The Jerusalem Council

Acts 15:1-33

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Churches will have challenges. So far in our study of acts. We have seen this to be true. We have seen that these challenges can come from without, as when the apostles were arrested, when Saul persecuted the Christians in Jerusalem so fiercely that many fled the city. Or when Herod had James killed. Sometimes these challenges will come from within, as we saw with an enormous sense of fire, who wanted to be perceived as more generous than they were.
But Simon, the magician who wanted to purchase the gift of the spirit for his own power, the Hellenistic widows who complained because they were being ignored in the distribution of food. Churches will have challenges. This past year, several of my colleagues in ministry have faced real and significant threats to the health and the unity of their fellowships. That is not always the case in my circle of pastor friends, but it is often the case churches will have challenges.
So as we come to our passage this morning, we're not surprised to learn and Luke's not afraid to tell us of a challenge. You know, one of the strongest cases to be made for the authenticity of the early accounts of the church is its transparency. The New Testament writers aren't interested in in just sharing the good stuff. They share the good, the bad and the ugly.
And what's happening here in this juncture of church history is bad. And it's it's turning ugly. It is a true challenge. It may be the biggest challenge to date facing the early church. What is at stake is what it means to be a Christian. This is a challenge over doctrine. What is to be taught and what is to be believed.
When it comes to being a Christian, the story starts in Syria, in Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas have returned after their missionary journey and shared with the congregation that sent them all the good news of the good work of God's favor, God's grace among the Gentiles. It's in the midst of this good report that we read 15 verse one.
Some men came down from Judea, and we're teaching the brothers. Unless you're circumcised. According to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. These men are of a sect that would come to be known as the Judaism. They believed in Jesus, but they did not believe a person could be saved simply by believing in Jesus. They held that a person who wants to be saved must also follow the Mosaic Law.
So in simple terms, they are adding to the gospel. Their sense of how salvation is attained and how salvation is maintained was not, as the reformers would put it, by grace, alone through faith, alone in Christ alone. Their version of how to be saved was more along the lines of this Jesus and Jesus and something else. Jesus plus works of the law.
In this case, specifically, they're talking about circumcision. And you might feel, well, that's a silly thing to require or an odd place for someone to draw a line. But in fact, circumcision was the ritual instituted by God whereby his people would be set apart and known as his people. Circumcision was a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham, between God and the Jewish nation.
Of course, we know Jesus came to bring a new covenant and He said that I bring a new covenant. A new covenant in his blood, not the letter of the law, but the spirit. But these Judaism didn't quite grasp this. And we can hardly blame them. Have you ever been part of a start up of anything where you thought it would be this way and it turned out being that way and you thought it would go in this direction and it went in that there's so many variables involved, right?
In a startup. Well, imagine this. These first 10 to 20 years after Pentecost. This is the startup of Christianity and there was a lot to take in and there was a lot to learn and there was a lot of dots to connect and there was a lot to discard and there was a lot to unlearn. So we can be gracious, I think, to these Judaism, because they were very likely truly sincere in requiring obedience to the Mosaic Law.
That's what they thought would be necessary to be one of God's people. Commentator Ken Hughes writes this He said they were not bad people at this point, but given time their views tightly held, would pull them so far away from the doctrine of grace that they would become apostate. We are all influenced by our backgrounds. Each of us has experienced some doctrinal or practical distortion because of past experience or environment.
The challenge is to identify those points of error or mis emphasis before we drift too far away from Christ. If you've grown up believing that salvation comes by words, the message of salvation by grace would be hard to hear and hard to grasp and hard to believe. So the junior officers, at least initially, are very likely well-meaning and sincere.
But as a great professor of mine once said, it is possible to be sincere and sincerely wrong. They were wrong and Paul would clarify this Later in his letter to the Colossians. Colossians 311 says there is not Greek and Jew circumcised and uncircumcised barbarian Scythian slave free. But Christ is all. And you know, these distinctions don't exist in Jesus.
