Bible Study - Acts 15: 1 - 21

[Music] bye [Music] welcome back to bible study to the acts of the apostles with not two apostles but ian and alan leaving him all right now you probably you're probably more apostle like appointing elders and things like that no well anyway we're we're just here to sit at the feet of luke and and read these amazing accounts it's it's all kicking off this week here um with conflicts and discussions so we might not have them in the studio here i think uh ian's going to read verse verse 1 to 21 of chapter 15. okay acts chapter 15 beginning at verse 1 and i'm reading in the new king james version of the bible and certain men came down from judea and taught the brethren unless you were circumcised according to the custom of moses you cannot be saved therefore when paul and barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them they determined that paul and barnabas and certain others of them should go up to jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question so being sent on their way by the church they passed through phoenicia and samaria describing the conversion of the gentiles and they caused great joy to all the brethren and when they had come to jerusalem they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders and they reported all things that god had done with them but some of the sect of the pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of moses now the apostles and elders came together to consider the matter and when there had been much dispute peter rose up and said to them men and brethren you know that a good while ago god chose among us that by my mouth the gentiles should hear the word of the gospel unbelieved so god who knows the heart acknowledged them by giving them the holy spirit just as he did to us and made no distinction between us and them purifying their hearts by faith now therefore why do you test go by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear but we believe that through the grace of our lord jesus christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they then all the multitude kept silent and listened to barnabas and paul declaring how many miracles and wonders god had worked through them among the gentiles and after they had become silent james answered saying men and brethren listen to me simon has declared how god at first visited the gentiles to take out a people from his nep for his name and with this the words of the prophets agree just as this is written after this i will return and i will rebuild the tabernacle of david which has fallen down i will rebuild its ruins i will set it up so that the rest of mankind may seek the lord even all the gentiles who are called by my name says the lord who does all these things known to god from eternity are all his works therefore i judge that we should not trouble those from among the gentiles who are turning to god that word that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols from sexual immorality from things strangled and from blood for for moses has had throughout generations those who preach him in every city being read in the synagogues every sabbath amen amen heavenly father i pray that tonight as we contemplate these words i pray that you give us a spirit of understanding of wisdom of knowledge that we might draw close to you father that we might know you more and more better and better walk our lives closer and closer to you certainly there may be some viewers who are gentiles and there may be some viewers who are jewish but it is your will that each of us knows you who is from eternity it says from eternity so we seek to know you we seek to live in your presence so help us by opening the eyes of our spiritual understanding amen amen amen yeah i find that verse so powerful known to god from eternity are all his works we get involved in all sorts of disputes don't we on minutiae uh and and try and just win this point or that point or this insight or that inside but god knows the whole thing from the beginning to the end it's i think it's really difficult for us to be sitting here two thousand miles away and two thousand years later to try and fathom what was happening because last week we looked at a passage in which jews from antioch and other places came and caused paul to be stoned to death they thought he was dead and pulled the jew pulled the jew so the jews came and stirred things up because they were opposed to what paul was doing what paul was saying what paul was preaching was paul was teaching they were so opposed that those jews were ready to murder which is against the law which is against the ten commandments but they were prepared to break their own law as a matter of principle to silence paul although they were interpreting their law that what that that was more an execution than absolutely there are going to be some kind of justification yes we can always drum up some justification you know i'm a lawyer so such people should be put to death i know all the you know defense arguments in this case satan didn't stop there in this case these were jews from jerusalem but they were believers correct so the difference is they didn't stone poor but the objective was exactly the same they wanted to silence him yeah yeah it's it's um they wanted this they were believers you of course they were believers they said of the sect yeah because they were believers in yeshua yeah they wouldn't resort to murder because they have the holy spirit but they were of the same mindset as the jews who weren't believers it was just their method that was different but is it that difficult for us two thousand years later two thousand miles away to appreciate it i don't think it is i think this is has been played out through church history and it's