So why are you now trying to out-god God, loading these new believers down with rules that crushed our ancestors and crushed us, too? Don't we believe that we are saved because the Master Jesus amazingly and out of sheer generosity moved to save us just as he did those from beyond our nation? So what are we arguing about? (15:10-11)Some Jewish followers of Jesus showed up in Antioch and announced that these Gentile believers needed to be circumcised. That sent Paul and Barnabas scurrying to Jerusalem for the first debate of the early church. The questions was: do non-Jewish believers have to keep the Law of Moses?
The council ultimately decided to not tie belief in Jesus to Jewish cultural traditions.
It seemed to the Holy Spirit and to us that you should not be saddled with any crushing burden, but be responsible only for these bare necessities: Be careful not to get involved in activities connected with idols; avoid serving food offensive to Jewish Christians (blood, for instance); and guard the morality of sex and marriage. (15:28-29)It was through the Perspectives class that the significance and relevance today of this Jerusalem council became apparent to me.
"The greatest crisis the New Testament church ever faced was actually a culture clash, although some believed the issues were doctrinal. They could not imagine life without Moses and the Law...Paul came to understand that the Gentiles should not be forced to accept a gospel that was mired in confusion over what was grace and what was simply Jewish tradition.
"When new believers are required to take on a new set of customs to be part of 'God's family,' they quickly confuse grace, which is received by faith, with works. And if they adopt a new human culture, they become outsiders to their own people. This, in turn, results in a gospel that is immobilized. To require people to embrace anything beyond what is found in scripture puts a yoke on them that they should not bear..." M.R. Thomas, "The Turning Point: Setting the Gospel Free"Through the Holy Spirit, the apostles discerned that no works of the law were required for salvation. And through the prophets, they saw that the nations had always been God's objective. (15:18) The Acts 15 council freed the gospel from Jewish cultural traditions and allowed Christianity to move rapidly into non-Jewish cultures.
"The purity and mobility of the gospel was at stake on that day. The essence of the gospel was distinguished from its Judaic cultural background. How far would the good news have gone if Paul had lost this debate? The entire movement of Christ-followers called "The Way," would have ended up like one of the hundreds of splinter sects of Judaism which are now defunct. Instead God orchestrated a dramatic change: to follow Christ, Gentiles would no longer have to become Jewish in cultural ways. God had opened the door of faith to the nations.
"The first century disciples had to sort out the universal glory of Jesus from the cultural patterns of Judaism before they could obey the Great Commission and take the gospel to all nations. This is our challenge today as well. We, too, must sort out Jesus from our religious traditions, from "our" Christianity. We, too, must free the gospel from the amendments we've made to the grace of Jesus Christ. We, too, must be ready to celebrate the ways that Christ is obeyed fully, but differently, amidst the diverse cultures of the nations. Only then will the gospel continue to go forward "unhindered" (Acts 28:31)" M.R. ThomasIt's been fascinating to think about the implications for non-Western followers of Jesus today. Our Christian culture is likely as foreign to them as Jewish culture was to the Gentiles back in Paul's day.
The fulfillment of the Great Commission is within reach, and I pray that our generation will be as discerning and in tune with the Holy Spirit as the first century disciples, embracing diverse cultural expressions of Christianity, allowing many more tribes and tongues to bring glory to our Father. Lord, I pray You'll show me any ways that I'm contributing to the gospel being hindered.
1 comment:
This cultural challenge to the gospel hits home. This morning I felt like it hit me square in the face at a prayer meeting. Often I experience sadness or compassion for the trappings people have put around the gospel. Today, my blood pressure was up. For whatever reason, I chose not to make it an argument so I find it interesting that the Bible relates the story of the debate as "arguments went on and on, back and forth, getting more and more heated." This makes sense in the context of keeping the gospel mobilized, not putting a yoke on people to believe anything beyond the "bare necessities." What freedom!
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