Father, today I am grateful for another day. Yes, it is full of blessings, for which I am grateful, as well. But none of us are guaranteed another day, yet You grant them to us over and over again. May I use it well. Amen.

Acts 15:1-21(<<click here to read the passage)

It is interesting how God so often layers things in our lives. As I usually do, I’ve been prepping for this Sunday’s service. A concept with which I will begin the sermon, using the key text, has to do with prophecies of the Old Testament coming to fruition in the New Testament. The same thing happens in today’s blog passage.

As we come to this particular passage, we are at a major point of decision. Many occurrences in the lives of Peter, then Paul and Barnabas, have made it very clear what God’s intentions are, but as we in our humanity are want to do, we get stuck on points that we think are of utmost importance. Since we are dealing with the things of God, we think that that is good enough to make whatever we think to be important.

The crossroad they found themselves at had to do with what was to be expected of new believers who were Gentiles and not Jewish. Some Jewish believers had been affiliated with the Pharisees so of course, they insisted, “The Gentile converts must be circumcised and required to follow the law of Moses.”

First, I want to make it clear that I don’t feel they were being malicious. They just felt very strongly about it. It was important to them, for obvious reasons. We all have beliefs (some of them fervent), we all have experiences, and our tendency is to want to measure others by our yardstick. It is common for believers to think that their experiences, their convictions, are true and should be the norm. Different ideas are thought to be inferior or invalid. (emphasis mine)

…to measure others by our yardstick. Aren’t we guilty of that more often than we would care to admit?

My Life Application Study Bible also stresses that, yes, Peter, Barnabas, and Paul all had very compelling experiences to put a great emphasis on their point. But despite that, James – the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem church – didn’t just jump on the bandwagon with them. Wisely, he turned to God’s Word as the ultimate test of truth.

And we must do the same. Ultimately…what matters is what God’s Word says. The more we know God’s Word, the more we read it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on it, the better we will be able to discern what is right and best in times of controversy or doctrinal disagreement.

As part of his response, James quotes from the book of Amos and Isaiah. He says,

‘Afterward I will return
….and restore the fallen house of David.
I will rebuild its ruins
….and restore it,
so that the rest of humanity might seek the Lord,
….including the Gentiles—
….all those I have called to be mine.
The Lord has spoken—
….he who made these things known so long ago.’ vs16-18

So, in the end, they didn’t burden them with the entirety of the Law – including circumcision – but instead encouraged them to abstain from eating food offered to idols, from sexual immorality, from eating the meat of strangled animals, and from consuming blood. v20

May God and His Word serve as our sole guide. May we all measure ourselves by His yardstick Amen.

May 12th, 2022, Thurs, 12:52 pm