played out throughout churches today these sort of divisions uh but this is a absolutely crucial division yes and it's one of the not the first one that the church encountered and the most enduring from different sides it sort of triggered it that way and then that there's a sort of retaliation that's what's extraordinary about it you'd have thought that chapter 15 of acts would have resolved it that's right and then we have galatians you'd have thought that resolved it we even have peter saying whatever paul writes is complicated but it is scripture you thought that would have resolved it because peter was also involved i mean this then there's that there's the description of the uh in suetonius mentions that those were who were ejected from rome because of christos and and they were they were jews they were they were basically you know disputing and that's and that created another dynamic in the roman church and then um paul says to the gentiles don't be arrogant you know looking on the jews so so it's flipped the other way and then you you obviously have the sun he the later sanhedrins and you know jewish tradition which obviously sees jesus as as hitler and um you because of the way the church fathers talks john chrysostom and others denigrated the jews and that the ding dongs actually happened right through church history yes yeah um i suppose what you've got to actually do is ask yourself the question what is going on here why are they insisting that gentiles become jews in order to be part of their the salvation plan of god what why is that happening why are they insisting and this is where i would agree with what you say that this is an argument that's been played out time and time again you can get actually involved in the theology of it and paul does in galatians and and romans but in essence the reason why just carries on carried on as to you'd ask the question is that it really didn't have anything to do with theology it was about control it's about they're one of us we only want people to come in who will be part of us and be like us and we'll accept our way of doing things and our control and that's in essence is what's going on here and and yes you can get involved in circumcision and all sorts of things like that and you know it's worth looking at that because that was the first issue is that everything was my fault i'm not i'm not saying we shouldn't discuss you know why circumcision was an issue was an issue i'm not saying we shouldn't but you need to understand what it was even when they solved it i know it wasn't solved it wasn't solved because it wasn't anything to do with the theology and a lot of arguments in in church life have nothing to do with theology they they're actually clothed in a theological language and sometimes they get a theological justification but it is basically the same old story that you're threatening my control but anyway when it comes to and then alan can pick up when when it comes to this first point of contention paul goes straight for it in romans 4 when he says was abraham justified was his justification before or after he was circumcised it was not after but before and he received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness he had by faith before he was circumcised so paul makes it very clear that you're not saved you talk about the salvation plan by following the law one of which was the law of circumcision you're justified you're saved by faith so in one sense the dispute that we think oh no this terrible this is a sociological you know inevitability because people want control it's actually god's in god's sovereignty it brings out a truth later in paul's writings that you're justified by faith and it probably sharpened his thinking yes but before we get into the theology i just wanted to pause a moment on the human side of it just imagine what paul and barnabas are feeling they just been on for them they're gonna go on larger longer missionary journeys later but at this point they've just been on an epic journey they've seen souls saved they've nearly been killed they've appointed elders in every place they came back to antioch full of stories of how god had met them on this journey how the church the kingdom of god had expanded how the church had expanded what god had done with them it was all initiated by the holy spirit and they were full of joy they were full of encouragement they were full of figure and they had just overcome being stoned they had just overcome being rejected they had just overcome all of these persecutions and it was embedded in their preaching and teaching that through persecutions you will enter the kingdom of god and they thought they were on home turf and they were safe for the time being until if they get called to another missionary journey they have to roll their sleeves up and get ready to more persecution so they're just relaxing and then boom i know this time the attack comes from within the church if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you is the line from kipling or the line from tyson you did that um everyone's got a plan until they get a punch in the face and but they obviously you know man proposes god disposes so this isn't this isn't according to a plan they come back you would have thought yes let's let's get the charts out and plan the next journey and this they have to face yeah the real world it is the real world and it doesn't stop yeah just because you go on a uh successful mission and you come back full of joy and full of works of the holy spirit and everything yeah the persecution's not gonna stop yeah and some of it could come from within yeah that's the problem that's it and and then you you discover where the real power is you come back and the armchair sort of experts