The Judaism's were wrong, and to put it mildly, the false teaching that they were perpetuating was disruptive. In chapter 15, verse two, we read that Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, which is a very kind and nice way to put it. No small dissension. How would you translate that? That's a big dissension. Anybody could get the message.
What does the message say? There was probably a real no small dissension is a nice way of saying there's a large dissension. This is a hot topic. The back and forth is very heated. The church is at a crossroads. The issue couldn't be resolved among the parties that were present. So a delegation was formed. Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem, to the Apostles and the elders about this question.
We note here, I'm not going to spend any time on it at all, but we note here in chapter 15 the transition of leadership in the Christian Church from the Apostles to the elders. You're going to see it again as well. Good on the church for facing this challenge. Kudos to them for taking action to find resolution. You know, many Christian churches, perhaps the majority, do not handle conflict well.
Many are surprised by conflict. Some are blindsided by conflict. And a lot of churches choose not to address it at all because it's unsettling. No one in their right mind likes conflict and controversy. Ignoring it, however, is a bad option. Mike Minter is a pastor and he writes for the Gospel Coalition in an article titled The Three Stages of a Pastor's Life.
He makes a bit of a confession here, and he gives pastors some advice about handling disagreements. He says this is one of my greatest regrets. I love to make peace. I tend to run away from conflict that has cost me dearly. You don't need to chase down every concern, but when you send something is wrong, it's time to check it out.
Stamping out a small spark is easier than putting out a raging fire. I have the burn marks to prove it. Any small sparks in your life today, friend? You might want to get after them before they turn into a raging fire. Churches will have challenges, and as unsettling as this can be, the goal for churches, for believers in those churches, is to handle those challenges in a God honoring way.
So often in arguments, our goal is to prevail. Is it not to come out on top to get our way? And yet, in all things we are to do what is pleasing to the Lord. It's his will and not ours. It should be supreme in all situations. And so the goal in addressing conflict individually in our lives, corporately as a fellowship, is to please Jesus, is to please the head of the church.
And that's why we ask our new members here at United Baptist to become acquainted with the principles of biblical peacemaking. Why? It's a core class and why we offer it over and over and over again, and why we still have material that's just about as well. It's older than some people's kids here, that's for sure. But it's good.
It's dated, but it's good because we want to have a common biblical knowledge when it comes to the principles of keeping peace. And we want to have a common vocabulary when it comes to talking about how we can make and sustain peace. We want to be able as a church to address these sparks before they become a raging fire.
And friends, you must know this in body life. And you get this many of us flawed people together. From time to time, there's going to be sparks. That's just the way it is. The believers in Sierra and Antioch recognize and acknowledge the impasse they're at. It's not a small matter that can be overlooked. The unity of the church is in peril.
The foundational doctrine of the church is in question. Mike Minter is right. Not every concern needs to be chased down, but issues of unity and doctrine have to be resolved. They must be resolved. Unity and doctrine are key. And so the believers in Antioch take action to find a God honoring solution. The church in Jerusalem is still the mother church.
It's the place where Christianity was birthed at Pentecost. And so they will appeal to the elders in the church in Jerusalem, which illuminates another lesson or application or implication when it comes to dealing with controversy and conflict. And that is the importance of humility in the process. If resolution escapes us, if the conflict is too great to be resolved by the immediate parties or the parties at hand, then then looking for help elsewhere is the wise choice.
Look outside of your circle. Look outside of yourself. In this case, the church in Antioch is humble enough to defer to to seek assistance, and also to submit itself to the wisdom of the elders in Jerusalem. When the delegation arrives, they find the same issue is percolating as they share the good news of what God is doing among the Gentiles.
There are some who jump up and say, Well, that can't be all there is to it. Some of you still have to follow the Mosaic Law, a portion of those Jewish believers there. We're still insisting on that. So the time is right to get this thing squared away. What's going on and what's going to transpire is an event in church history that we know to be the Jerusalem Council.
This literally in the middle of the Book of Acts, and it is at the center of how Christianity is going to be defined from this point forward. And there's only one chapter given to it now. By now, you've come to appreciate Luke's economy with words. I think he does He does never give us more than than we would need.
