Well, here we are, another week, another episode
of the Semi -Seminary, and we're now in part
seven of our study of Acts and what we're calling
the Bible for Grownups. In this episode, we're
just going to focus on one chapter of the Acts
of the Apostles and one concept, the Council
of Jerusalem. It's the first church fight that
we find in the early church, and its implications
were as important or are as important today as
they were then. I will see you on the other side.
Acts 15. We're actually going to be starting,
when we get around to it, we're actually going
to be starting in Galatians chapter 2. But you
don't have to turn there if you don't want. You
can turn to Acts 15 if you want. Acts 15 and
Galatians 2 are actually going to be the same
story told from two different people's perspectives.
But actually, before we get into the discussion
tonight, this is how important I think, this
is also why I just wanted to focus on one chapter
tonight rather than trying to rush through several
different stories through several different chapters.
Tonight, I wanted to just focus on one chapter
because what happens in chapter 15, of Acts not
only helped define what Christianity meant to
these early Christians, but it actually, as Gentile
believers, we, it defines our relationship with
God and Holy Scripture as well. That's why this
is so incredibly important. So just starting
and talking about the Bible, we all recognize
that the Bible is a key to successful spiritual
life. But the problem is it doesn't come with
a set of instructions. And often its power becomes
diminished because the words, the truth, and
the wisdom contained within the Bible are often
taught to us as children with a child's understanding
or it's taught to us by adults who were taught
the Bible as children. As a result, the Bible
is often not understood at all or it's misunderstood
because we have this Childlike understanding.
Often our childlike understanding of scripture
doesn't seem to match up well against our adult
world style problems. What's often not taught
or maybe misunderstood is that the stories within
the Bible are a sequential story of God's people.
And it's actually very simple. The Bible boils
down to three promises that God makes with individuals.
He makes a covenant or a promise with a man.
That's Abraham. Then he makes a promise or a
covenant with a group of people, the Israelites.
And then eventually God will make a promise with
the whole world through Jesus Christ. So tonight's
lesson is not just about the Bible. It's actually
about our relationship with God. To begin tonight,
let me recap where we've been. And I'll just
do this very briefly because I can't catch us
up on everything, but I can at least catch us
up to where we are tonight. Remember that the
person that we know as Saul or the Apostle Paul
initially was a Pharisee that was charged with
hunting down and breaking up Christian churches.
Paul becomes converted through his experience
with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus.
And so now we have a man who hated the church
now building churches. And Paul and his friend
and other apostle Barnabas, they leave Jerusalem.
I'm sorry. They leave Antioch and they go throughout
Asia Minor and they begin preaching the good
news of Jesus. And all of this is happening about
200 miles. to the north of Jerusalem in Antioch.
And so Paul and Barnabas are going around into
these... Skyla's up there. So Paul and Barnabas
are going around to these synagogues in these
Greek -speaking cities. We're in Acts chapter
15. And preaching the good news about Jesus,
telling these Gentile believers, That God has
done something special in the world through Jesus
Christ. And that their belief, their faith in
the resurrection of Jesus can provide for them
a path of salvation. And these Gentiles thought,
this is great. Sign me up. This is a lot better
than pagan religion, which really has no type
of moral code to it whatsoever. And so 200 miles
north of Jerusalem, churches are beginning to
pop up and explode everywhere. Christianity begins
to truly take off. Now, back in Jerusalem, the
Jewish leaders are hearing about what's happening
up in Antioch. They're hearing that Moses, the
law of Moses is out. Jesus is in. And so, they
send their own missionaries from Jerusalem up
to Antioch to see exactly what's going on and
to correct this horrible theology that Paul is
preaching. Essentially, that faith in Jesus provides
salvation. It's no longer about the law of Moses.
And so these missionaries, they're called Judaizers.
They come in and they say, no, that's not how
it works. If you want to be a follower of Jesus,
you also have to follow the laws of Moses. And
namely, particularly in this instance in Galatia,
we're talking about circumcision. So there is
this great challenge going on. In the early church,
essentially what we have is one of the first
church fights. Because we have these Gentiles
who believe that faith in Jesus is enough. And
then we have these Judaizers who say that just
because we have chosen to follow Jesus Christ,
does that mean that we're supposed to throw out...
