Acts 15:1-21 - Friendly Fights, Old Testament, and Idols

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Good morning, or good afternoon, or good evening, whatever time it is where you are at. Hope that you are having a good day so far. And we are in Acts chapter 15 today.

Yesterday, we ended with Paul and Barnabas finishing their first missionary journey, that they had traveled across a wide stretch of land up into Asia Minor and had planted several churches. Paul was stoned almost to death.

They were mistaken for gods. All sorts of crazy and incredible things happened. They came back to their home church in Antioch, and it says that they spent a considerable time with the disciples there.

Now, in verse 15, there's new things emerging. Verse number 15. Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses, you cannot be saved.

So this was a very serious issue. This is people telling them, if you do not add this thing to everything else that you're doing, your salvation is not real.

You may have prayed a prayer, you may have whatevered, but if you do not add this to your faith, you cannot be saved. What was the response to this? Was it a, oh, yeah, you're right.

Was there some debate? Well, we can find it in verse 2. After Paul and Barnabas had engaged them in serious argument and debate, Paul and Barnabas and some others were appointed to go up to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem about this issue.

When they had been sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and they brought great joy to all the brothers and sisters.

How cool was it even in this time where there's some sharp argument and discussion, and for the church here, they want to go back to the apostles. What did the apostles say? Why were the apostles important?

These were the people that had walked with Jesus. These were the ones that knew what Jesus had said, and so people wanted to hear from Jesus. They knew that they had the Holy Spirit, and we'll see some of that outlined here in the passage.

They knew that they had the Holy Spirit, but when it came to arguments, when it came to things about what do we do in the circumstance, what is necessary for salvation, they went to what Jesus had said.

And today as well, we go back to what the apostles said in Scripture. At this time, Paul isn't necessarily recognized as an apostle, though he would later be called an apostle to the Gentiles. But they want to know what did God say?

What did the Word of God, Jesus, say while he was here on the earth? And man, in our lives, whenever we have questions, whenever we have arguments, we can always go back to what does the Bible say? What does the Word of God say?

And I find it incredible that as they're going through, they've got the arguments, they've got the fighting, but they're going through Phoenicia, they're going through Samaria, and they're telling those believers, those Jewish believers or half

Jewish believers about how the Gentiles were accepting Christ, and they brought great joy to everyone. Even in our arguments, even in times where we are dialoguing with someone else, and maybe it's something that we feel very strongly about, here,

these people weren't just randomly coming up with, oh, you have to be circumcised. This was something that had been handed down all the way from Abraham, that God's people for thousands of years had followed this particular task.

It was unthinkable that someone in the Old Testament would say, oh yeah, I believe God, I follow God, but I'm going to ignore this first entry point into the family of God, which was circumcision.

And so these believers were no doubt very well intentioned, and they wanted people to continue following what God had said in the Old Testament.

So now they're finding out under this new covenant that Jesus has made, this new arrangement where even Gentiles can be saved, how does this work? What is the relationship between the Old Testament and now the New Testament?

It says, when they arrived at Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the Church, the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.

But some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. The Pharisees loved the Old Testament.

They also loved a lot of the things that they added to the Old Testament, which many in the Church would have known about. For some of the Jews, that was just how they had always lived their life. And so it wasn't a problem.

It wasn't a new thing to be circumcised. All of them had all been circumcised at eight days old, as was the custom for the Jews. It wasn't anything new to them.

To keep the law of Moses, that was the law of the land that they did every single day of their life for as long as they had lived as a people. But now the question is, for the Gentiles, for those that are now new to the faith, what's the interaction?

How do they relate? So those that were believing Pharisees said they need to keep the Old Testament. Everything that God said in the past is currently applicable to them as well.

Verse 6. The apostles and the elders gathered to consider this matter.

After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, Brothers and sisters, you are aware that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the Gospel message and believe.

And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples' necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.

The whole assembly became silent, and listen to Barnabas and Paul describe all the signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.

So, with this section here, Peter stands up and he goes, guys, you remember what it was like when I went to Cornelius' house, I was preaching literally while I was still speaking. It wasn't after baptism. It wasn't after laying on of hands.

It was literally while I was speaking. The Holy Spirit came down on all those Gentiles that believed. And he says God didn't put any difference between his grace on us and his grace on them.

And he also tells them this. None of our ancestors and none of us were able to keep the law. All of us broke the law.

So if we're commanding them, you have to keep this thing that we couldn't keep. And even when we tried to keep it, it didn't bring us closer to God. It didn't buy us salvation.

Only Jesus bought us salvation. That verse 11. We are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.

We are saved by grace through faith. It is not from works of righteousness that we do, but according to his mercy, he saved us. And what a wonder, what a comfort that is to our hearts.

That you don't have to measure up to a certain amount of religiosity. You don't have to give a certain amount of money to charity or to the poor or to the church. You don't have to do a bunch of things in order to curry favor with God.

His favor has been given you by Jesus. That just like the Gentiles that Peter talked to, as we believe in our heart, he gives the Holy Spirit that as we call out to him from the inside and say, God, I need you. I want to worship you.

I am yours forever. You are my Lord. As we call out to him, he gives us a new heart.

He puts his Holy Spirit inside of our life that he is always there encouraging us in the right way. So this is what's been happening. Paul and Barnabas say, yep, we totally agree.

Here's all of the things that we've seen God do among the Gentiles. Verse number 13, after they stopped speaking, James responded, brothers and sisters, listen to me.

Simeon, Peter, has reported how God first intervened to take from the Gentiles a people for his name. And the words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written, after these things, I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent.