are there and you know no no never mind yeah we'll talk we'll let you come in in a minute you know let me you know we're just going to tell you how it is the thing is that you know ian mentioned it before that some of it is possibly control some of it is well more than possibly it is control it's church politics i mean let's call a spade a spade okay who's in charge whose rules are we playing by but they use theology to attack you yes yeah so all of a sudden you're very successful you just had a very successful campaign you've come back to your home church somebody doesn't like you and they say well where do you stand on the second coming are you pre or post and you this oh no well we can't have you now it's got nothing to do with prior it's an excuse but it's a theology they don't they can't say we don't like your face they can't say i'm jealous of you you're more successful they can't say i want you out of town because of my personal ambition and i want to get rid of you they bring in theology this is also a classic case of of new wine old wineskins so they've they've got their structure in place they're sitting there you know wherever they are in their little council where was it um they came to from judea where were they because they were sent off to jerusalem later so they've got their tradition and paul and barnabas come in with the spirit as it were and all they can do is say right you've got to go to the church in jerusalem yeah because thinking that the church in jerusalem is going to back him that's right judea was the seed of power at the time christian power right not that there was much power but yeah judeo was the center all right they were the big cheeses and all of a sudden this upstart antioch up north somewhere one of the regions in the provinces antioch is now claiming that they've experienced miracles they've experienced revival they've experienced mass conversions they've experienced planting lots of churches uh let's go and bring them down a peg or two let's go and tell them that theology is wrong you see i'm not exactly sure where they were the certain men came from judea but then they were sent on their way through phoenicia and samaria obviously to jerusalem so it's somewhere just on the tail end of their journey that can be someone can correct me exactly where it was but um but i think they were sort of tin pop judges yeah but judea is south of antioch okay sort of in the direction of so jude nobody says they had come from judea yeah certain men came down so i just don't know where this actual dissension was the exact point it was obviously at the end of the journey before they went through phoenicia and samaria oh i thought they went through phoenicia and samaria not on a missionary journey but on route to jerusalem they did exactly so at this point of verse one oh in verse one they were in antioch they just there we are in verse 26 of chapter 14 they sailed to antioch where they had been commended the grace of god got it okay got it i've got it so they were in andy okay they've done a circuit back to antioch and they were back in antioch where they had been sent off from and they just finished their first journey and they had told the disciples what god had done with them and they're just sitting there thinking wow this is really great and then these guys from judea show up and saying actually you're not doing that great exactly guess what you got your theology wrong and they tried to take the wind out of their sails that's what was happening so the people came up from in the region of jerusalem to antioch because they heard something was going on in antioch and they were pointing the finger so the men came up from judea and taught the brethren in other words they undermined barnabas and paul's teaching paul had been teaching all along his journey and then they came along with a different teaching and said unless you are circumcised according to the custom of moses you cannot be saved and all along paul had been saying if you believe on jesus you'll be saved that is quite a big issue therefore it is it is an issue and and you you have to ask the question um okay then the a new convert comes in they become gets circumcised they become a a jew they keep the commandments where does baptism fit in because jesus you know believe and be baptized so so in a sense they're setting aside one of the main teachings of of of the lord you know when he said at the end of matthew 28 make disciples all nations baptizing him father son and holy spirit so where where does where does you you've got these two parallel lines absolutely going together also not adjusting in their mind they still see paul from what you brought out last week as the beginning of chapter 13. it was he sort of thing yeah sidekick yeah they still considered him barnaby was his sidekick yeah and you and as far as if i can just comment on that baptism um ian yes the thing about baptism when jesus used the word baptism he's not talking about the washing he's talking about the burial yeah all right and if you place baptism where it ought to be in the context of burial somebody who comes out of the waters of baptism which is why i believe in full immersion there has to be full immersion in order to symbolize buried ariel yeah as you come out you're dead so you don't come out a jew you don't come out a gentile you come out dead no you don't come out i don't i that that's not well no that's what it says that's what says roman 6 you're buried hip in baptism and then you rise you arise in christ yeah you're realizing christ you're alive when you come out yeah but you're buried with christ you're dead to self you're dead to your old self and your old life and your jewishness or your gentileness yes slave or free male or female