He doesn't often give us as much as we want one chapter, but that doesn't mean it's not important. In fact, I'm telling you, it's a really big deal. The church has to make up its mind. Is there more to do to be saved than believe in Jesus and follow him? The converts to Christianity have to become Jews, while the next many verses record a speech given by Peter, who, after a vision from God and his interactions with Cornelius that we covered in Chapter ten, is clearly convinced that God intends to save the Gentiles and everyone for that matter, by faith.
He argues that God has given the Gentiles the same Holy Spirit that the disciples have received, that He has in fact cleansed their hearts by faith, which is what the Holy Spirit does. And look at verse 11. But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. Everybody is going to be saved by grace.
The Spirit comes into us, cleanses our heart by faith. We are saved by grace. Grace, of course, being the undeserved favor of God. That is the only way to be saved. Peter's presentation is followed by the testimony of Paul and Barnabas, who relate the blessings of God and their missionary work. Among the Gentiles and the provision of signs and wonders and many conversions.
And their presentation is followed by James, the half brother of Jesus, the author of our New Testament book of James, by this time a revered leader in the Jerusalem Church. James does something. James isn't always a fan of his brother, but James does something his brother would do. He looks to the Scripture, So see what we've observed so far when it comes to settling conflict in the church.
And this would apply to conflict in your own life as well. Wherever it is. First, acknowledge it. Don't ignore it or sweep it under the rug. Don't pretend it doesn't exist. Don't minimize it. It is what it is. Say what it is. Acknowledge it. Second, if resolution escapes you, be humble enough to seek help, appeal to a spiritual authority that you respect.
That's what's going on here. And third, let Scripture be your guide. Ask yourself, what does the Bible say about this? Does God's Word inform me in any way about this? This is another issue with conflict that can make it such a quagmire, I think is we just get caught up and we get stuck in our own opinions. Well, this is what I think.
Or this is what I think. What if I get a few more people to think what I think? You get a few more people to think what you think. And what are we talking about? We're talking about what I think. What they think. Well, this is what I think. This is what they think. And pretty quick we're all talking about we think who and what does God think?
That's what we want to be getting at. What does the Lord say about this? Search the Scriptures always, and perhaps especially in times of trial or confusion. Certainly when it comes to decision making, let Scripture be your guide. Your opinion is important. It's yours, but it's not on par with Scripture. What does the Bible say? Do you remember when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness before he began his ministry?
He went out into the wilderness and he and he was tempted greatly by Satan. When the enemy tried to distract him and when the enemy tried to entice him away from the mission for which he had come. How did Jesus respond? Do you remember? He responded with Scripture. It is written. It is written. It is written. He didn't say, Well, I think Satan and all my friends think I got a whole bunch of people who think what I think.
He says it is written. Let Scripture be your guide. James says the same thing here. He goes to the word of God in the passage he refers to is from the Prophet Amos. After this, I will return and I will rebuild the town of David that has fallen. I will rebuild his ruins and our story 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 from of old all the Gentiles who are called by my name. The quotation James cites again from Amos The principle he refers to, though, is one that we see in multiple occasions in many Old Testament books. We've noted a lot of these so far in our study of acts.
It speaks to this truth that God's plan all along has been to include Gentiles in his great redemption, always has planned to bring in the Gentiles and redeem them. In the end, the Book of Revelation is so very clear it will be people from every tribe and every tongue and every nation that will surround that throne and worship God.
If salvation were only for the Jews or by the Jews, why would Jesus say, You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the outermost parts of the Earth? Why do we even need to go over there if it's only for this little group over here? And yes, it spread a little bit, but not to the outermost parts of the earth.
Why do we keep going to the outermost parts of the Earth? Because salvation is for all. And the good news of Jesus is for all. And James knows this. And James goes to the Scripture and he says, Listen, this is the way it's supposed to be. This is the way God has intended it. And here is one of those bold threads that's woven throughout this narrative of Luke's account and acts.