Our Bible, and there was no Bible at that time.
They didn't call it the Bible. They called it
the Law and the Prophets. Are we to completely
abandon the Law of Moses just because we've accepted
Jesus as the Messiah? And so these two positions,
which is the path to a right relationship with
God? Is it through faith in Christ? Or is it
faith in Christ plus the laws of Moses? What
is at stake? So, I'd like to begin in the second
chapter of Galatians. And I'd like to read here
what Paul says about this council at Jerusalem,
which we're going to study in greater detail
in Acts chapter 15. Just to kind of show you
these two stories kind of happening simultaneously
in two different books of the Bible. I love it.
I think this kind of stuff is fascinating. Where
we can have a letter of Paul. that is describing
the same events, kind of at the same time that
the Acts are describing those same events. So
we're looking, this is about 20 or 30 years past
the resurrection. So we're just a few decades
removed from the resurrection, and we've got
to a point where we've got this discussion about
what is most important. So let me begin by reading
Paul in the letter to the Galatian church. Remember,
Pisidia, Antioch, and all of those cities in
Asia Minor, that whenever they left the major
city of Antioch and they went on the missionary
journey, they went to Galatia. So the growth
of the church there that we talked about last
time, that's the churches that those are the
people that we refer to as the Galatians, as
in the letter to the Galatians. So Paul says,
beginning with verse 1 of chapter 2, Then after
fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem,
this time with Barnabas, and I took Titus also.
I went in response to a revelation in meeting
privately with those esteemed as leaders, the
council of Jerusalem. I presented to them the
gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted
to be sure that I was not running and had...
had not been running my race in vain. Yet not
even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to
be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. This
matter arose because some false believers had
infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom that
we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.
We did not give in to them for a moment. So that
the truth of the Gospel might be preserved for
you. Right? So he's saying, look, we told you,
I'm telling you exactly what I was presented
by Jesus. That belief in Jesus is all that matters.
That if salvation is the result of circumcision,
then Christ died on the cross for nothing. And
Paul is saying we're not going to move an inch
from that We don't believe that that's the case.
Now moving down here to verse 11, Paul says,
when Cephas, Cephas is Greek for rock. I'm sorry,
yes. And that's Petros in Latin, which is Peter,
right? So that's Peter we're talking about here.
When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to
his face because he stood condemned. For before
certain men came from James, he used to eat with
the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began
to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles
because he was afraid of those who belonged to
the circumcision group. The other Jews joined
him in this hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy,
even my friend and partner Barnabas was led astray.
When I saw that they were not acting in line
with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas
in front of them all, You are a Jew, yet you
live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is
it then that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish
customs? You can't follow Jewish law yourself.
Why are you trying to force the law on Gentiles?
You can't even follow this yourself. And that's
a big question at stake here. So now let's go
to Acts chapter 15. Read, this is just the one
chapter we're going to study tonight. Acts chapter
15, and we're going to learn more about this.
What are the elders of the church going to say
about how salvation is, how right relationship
with God is achieved? So it starts off with these
words. Certain people came down from Judea to
Antioch. Okay, those are the Judaizers. So certain
people are the missionaries that were sent from
Judea up to Antioch to figure out what in the
world was Paul preaching up there in Galatia.
And they were teaching believers, these Christian
converts, unless you're circumcised according
to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be
saved. So right here it is. Do we have to give
up Moses or are we supposed to hang on to Moses?
as well as Jesus to be saved. And they're saying
Moses plus Jesus, right? So you're going to have
to be circumcised. They're saying if you want
to follow Jesus, you've got to have surgery,
right? Paul didn't tell us that part. Where is
Paul? Wait, before we... Where's Paul? We need
to talk to Paul, right? It's almost like... You
know, they'd pull the minivan up at church and
these guys might say, honey, why don't you and
the kids go on? I need to sit out here and think
about this for a little bit. And these Judaizers,
they're saying that just because we follow Jesus,
does that mean we throw out the law of Moses
too? What do we do? So Luke continues, verse
2. This brought Paul and Barnabas in sharp dispute
and debate with them, which we just heard from
Paul's own mouth in his letter to the Galatians.
So Paul and Barnabas were appointed along with
some other believers to go to Jerusalem to see
the apostles and elders about this question.