i think what paul was saying was when you're buried all of that disappears absolutely all those distinctions disappear so once those distinctions have disappeared and you come out alive in christ from the burial of uh baptism you're not you anymore you're a new creation so what does it matter you're not a jew anymore you're not a gentile anymore you're not a slave anymore you're not free anymore so in that sense these jews from judea although they're believers weren't applying the message of baptism when they preached that you have to obey the law of moses and be circumcised that was the that's the theological hub of it as we said it may not necessarily be it will maybe use just using it as a tool but if we need to discuss the theology of it that's the theology of it good so you interrupt and can you remember where you were oh he was picking up on your point about baptism though yeah i i i think that the point i was going to make was was that we have this tension between jewish christians with a jewish heritage and gentiles coming in now what happened was that basically the the gentiles won and sadly i think that we the gentiles did win because a lot of the we lost a lot of our good jewish heritage because of of of the gentiles it was a sort of rejection of everything to do with the the old hebrew life and and and i don't think that was what was intended um and so by actually emphasizing the circumcision what they're actually doing was actually they forced the opposite effect that's right and and and i think we have to and we get this situation today where where christians often say we're people of the new testament they never read the old testament and they never try to actually understand the the roots of our faith they don't understand the the the the the links there are between judaism and christianity there aren't the same links between uh christianity and islam for example there are there are these links which which we should we should value that is not to say that there are two ways of salvation and i want to be very clear about this we're not saying there are two ways of salvation there's the hebrew way and there's the christian way but what i'm saying is that we've been gra used the scripture we've been grafted on but nevertheless we we still graft it on in the tree that's it you know we're not a separate tree i mean i mean for me it this is all part of god's sovereignty so it's not a matter so you know of one side willing or the other not god actually ordained for there to be this blindness towards the jewish messiah jesus so that the jewish messiah jesus could be shared by gentiles across the world yeah the the great dangers let's say sociologically looking at it would be that it would just remain a sect within judaism yeah in the end it became yeah something that was worldwide if i can make one final comment on the theology of what the men from judeo were preaching yeah that's just a smallish point unless you're circumcised they say you cannot be saved i think modern church has this concept salvation means forgiveness of sins it does mean forgiveness of sins but i think when they use that word saved they were using it in a much larger on text and so what they were objecting to what they were resentful of wasn't that these gentile sins were forgiven in one sense i don't think they could care less whether god forgave their sins or not what they didn't want was sharing or having to share or having shared out or diluted the blessings of abraham genesis 12 because i believe that the word saved to them means way more than forgiveness of sins which is what we think of the word saved i think it was a bigger word it was far more comprehensive so the one of the reasons theologically that they were insisting on circumcision and following the jewish law was they saw it as a holistic thing the whole of life thing salvation is a whole of life and we sometimes leave an event evangelistic meeting with the wrong perception that what the preacher is talking about is god forgives our sins solely they're talking about the hope holistic entering into the blessings of abraham and that's what they resented but also what we've got to understand what's going on here is that when they talk about the law of moses they're not talking about only the ten commandments they're talking about the 613 commandments which are also included the 365 positive things negative things you need things you can't do and the rest you can do and which which was added to the to the ten commandments that's why jesus said you can reduce the ten commandments down to two love god and love your neighbor as yourself because he knew that they were they'd implemented a system which covered every aspect of their lives and and when they were talking about the law of moses i think in their head was just carrying on christianity as a as a legalistic faith and what what paul is getting onto in in his theology he's saying you know it's by grace you're saved through faith can i just pick up on on this you are saved okay so it's more than just forgiveness it that there is um and this is why this is such an intriguing passage it's just a few verses but it actually there is some really deep theology in it because um paul in um if you do a study a concordance study of the word saved you know you'll see it crop up there in romans 10 where he says it's with your heart that you believe and are justified it's with your mouth that you confess and are saved what what paul has and barnabas have been preaching you um confess the lord jesus you believe in your heart you're saved that would go right against all these people that grafted the the elder brother of of the prodigal son parable grafted all his life and then and then this you know sort of whatever comes