It is out of many people. This is one of the beautiful things about the gospel. It is out of many and diverse people that God in Christ will make one people out of many, one people. You shall be my people. So the answer to the question being contested, I'm paraphrasing it now a little bit. The Gentiles have to become Jews in order to be truly saved.
The answer is no, absolutely not. Salvation is by grace alone. Therefore, says James versus 19 and 20. My judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turned 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. When James says that they should not trouble the Gentiles who turn to God, he's saying they should not try to make them conform to Jewish laws.
Earlier, you might recall, you see this in the Gospel of Matthew. I believe Jesus had accused the Pharisees of tying up heavy loads and placing them on people's backs and not being willing themselves to lift even a finger. What he's talking about there is the onerous expectations of the law, but not just the law. The expectations that came with the law and the traditions that were added on top of the law and all of this are the heavy loads that you're tired it up and putting on people's backs and you don't do anything to help them.
Peter himself has said in this own setting, why would we ask these guys to try to do something that we ourselves can't do for our forefathers? We're never able to do it. We can't do it. Why are we going to ask them to jump into this same circle of futility? None of us can do this. It makes no sense.
Why saddle others with such unattainable expectations? Why tell these Gentiles they have to follow the law while friends? Because we have the New Testament now. And you realize what an advantage we have. We're reading now kind of in the middle. And as this is developing, well, we have this New Testament. We have some of the answers to some of the questions that are posed in the text.
But because we have the New Testament now, which these men did not have, we can know the laws of God are designed for some pretty unique purposes, at least a couple of things. They teach us this, that God has expectations and that He deserves our obedience. The law teaches us that, and it also teaches us this, that we're disobedient.
The laws of God, or more accurately, perhaps our struggle and sometimes our downright refusal to keep the laws of God teach us convincingly the humans are law breakers, and as such we are deserving of judgment. God's righteous judgment for the laws that we willfully break. But the message of the Gospel is a message of hope. It is a message of hope, not condemnation.
How is it hope? Jesus kept the laws of God perfectly in ways that we cannot. He did it, and he's willing to take our record of lawlessness and exchange it for his perfect record of obedience. And he endured the judgment of God on the cross, the judgment for our lawlessness. When he hung there and he was killed to atone for our sins.
And he rose. Having paid the penalty for our law breaking sin debt in full crushing with his resurrection, the power of sin and death, and extending the promise of everlasting life to all who will believe. You see, then, why the Apostle Paul is so adamant here and why he writes in the book of Galatians. So to confront the Judaism's you see how how demanding continued adherence to the law, promoting in any way a message that salvation is by good works, flies in the face of the good news.
The message of Christianity is we can't do it. But Jesus did. That's the message of Christianity. In short, you can get at it 100 different ways, maybe more than that. But we can't do it. But Jesus did. The message of Christianity is not suck it up, buttercup. Get out there and try a little harder. That's not it at all.
Not at all. The message of Christianity isn't trying to be good enough. You can't be good enough. We can never be good enough. But you know what Christ was. And he offers his righteousness to us to be received by faith. It's that simple. It's that simple. You, in your heart know you are unrighteous. If you want to be counted righteous before God, accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, He will make you a new creation.
It's what the Bible says. He will save you and you will be righteous before God. Even in your perfection imperfection, friend, you will be perfect before God because of Christ. James in the Jerusalem Church decide. The compliance with the Jewish law will not be required. And so they issue a decree now for a long time, this decree coming out of the Jerusalem Council has puzzled me.
This confused me. I never really got it. It always seemed to me to be kind of arbitrary. Honestly, when you look at what they have to say, I look at that and I say it's kind of a hodgepodge here, you know, of all that's involved in living a good life, a holy life, a Christian life. And all there is to do that brings honor to God.
Of all that a convert to Christianity coming from a heathen upbringing would really need to know that these are the top four. Is it really of utmost importance to avoid what's been strangled, to stay away from blood? Then Ben Witherington helps us with this decree in his commentary and acts. At least he posits a theory. It makes good sense to me.
