Joseph Patty, Associate Director of Student Ministry

Acts 15:5-21
Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”

The apostles and elders met to consider this question. After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, 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? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. When they finished, James spoke up. “Brothers,” he said, “listen to me. Simon 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, as it is written:

 “‘After this I will return
and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’—
things known from long ago.

“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to 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.”

Reflection:
What is circumcision, and why does the Bible talk about it so much? It is my great privilege to answer these questions on a regular basis with middle and high school students. I’ll spare you the definition, but in the Jewish faith, circumcision was a sign of their relationship with God and a sign of their ethnic identity. To be circumcised was to be Jewish and to have a unique relationship with God, which included keeping all the law in the Old Testament. Up until this point in Acts, the Jesus movement had been primarily Jewish, so when Paul and Barnabas come back telling stories of all the gentiles who had come to believe, the church is faced with a big decision. Do the gentile believers need to become Jewish to be followers of Jesus? In other words, are they required to become like us in order to become like Jesus?

As the Spirit leads us in God’s mission, we inevitably come across people who are different from us. It’s easy to conflate the culture of Jesus and our own personal culture. The first time I ever woke up to this reality was when I was working with inner-city youth in Bryan, Texas. There was one particular young man for whom I had been praying and working with for years. He was just about to graduate and I wanted the best for him. My understanding of that was for him to make all the same life choices I was making. When he expressed a desire to become a truck driver instead of going to college, I was angry. How could he? I had poured so much of my own life into him. Then Jesus gently, but firmly, showed me that I was trying to make him like me, not Jesus. I repented.

The Jews had been God’s people their whole lives so to hear the Spirit leading a different way must have been disorienting. Peter stands up and responds, “Guys, we know including the gentiles is a move of the Spirit. It’s by grace through faith in Jesus that we are all saved, so why are we trying to burden them with the law we failed to keep?” The apostles wrestle with the Spirit and Scripture to figure out what is really necessary to follow Jesus and to put “no unnecessary burdens” on the gentiles. If you’ve ever wondered why we choose to follow some parts of the Torah (Law) and not others, this passage has your answer. They look at Leviticus 17 and 18 and see that God has made provisions for what it looks like for foreigners to live among the Jews and still honor him. So, they conclude that they will only ask gentiles to abide by these texts and other than that to follow the teaching of Jesus. Hence, we have the list: don’t eat animals sacrificed to idols, meat from strangled animals, blood, and keep themselves from sexual immorality.

The Spirit’s mission is not to make people change from their culture to ours, but from their way of life to following Jesus. Therefore, we must constantly self-examine and ask; what parts of my practice of faith are essential, and what parts are just my culture? We are free to enjoy our own culture, but we should hold it with a loose hand while, in contrast, we cling to Jesus with everything we have. There are parts of every culture that are sinful, including our own, so we too have to turn from our own ways to follow Jesus. This is difficult work, but necessary. Like Paul says, let us “claim to know nothing but Christ Jesus and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2).

Prayer:
Father, give me the wisdom to discern between the gospel and my own culture. Give me the humility and courage to repent where necessary, and fill me with joy when it resonates with your nature. Teach me to lead a life of radical grace, putting no unnecessary barriers between people and you, and help me to trust your Spirit to transform them into your image. Amen.