back from from you know a profligate life confesses the lord jesus and he can be saved that is totally against their whole framework of keeping the law to be saved and they conveniently forget jesus parable about the workers and the ones who showed up 10 minutes from the end still got the same wage as somebody who'd been working from dawn because that's the deal that was the deal and jesus said well so what and they said well it's not fair yeah that's what they were they were playing that card it's not fair and by the way there was a deal i know i'm not i'm not advocating dual current uh covenant but there was a deal for the jewish people but there was a deeper deal you know there was there was a um embedded within the hebrew scriptures was the messiah jesus um who wasn't i think i think what you're just saying peter or peter actually touched on it peter actually touched on it and he said um what did he say is god who knows the heart acknowledged them by giving them the holy spirit yeah made no distinction all right yeah um now therefore so he's saying this is what god does ten yeah first verse eight and nine is what god did now peter's saying what should our response be now therefore why do you test god by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we powerful we're able to bear powerful so yes uh nobody's advocating dual covenant all right and there aren't two ways to be safe there's only one way to be saved i just want to be clear in case the people write in absolutely true and verse 10 explains why the first covenant didn't work nobody could keep it peter didn't work because it pointed to the fact that you couldn't keep it yes yes it's not it's not through fulfillment but through yes and even the lord jesus in matthew um uh sermon on the mounts he said that to a jewish i mean it's it's it's in hebrew i mean to a jewish um audience he's giving them as it were what keeping the law really requires you think something wrong in your heart you've sinned you know and yeah um and love your enemies otherwise you sin sort of thing so so uh he created this burden the uh that you know of commitment that was impossible to keep and that's why in matthew 11 he says put your i take my yoke up on you and learn from me my yoke is easy my burden is like in other words um i think i've just demonstrated to you with all of your observance of the law you can't do it you can't bear it therefore trust in me and it's the same message here in one line from peter yeah first who demonstrates how decisive paul was so last week we talked about how it was paul that decided to go to derby and then barnabas came with him here it's paul before barnabas therefore when paul and barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them yeah so they weren't going to stand for it just because they were from judea it doesn't mean that but paul and barnabas were going to stand aside they weren't going and let them no no that's right that's right and but it wasn't them that decided to go to jerusalem they were they were it was the the eldest of us in antioch centuries fair enough i mean they weren't wicked they just had a different viewpoint but it was interesting for me i'm just jumping a few verses here verse 12 then all the multitude kept silent and listened to barnabas and paul they knew between barnabas and paul they knew that paul would put his mouth in it although paul did all the preaching and all the teaching to all the gentiles when it came to addressing the jews barnabas probably said i better handle this paul yeah no it's interesting it's interesting that it was barnabas who did the talking that's right and paul just he led the way yes yes which is also good i i take your point about paul but i'm a little bit more i have a more idealistic view for i i think paul may have said to barnabas i don't want to be um shouting my own phrases that's also possible yeah okay the thing is that what we know that luke switched them i just want to re-emphasize what this was about the this was about verse five it says pharisees who believe rose up and saying it's necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of moses now we're talking here about this 613 mid-shot war laws which are 365 laws which are things you can't shouldn't do in this 248 or whatever things you have to do and and it it covered everything it covered all the festivals it covered it covered how they worked on a sun on a sabbath it covered everything every aspect of their lives so what they're actually saying is that we've got to re-establish this church is coming and it's it's it's chaos we've got to re-establish a system okay and and i think there's a battle going on here and and i think it's a battle which um happens continuously in the christian life of the old versus the new that we naturally bring something of ourselves and our history into the christian faith however we have to be very very careful that we do not shape the christian faith according to our experience but our experience of the christian faith is shaped by god and through his word and that's really one of the important fundamental principles which is which we see today a lot that uh people come and they shape their because christianity has become a largely individualistic faith people tend to shape their christian faith according to their experience so what my faith will allow me to carry on my life yeah exactly as it is with maybe going to church once every couple of weeks it's not like that at all it's about a relationship with the lord jesus christ where he is lord and as we looked at last week where we talked about discipleship about sacrifice and such like it's nothing it's not not not you don't import your old life into the new life it's a completely new life anyone in christ is