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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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Acts 15:19-20
“It is my judgement, 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.”
What a wonderful problem. Here the Council of Messianic (Christian) Jews had to decide what to do about these new Gentile Christians. Nothing has changed a great deal – where there is a vibrant Church reaching out to the unsaved – there will need to be a constant review about what you do and why and how to help assimilate new folk into the family of God. This is particularly the case where the church is multi-cultural.
The discussion here was initiated by the question of physical circumcision. Some folk were demanding that all new Gentile believers should be circumcised whereas Paul and Barnabas were vehemently opposed. So Paul and Barnabas were sent up to Jerusalem to get a ruling from the Council. There was a long debate with Peter siding with Paul and Barnabas. As he said, “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are” (Acts 15:11). No wonder Paul was to use this as a recurring theme through his letters.
In the end, James brought a concluding decision and the Council confirmed it by writing a letter to the Church addressed to the Gentiles.
“The apostles and elders, your brothers. To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings” (v 23).
“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell” (v 28-29).
That letter was very brave. I wonder how many church leaders today would write the same. Oh, I know what you are thinking – we are in a different culture and era. Things have changed dramatically since then.
Have they? The Fall of the Roman Empire sounds very apposite for today, so does all that Paul wrote in Romans Chapter 1, as we shall discover tomorrow. Sexual immorality is certainly very rife today.
Mixing with Christians from all over the world is very healthy and enlightening. We used to have a number of Europeans pass through our home. Some were strict teetotallers, whereas for others beer seemed their staple diet. If in our denominations we concentrated on the 90+% of what we agree upon instead of the less than 10% on which we disagree, we might find true unity, and the blessing of God would flow.
However, we would still need to decide on the non-negotiable issues and one of those would have to be sexual immorality.
I’m quite sure the Council at Jerusalem would have no hesitation in re-emphasising that if they met again today. And you – what would you emphasise?
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