Now, why do we suppose that they felt like they
needed to call a council in Jerusalem? We need
to remember that at this time, there's no Bible,
right? There's no New Testament scriptures. They're
making this up as they go along. So they figure
we need to get together with those that have
been with Jesus, his apostles, so they go back
down to Jerusalem to have this meeting. The church
sent them on the way, and they traveled through
Phoenicia and Samaria. They told how the Gentiles
had been converted, and the news made all of
the believers glad. So everybody at the Council
of Jerusalem is listening to Paul and Barnabas
talk about not only did we make the Jesus followers
on our way up, but on our way down here. We stopped
in Samaria and Phoenicia. We made Christians
down there. Everybody's going, hey, this is really
great. When they came to Jerusalem, they were
welcomed by the church and the apostles and the
elders to whom they reported everything God had
done through them. then some of the believers
who belong to the party of the Pharisees, it
seems like the last time we talked about Pharisees,
they were trying Jesus and putting Him on a cross.
What's happening here? Well, 20 years after the
resurrection of Jesus, there are some of those
same Pharisees that now believe that Jesus is
the Messiah. Now, what would have converted them?
Was it the Sermon on the Mount? Nope. Was it
the story of the prodigal son? Nope. No. They
had become believers in Jesus because they had
been witnesses to his resurrection. They had
been witnesses to his resurrection and they realized
that a God and a human body who could lay the
life down and pick that life back up again. is
the messiah if you're able to predict your death
and follow through with it we're going to follow
that guy right but remember remember these are
still pharisees are steeped in religious tradition
and when i say religious tradition i mean the
law of moses right still a big deal of who they
are and so the pharisees although they have become
christian followers They stand up in the council
of Jerusalem and weigh in by saying that the
Gentiles must be circumcised and required to
keep the law of Moses. The apostles and elders
met to consider the question. And after much
discussion, Peter, Simon Peter, gets up and says,
Brothers, you know that some time ago God made
a choice among you that Gentiles might hear from
My lips, the message of the Gospel, and believe.
Now remember, Peter just before, that's a revelation
that God basically says what I have desired to
make clean, it's not your job to call unclean.
And Peter takes that to mean that what God has
done in the world is not just for His people,
but for the whole world. In fact, this next verse
is really, really beautiful. Because he says,
for God, who knows the heart, showed that he
accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them.
And these next few words, I can't overscore the
importance of these next few words, the seismic
shift that these next few words actually reflect
about Judaism from its beginning. to this very
moment, 20 or 30 years after the resurrection.
Because Peter says, just as He did to us. And
Peter is saying something about God's relationship
with the people of the world that have been rejected
by the Israelite people from their inception.
From their very beginning. The Israelite people
saw their relationship with God, their covenant
with God, as unique to them. That everything
that they did and everything that they thought
about God and every way that they served God
was in some way designed to separate them from
all of the other people of the world. To show
that they were God's people, His chosen ones.
and that they were different than every other
people in the world. And Peter now is saying
that's no longer the case. Because God has shown
us through the power of the Holy Spirit, He's
given them that same power, just as He has done
to us. He did not discriminate between us and
them. for he purified their hearts by faith.
And then he goes on to say, and he kind of probably
looks at his brothers in the room and says, why
do you try to test God by putting on the necks
of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors
have been able to bear? Peter's saying, come
on, guys. We're not even all that good at living
the law of Moses. Why would we be asking them
to do it when we can't even do it ourselves?
No, Peter says, it's not about the law of Moses
anymore. No, we believe now that it's through
the grace of our Lord Jesus that we're saved
just as they are. So Peter, the apostle, has
gotten up and said the relationship between God
And the people of the world is no longer with
just one ethnicity. It is with every man, woman,
and child in the world. This is a major, major
difference of theology amongst the Jewish people.
And as you can imagine, the whole assembly became
silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul.
Telling about the signs and the wonders that
God had done among the Gentiles through them.
And when they finished, James. Now let's remember
who James is. James is the brother of Jesus.
He's the leader of this group. And I can't help
but resist every time I bring him up to say,
what would it take you to do to believe that
your brother was actually the Messiah? And to
recall each and every time that James didn't
follow Jesus around as a disciple. James became
a believer in his brother Jesus as the Messiah
after the resurrection because of what he had
seen and because of what he had experienced.