a new creation the old things have passed away very good um just you you mentioned about those you know who stood up in jerusalem so they've arrived in when they'd come to jerusalem verse four but it's interesting in verse uh uh the earlier verse verse two it said that they determined that paul and barnabas and certain others of them should go up to jerusalem so i think it is the same group who confronted them or dissented and disputed in antioch were there in jerusalem you know restating the point yes that's right that's right so we come on to verse six now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter i just wanted to draw attention to the word elders if it is if luke had simply said now the apostles came together to consider this matter then we would understand it because the apostles were in charge we get that but it's including elders so elders was they've been appointing elders later on as we said paul wrote to titus and said appoint elders in in concrete like i told you to the appointment of elders is quite significant because they were in a position to judge theology this brings a better position this brings us back to our definition of apostolic authority because this makes it clear that there is a distinction between the the jerusalem council was made up of uh apostles who as we know the definition of apostle that they had been with christ and being appointed by christ we come to paul later on that's why the dispute arises now they and they appointed the elders but the elders had a position of leadership in the church as well but it was it was in many ways parallel but this similar difference is that the apostles have been taught by christ apostolic teaching and the apostles had taught the elders so it's the second generation how a hierarchy can develop it's not a hierarchy you can see how it develops in people's minds it does develop in people's minds but it's not a hierarchy it's basically a you know so the word apostle means sent who were they sent by they were sent by jesus go you therefore into all the world make disciples of all nations right the the the presbyter the leader at the the elder was again was a leader it came directly from the jewish faith where elder was a leader among the jews so there's a subtle difference now the the reason why this is important is this is that the apostles bring the apostolic teaching and that's why it's it's important now we can have a dispute as to whether paul was an apostle or whether he was not because by the strict definition of apostolic authority he wasn't but he was according to his letters he was an apostle absolutely according to absolutely no we have to actually obviously we've read that back yeah yeah but then we then we come to the the point that apostles exist but do they have the authority to change apostolic teaching um so that's so that's the point i wasn't really i wasn't thinking along those well well well i don't know i would say believe me it's it's a relevant one i would say exactly no no no they don't so what so what is the difference between the apostles the apostle paul and the apostles that have been appointed in a later date where it talks about apostles it's a good question what what what yeah what is it the apostles teaching because that comes up earlier in acts they gave themselves to the apostles teaching to prayer breaking bread prayer right so and what was the apostles teaching it was actually rooted in the scriptures right um but it had that authority um that came from being with them i would say the apostle paul is a second generation apostle that's not sure that that i would say that that the word also the missing link you know before they cast lots to pick up matthias yeah after judas because they mixed up disciples and apostles so so it's an interesting point because i would actually advocate if you read paul's teaching and you study it as you do as a preacher what you find it's full of the teaching of jesus people say i i follow jesus i don't follow paul paul's uh paul's teaching is apostolic teaching whom which he learned from the original apostles because he he didn't spend any time with jesus except in prayer but he and that so he he spent time with the apostles so he so the word apostle has two meanings one it means uh well it's one it means means sent and for the church it means the author of apostolic teaching that handed directly from jesus but then it has a secondary meaning meaning the one who is sent very good can i just throw in not to divert us too much but you can see from this passage if you read up to a certain point and no further that how it developed in people's minds that peter was the pontiff oh yeah as it were and you can see how that tradition goes but um it's sort of um as it were balanced out by the fact it's james who then comes up and endorses what peter said so so in other words we think oh yes oh this is a clear hierarchy so they they they went to these folk in antioch and then there's a hierarchy up to the apostles and then there was the the the absolute pinnacle of pontiff's maximus or whatever of peter yeah but that is not actually what it's saying peter got up because it's peter and and he he gave a great correcting preach from his experience in um caesarea yeah well what we're observing is the human dynamics yeah we saw how during the first missionary journey that paul went on he started out as saul he came home as paul he started out as a teacher or a prophet he came home as an apostle why do i say that because we studied that a few weeks ago in uh chapter 14 verse 14. luke actually says when the apostles barnabas and paul heard this they tore their clothes and apostles by middle of chapter 14 barnabas and paul were apostles right peter was the main spokesperson john