Rather than understand the elements of this edict as relating to four separate issues, which would be random allusions to bits and pieces of instruction that you can find in Genesis and you can find in Leviticus. He sees them together as one in the context of their intended audience, which would be Gentiles, having grown up with and being used to participating in the rituals of pagan worship.
Each of these practices noted in the decree would have been part of that pagan worship, just as the Jewish people brought their sacrifices to the Jerusalem temple, offered them to their God. So the Gentiles brought their offerings to the temples of their gods and offered them the home of their idols. The term translated sexual immorality is the Greek porn, and the allusion is to prostitution and pagan worship was well known for its cultic prostitution.
Animals offered to those false gods would often be choked to death, would often be strangled. Sometimes the priest would taste their blood as part of the ceremony. So these four elements noted together in the decree, all find commonality in this one act in the context of pagan worship. And since that is the case, what the Jerusalem Council seems to be saying is this The Gentiles have turned to the living and true God.
They are now being asked to turn from idolatry and its accompanying acts of immorality. Now that makes sense and that is simple. Not coincidentally, this is how Paul describes and commended the Christians in Thessalonica. They too, coming out of a Gentile background. But listen to what he says. First Thessalonians chapter one versus seven through ten. For not only has the Word of the Lord sounded forth from you and Macedonian Akl, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything.
But they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you. Listen and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his son from Heaven, whom he raised from the dead Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. How they turned to God, from idols to serve the living and true God.
That's Christianity, isn't it? That's Christianity in a nutshell. That's what we do. We get confused sometimes, I think, and perhaps we're guilty of of of, you know, promoting this confusion. But somehow a lot of people think that to become a Christian, you had to first get yourself cleaned up and acceptable, and then you come to Jesus. And what I want to be clear about today is that's not what it is.
You don't get yourself cleaned up and acceptable and come to Jesus. You come to Jesus and Jesus makes you cleaned up and acceptable. Okay. So there's no reason to tarry. No reason to pause. No reason to say, well, I just get a get a few more things in order and now I can come to the Lord. I'm saying, come now, come now and let him do what he will do.
What you haven't been able to do and what you probably won't be able to do, no matter how hard you try. That's what Christianity is. Christianity is turning from that, that wrong worship, that false worship, those idols, those things that cannot satisfy and turning to the true and living God. And that's just what the Jerusalem Council is saying.
All we want you to do, brothers and sisters, because you're now Christians, is act like it. What we want you to do now is turn from what you're used to, what you're accustomed to, and the bad habits that you have and worship God alone. Paul said something very similar, and if these are missing, you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.
You've got to change. Just be different. And that's what they're saying to the Gentile brothers and sisters. The church in Jerusalem simply says this You belong to God, so worship him alone. Does that sound familiar? It should sound familiar. It comes right out of Exodus. There's a command there, right? There'll be no other gods before him. They're not forsaking any of their beliefs.
They're just boiling them right now. That's what it means to be a Christian, to forsake the world and to turn to the one true God. This decision didn't put an end to the Judaism controversy, but it did squared away for the churches who were willing to submit to the elders from Jerusalem. And it did signal a victory for the gospel.
You don't need to become a Jew to be saved, but if you want to be forgiven of your sin and have everlasting life, you do need to be saved. Salvation is by God's grace, is by no other means. You don't deserve it. You can't earn it. But you can receive it through faith by trusting in Jesus, by surrendering your life to Him, by placing your hope in Him, and thus forsaking all the idols, all the wrongly directed worship that has cluttered your life up until now.
This is how you get into the Kingdom of God. It is by grace, alone through faith. Alone in Christ, alone our Father. We rejoice in this gospel message. In this message of grace. Freely given, freely offered. Freely extended. In these moments, Lord, would you take and melt Our hearts Melt any hardened heart. Make the hearts of stone. Hearts of flesh.
Would you knock down the walls of resistance and let everyone here know how much you love them?
Give them grace to receive your grace gift of your spirit. To see our true condition. The motivation by your spirit to have it changed. We pray and ask these things that you might be glorified in the salvation of those you bring to glory in Christ name. Amen.