So James is not following Jesus around because
they're related. James is following Jesus because
of what he had seen. because of the resurrection.
And so James speaks up, and there's a hush, I'm
sure, over the crowd. And he says, brothers,
listen to me. Simon, Peter, has described to
us how God first intervened to choose a people
for his name from the Gentiles. The words of
the prophets are in agreement with this, right?
And he quotes prophecy there. And then he says
this, he says, It is my judgment, therefore,
that we should not make it difficult for the
Gentiles returning to God. Now, that probably
wouldn't look great on a bracelet or a t -shirt
or a wall painting with some inspirational scripture
on it, but this piece of scripture should be...
as motivating to us as individual Christians,
as any other scripture out there. It is my judgment,
therefore, that we, not just the guys at the
Council of Jerusalem, but you and me, everybody
we encounter, we should not make it difficult
for those who are trying to find God. Sharing
the good news is not about an initiation process.
Sharing the good news, witnessing Christ to other
people, is not about telling people how they
need to become different, then they can become
Christians. It is about removing all stumbling
blocks to bring Jesus to them. To be able to
say, because you know Jesus, you become different.
And then he goes on to say, instead, so we're
not going to do that, right? We're not going
to do a whole bunch of stumbling blocks. Instead,
what we're going to do is we're going to write
him a letter. We're not going to just trust that
this will get back to him because whenever stuff
like this happens, by the time it gets back there,
it will be completely different. So we're going
to write this down on papyrus and we're going
to put our names to it. And here's what we should
tell them. We're going to give it to somebody
who we trust to go up and read this letter to
them because they are waiting to know what are
we going to do about the rules. So here's what
we're going to tell them. That they should abstain
from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality,
from the meat of strangled animals, and from
blood. For the law of Moses has been preached
in every city from the earliest times and is
read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. Now,
at first blanch, what this appears is that James
is kind of cherry -picking from Levitical law.
Kind of like, listen, we need to tell them something.
What should we do? Okay, don't eat strangled
animals that stay away from blood. Throw sexual
immorality in there. That should be good. But
that's actually not what he's doing. He's not
just cherry -picking a few things here. As a
matter of fact, I think if we take this just
below the surface, I think you'll see something
that's pretty remarkable. Now, why do you suppose
that those are the things that James picked?
Mainly, it's because we have two groups of people.
We have a group of people that hold to dietary
law, these Jews that have become Christians,
and we have these Gentiles. Now here's the thing.
The Jews that have become Christians, it's generational.
These dietary laws are generational for them.
They just can't sit down and eat shrimp with
somebody. It's just never been done. And what
James is kind of doing with these... with staying
away from blood and staying away from food polluted
by idols, what he's basically doing is saying,
look, Gentile Christians, we need you to take
a few steps towards us because we're going to
take steps towards you. Whenever James gave these
laws to these Antiochian Christians, what he's
not doing is giving them a new law of Moses.
He's giving them rules by which they could live
together and eat together in harmony. It's about
unity, not about law giving or law following.
Now, where do these particular laws come from?
We do know of some of them we find in Genesis
chapter 9. That is the story of Noah as he builds
an altar after leaving the ark. We also find
something called the Noahide covenant laws. in
the book of Jubilees, which is a book that's
not found in our particular Protestant Christian
Bible, but is a part of Hebrew Scripture. And
let me just read to you these laws that were
given to Noah as a result of the Noahide covenant.
Noah's covenant with God. Not to curse God, to
establish courts of justice, not to commit murder,
not to commit adultery, bestiality, or sexual
immorality, not to steal, and not to eat flesh
torn from a living animal. Now, what's interesting
about these Noahide laws, these laws that are
part of the covenant with Noah, is how do they
play into what type of relationship do they have
with Levitical law? What do they have to do with
the law of Moses? They actually precede it, right?
Because Noah exists a long time before Moses.