I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again. So the rest of humanity may seek the Lord. Even all the Gentiles who are called by my name declares the Lord who makes these things known from long ago.

So there he's quoting from both Amos 9 and Isaiah 45. James says this, Therefore, in my judgment, we should not cause difficulties for those among the Gentiles who turn to God.

But instead, we should write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from eating anything that has been strangled and from blood.

For since ancient times, Moses has had those who proclaim him in every city, and every Sabbath day he is read aloud in the synagogues.

So here James says this, for those of us who practice a specific form of spirituality, he says it's not anything new to us to keep the law of Moses, or to attempt to keep the law of Moses.

But he tells them it would cause difficulties for these people to adopt practices that have nothing to do with Jesus, that have nothing to do with his new way of life, but he tells them that trying to put all of the Old Testament law onto them would

cause difficulties. He says if they want to do X, Y, and Z, that religion does, that Judaism has practice. He says they can hear about Moses and the Old Testament from any synagogue that they go to.

But he tells them a couple of things that they should stay away from.

He says things polluted by idols, that those things that were pursued and bought and worshiped and time was spent, those things, he says, stay away from them because it will continually draw you back in.

That when times get tough, you turn not to Christ, but you turn to the God of crops and fertility.

If you have times where maybe you've got a special shipment that's coming in from Cyprus into your area, and you really need what's on there, and you're getting really fearful, maybe there's some storms and you might be tempted to go to the Temple of

Poseidon. You might be tempted to go to Zeus, the Storm God's temple, and go, okay, I'm just going to give them a little money and hopefully that God will stop the storms.

And I think today that there are times when we do that exact same type of thing, that when times of trouble come, we look to our bank account, we look to a friend, we look to something other than the Lord for our recourse, for our encouragement.

And God has placed people in our life that we are able to turn to. He has given us resources that we are able to use.

But is our first thought, these things will help me, these people will save me, or is our first thought that the Lord will save me and will deliver me? So he says, stay away from idolatry. He says, stay away from sexual immorality.

This was very prevalent in the ancient world and in the Roman world just like it is today. Honestly, even a little bit more so back then.

And this is a recurring topic that you'll see throughout the epistles that Paul then writes to all of the Gentile churches that are all across Europe and Asia Minor. He says, stay away from sexual immorality.

That anything that we would do with the bodies that God has given us that is outside of marriage or that is extramarital, God says that is not how I designed it to work. And much could be said about that, but time fails us at the moment.

He says, from eating anything that has been strangled and from blood. These are a couple things mentioned that are not mentioned at any other point in the New Testament.

So, if we're going to read the verses in context, this is maybe God stating every iota of these things. This is the apostles and James prefaces these verses with verse 19, in my judgment.

So, I wonder if things that have been strangled, if that is a leftover from the Old Testament, from blood, obviously, there would be severe health difficulties that would come from eating things with blood or drinking things with blood.

I enjoy a hamburger that's medium rare, but I don't really want to eat blood, and there were some health benefits to that, that even God instituted in the Old Testament for the sake of his people and for their health.

Eating anything that has been strangled seems to me to be one of those things carried over from the Old Testament. It's not repeated anywhere else in the New Testament.

So it's kind of an interesting thing that as you read through Scripture, don't read it like a list of, hey, here's all of your do's and don'ts. Read it with an eye to the details. How is the Bible describing it?

Is it in narrative? Is it in a prescriptive thing, like in a list maybe in the book that we're in right now in our church, Philippians or in Romans where it says, hey, here's the things that you should do for other people.

Here's how you should relate to authority. Here's what you should eat and not eat.

And Paul does not reiterate these particular things, though he mentions things polluted by idols and sexual immorality in, I believe, almost every letter that he writes to the churches. So what can we take away today? I believe we can take away this.

Whatever law can do, grace can do better. Whatever law can do, grace can do better. Whatever religion wants to do, wants to force people to do, grace does better.

Here, people had hearts that wanted to obey God and His Word, but Jesus did make a new way. He didn't put just a new shiny coat on the Old Testament way. He gave a brand new way.

That was by grace, and it was that grace that was seen by the people and understood to be the way that they interacted and related with God.

As opposed to, they had thought that the Old Testament law would be what saved them, what made them right with God. But even the law itself was a teacher to show them, you can't do this on your own. It was to show us that we needed God's grace.

It was always by God's grace that God's people had a relationship with Him. You can think even in Genesis chapter 6, where it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And that has been true from the very beginning all the way through.

People, the Pharisees in particular, and the Jews during that time lost sight of that, and they thought that they were occurring some favor with God.

And so these people thought that they would encourage the Gentiles to continue occurring favor with God through circumcision and through keeping the Old Testament law.

But whatever religion wants to do, wants to make people holy, wants to make people right with God, grace does all on its own. But I think we can notice from what James says, grace is not licensed to live however we want and do anything we want.

The grace of God is meant to lead us to repentance. God's grace is meant to make us new, able to worship, able to obey, able to serve. And that's the point of God's grace.

So don't take God's grace and say, He's forgiven me and I'm His child now, and so I can live however I want. And it doesn't matter what He said in His word, I'm just going to do me. That should never be our attitude.

Love so amazing, so divine, demands our soul, our lives, our all, as the hymn writer would put it. Well, this would be an encouragement to you today. We're going to see tomorrow what the Jerusalem Council did with this information.

Okay, here's the thing that we've come to. The Gentiles do not need to keep the Old Testament law. They don't need to be circumcised.

They just need to follow God's moral commands here. Abstain from sexual immorality, abstain from idolatry. As they do that, what's the message that they send out to the churches?

We'll find out tomorrow.