of here.” “No way! I am not going through all that.”
Thankfully there were wise people among them who said, “Let’s not make snap decisions about this issue. Let’s find out what the leaders in Jerusalem are saying about salvation.”
The church in Antioch appointed Paul and Barnabas and some other believers from the Church to go to Jerusalem to discuss the issue.
The meeting began with an update from Paul and Barnabas: “They reported everything God had done through them.” Their report set the stage for the debate. After they gave their report we read, “Then 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.”
That statement led to a heated discussion. Luke summarized it this way, “After much discussion…” Have you ever been in one of those meetings that are reported as “after much discussion….” You can be sure it was a heated discussion. Both sides were convinced that the future of the church and the understanding of how a person is saved were at stake. Emotions were bound to run high.
Luke records for us two decisive speeches. The first was by the Apostle Peter. The second was by James the Just, the half brother of Jesus and an important leader in the Jerusalem Church.
Peter reminds the church of an incident 10 years before when God had sent him to the household of Cornelius, a Gentile and a Roman Centurion. The full details of Peter’s story are found in Acts 10 and 11. In essence, Peter says, God gave to these Gentiles his Holy Spirit just as he did us. He made no distinction. They did not have to become Jews in order to become followers of Jesus. Then Peter drives his point home in Acts 15:10, 11 “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! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."
The “yoke” to which Peter referred is salvation through the law. Peter was imploring, “Stop and think about it. The law did not save us Jews. We are saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus.” His logic goes like this: If we Jews are not saved through the law but through Jesus, why are we trying to impose the law on the Gentile. It does not make sense to force something on them that did not work for us.
After an additional report by Barnabas and Paul on how God worked through signs and wonders, James gives a summary speech.
James reviews how God directed Peter to the Gentiles. Peter’s experience was in line with the words of the prophet Amos spoken almost 800 years before. God had been planning all along to bring non-Jews into his family through Jesus. As a result of God’s word through the prophets in the past and God’s work among the Gentiles in the present, he was ready to make some recommendations (verses 19- 21).
The recommendations were accepted and put into a letter to be delivered by two delegates chosen by the Jerusalem Church along with Barnabas and Paul. The two men were Judas and Silas.
The letter first of all disassociated the church from the men who had come to Antioch saying that salvation came through circumcision and the law. It assured the believers that these men had not been authorized by the leaders in Jerusalem.
Secondly the letter states the official teaching of the church found in Acts 15:28-29: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.”
The official position of the church is that a person is saved through faith in Jesus. One does not have to convert to Judaism in order to be saved. Verse 28 says it this way, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you…”
After asserting that one did not have to convert to Judaism, the letter stated four things the leaders would recommend. The requirements were to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, and from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.
To us the first three may sound strange. These had one purpose in mind, to allow for fellowship between the Jew and Gentile. These requirements came out of the ceremonial law in found Leviticus 17 and 18.
The early church did a lot of eating together. It was a place of primary relationships. You could say the church was family. If there was going to be fellowship, the Gentiles needed to be sensitive to Jewish customs.
The fourth requirement was moral. If you are going to be a follower of Christ and have fellowship with God’s people, then leave behind sexual immorality.
The response to the letter in Antioch is expressed in verse 31. “The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message.”
The church in Jerusalem had dealt with an explosive issue: “How was a non- Jew saved?” Their answer came from listening to those whom God had used to reach the Gentiles. When they saw that the experience of the present coincided with what God had said in the past, they were ready to make a radical decision. They unleashed the saving story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection from Judaism. A person who was a non-Jew did not have to become a Jew to be saved. They were required to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The result of that decision at a meeting in Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago is why we are here today. The powerful story of Jesus – a story which brings forgiveness, transformation and eternal life – spread through the world at an unbelievable rate. By 325 AD, the Christian faith had become so influential even the Roman Emperor Constantine claimed to be a follower of Christ.
The story of Jesus is continuing to spread. His story is spreading because Jesus’ death on the cross makes forgiveness possible where shame is present. His resurrection from the dead brings hope when despair clutches at our heart and we are faced with the reality of death. His story is spreading because Jesus is present through the Holy Spirit to impart new life into everyone who believes. His story is spreading because it is the story of God’s continued love for humanity. Jesus came to restore, to make new and to enable men and women to experience God’s transforming love.
How about you? Have there been some issues this passage of scripture raised with you? Do you have questions? Have you received the gift of life Jesus came to give? If you have questions or want to talk, call me at the church office. I or others would be glad to explore some of these issues further. We also have available the booklet “Why Jesus?” (Again inquire at the church office.)