So James here isn't even cherry picking for the
sake of unity and harmony. He's not even cherry
picking from the law of Moses. He's actually
saying, let's put all of those laws aside. And
I'm going to go to an earlier set of laws that
come from God. I'm going to go back to the Noahide
laws. I find it, I personally find it very interesting
that the particular laws that James asked these
Christians to believe in, none of them are specifically
from the law of Moses. Now that doesn't mean
to say that the laws of Moses don't deal with
sexual immorality or don't. deal with how meat
should be slaughtered and the blood should be
removed. They do, but that's not where James
and the elders are getting these laws from. They're
actually getting them from a covenant with Noah.
Now, if God made a covenant with Noah and the
Israelite people didn't exist then, and we all
are descendants of Noah, then essentially the
covenant that God made With Noah and his descendants
is a covenant, not just with one particular group
of people, but actually with the world. It's
actually a worldwide covenant. So not only are
they leaving the laws of Moses to one side, they're
actually going back to a time where there were
laws that were a part of a covenant with the
world, just like we are facing in this particular
time. as the message of Jesus brings salvation
to the whole of the earth. And so they write
a letter. The apostles and the elders and the
whole church decide to choose some of their own
men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.
And they choose Judas or Barsabbas, Silas, men
who were leaders among the believers, and they
sent them the following letter. the apostles
and elders, your brothers, to the Gentile believers
in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Greetings. We
have heard that some of you, some went out from
us without authorization and disturbed you, troubling
your minds by what they said. The Jews, the guys
that came in after Paul, right? Forget them.
So we all agreed to choose some men and send
them to you with our dear friend Barnabas and
Paul, men who have risked their lives for the
name of the Lord Jesus. Therefore, we're sending
Judas and Silas to confirm by word and mouth
of what we're writing. I think this is really
brilliant. Because if they would have just sent
Paul and Barnabas back with the message, what
could they be accused of? Just making up back
their own story. And so what the council has
done here is say, we're going to send Paul and
Barnabas back to you guys because they're your
preachers. But we're going to send some of our
guys too to confirm that what Paul and Barnabas
are telling you is legit. It seems good to the
Holy Spirit and to us to not burden you with
anything beyond the following requirements. Abstain
from food sacrifice to idols, from blood, from
the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual
immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell. That's it. And essentially, the Council
of Jerusalem has said that we believe it is more
important if we are all focusing on a belief
in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, if we are all
placing the power of God within the resurrection,
It is more important for us to live together
in harmony as the body of Christ than it is to
follow any particular set of rules or laws. And
that's the point of the Council of Jerusalem.
Now what does that have to do with us today?
I think it has a lot to do with us. Because there
are so many people who fall out of faith or they
walk away from faith or maybe they're about to
walk away from faith because they feel like they
can just never measure up to all of the things
that they're supposed to do as a Christian. And
what's very interesting to me is this is a problem
with being a Christian from the very, very first
days and from the very, very, very first church
fight. The leaders of the church moved through
the power of the Holy Spirit and struck these
early believers that it is not about doing. It's
about believing. And you don't just have to believe
in belief. We have seen it. What does it take
to have a right relationship with God under this
new covenant that He's made with the world? To
believe that He loves you so much that He would
allow His Son to die on a cross, He can lay His
life down and through the power of resurrection
take His life back up again. And He did that
to express to us His desire to have a relationship
with us out of His love for us. And if we can
focus on that, we don't have to worry about all
of these other laws and all of these other things.
They're just stumbling blocks. The law of Moses
was merely a meaning to an end to something much
greater that God did in the world through Jesus
Christ. And that is the same story that we find
in the year 50 that we do today. And so for those
people that might be walking away from faith,
who have walked away from faith because they
feel like they can't measure up, And they can't
keep track of all of the do's and don'ts. I just
want to argue that perhaps you've walked away
unnecessarily. And to just to reconsider your
relationship through just a simple belief in
Jesus. So next week, armed with the, or next
time, armed with this. new understanding of what
it means to be a Christian. We're going to venture
again on the next set of missionary journeys.
So does anybody have any questions? Well, there
you have it. I hope that that episode was as
enlightening for you as it was for me. Listen,
if you like what we're doing here at the Semi
-Seminarian, I'd ask that you make sure to follow
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And on that platform, if you could rate the Semi
-Seminarian and give us a five -star review,
we'd certainly appreciate it. It helps get the
word to more people. Well, we'll see you next
time. And until then, be blessed and be a blessing.