could have been because he had enough theology and enough closeness and intimacy with jesus and everything else and later on he wrote the gospel of john he could have been but he was a quiet guy he was an introvert he barely spoke he just accompanied peter and went around healing people at this stage a generation later he starts writing books okay so at this time you'd have thought human dynamics peter is in charge but we read in galatians that paul saw a different side when james or people from james showed up it says peter withdrew from eating with gentiles so peter considered james to be a higher authority than himself and yet james wasn't even one of the original 12 disciples so again he was an apostle after jesus death and resurrection same as paul and so yes what happens is when people make speeches the final one is made by the highest authority yes so you go up that's the point yeah so you got you know the two sides and then the pronouncement and it was james who made the final decision or the saints final pronouncement or the final judgment that's that is interesting and in it he said that known to god from eternity so there's one even higher um he himself all of the chains himself definitely i think they had a good structure in having a council uh and that's you know of course james in this instance was was clearly decisive he was decisive but there wasn't a hierarchy within the council that's my point right and it just disabuses the idea that peter was the pontiff yes yeah and we won't go there probably um yes but the the the the interesting thing is that the sect of the pharisees who believed that it is necessary to observe the law of moses probably thought they had a ringer in james um yes they were probably of the view that james would side with them yeah but when push came to shove james went with what the holy spirit was telling them to telling him yeah and not what the pharisees were telling him there was no small dispute which means that there was pandemonium that's right they were shouting i mean these were jewish guys yeah arguing you can't get more argumentative and and james didn't equivocate he he was decisively in support of what peter said he wasn't saying he didn't do any of that he brought the prophets in as well yeah but the gospel should first go to the gentiles that was so counter-intuitive i mean they were all jews and there they are saying look this is this is basically what the prophets have said that's right and the other difference between peter and james is peter went with his experience and that's why he had those experiences that's why jesus said you will deny me three times everything to peter was experiential he was a witness to things that he saw that's why he was a very powerful witness to the resurrection yeah he was powerful because he was there at the tomb he saw the empty tomb exactly he was a witness and he said this is my experience cornelius got the holy spirit but james came up with theology you see so peter says the experience is such and such god gave the gentiles the holy spirit without having first been circumcised think about it and then james came along and says well what did the prophets say what does scripture tell us yes scripture affirms paul's point barnabas point and by the way just in the final we're in the final couple of minutes that those final verses it's not as though james is saying you know you can ditch you know um morality you you you can you can ditch the these other um things he said i think we wrote to them to abstain yeah i think i think there's a lot in those which i think we need to maybe maybe look at separately next time because i i don't think we can do it in two minutes uh but um yeah yeah but i was trying to keep to my notion can you eat blood pudding it's christians that's next week that's next week i mean can you eat blood pudding i mean uh why is sexual immorality important is god a prude morality yeah or immorality well you know why why why is it and and and it's all questions which which need to be uh answered today because all the givens which were accepted in previous generations are all being questioned it's all up in the air and yet here in scriptures you've got the answers to to the question i'll just tell you what it's in i'm just thinking here about what is in paul's mind um as he listens to all of this because paul is the one who's the great theologian you know that we look back through history and said he had it um romans 9 10 11 was as it were birthed here paul just earwigging what is being said and hearing what god is saying you read romans 9 10 11 and then you see the doxology which is there summed up in verse 18. oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of god how unsearchable are his judgments um his paths beyond tracing out here it is in that one verse so he would have heard all of that and then heard james say there's something deeper here and god's actually and we're not gonna unravel the whole thing in this conversation as we weren't in this bible study he's saying for from him to him and through him are all things to god be the glory but if you put that first then i think you you you can grapple with some of the other minutiae we're in the last minute or 30 seconds here and it's your turn to have the final one i think i think you could actually look at the remarkable way that the church would move from where it was in a matter of five ten years to where they are here thank you so much and i look forward to seeing you next week [Music] you

Channel: Revelation TV

Views: 159

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Bible Study, Acts, Church, Judea, Antioch, Moses, Scriptures

Id: 3JZa9L9om4M

Length: 55min 1sec (3301 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020