Acts 16:16-24

¹⁶ As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” ¹⁸ And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. ¹⁹ But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. ²⁰ And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. ²¹ They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.” ²² The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. ²³ And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. ²⁴ Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

It was C.S. Lewis who said that there are two equal but opposite errors Christians can commit when thinking about the devil.  The first is to think too little of the devil:  to remain blissfully ignorant of his schemes and tactics, to fail to realize that he is crafty and scheming, to fail to consider carefully all that scripture says about our adversary.  This error leaves us an easy target and unprepared to withstand the devil’s schemes.  The other error is to think too much of the devil:  to fixate on him, to ascribe to him too much power, to fail to realize the victory that Christ has won and is winning for us, to see him literally everywhere and in everything.  This error can make us obsessive and can paralyze us with fear.  Most tragically, it downplays the power and authority and victory of Christ.

Our text will help us avoid both areas.  It shows us how very dangerous and crafty the devil truly is.  However, it also dramatically demonstrates the ultimate authority of Christ over the devil and his minions.

The devil is crafty and may attack the Church through confusing, disruptive followership. (v.16-18^a)

Let us first consider the craftiness of the devil.  Paul and his team are in Philippi.  They begin to be followed by a slave girl whose behavior becomes increasingly disruptive.

¹⁶ As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” ¹⁸ And this she kept doing for many days.

Who was this girl?  Clinton Arnold has offered some fascinating background information about who she likely was as well as a very interesting insight into Luke’s description of her.

This young girl receives her inspiration from what Luke literally calls a “python spirit” (pneuma python).  The Python dragon or serpent was associated with the oracle sanctuary at Delphi, about eighty miles northwest of Athens.  In the story of the origin of the cult, Apollo killed this large snake that was guarding the entrance to the oracle cave.  Apollo then became the guardian and patron of this sanctuary, which was an entrance to the underworld.  During the Greco-Roman era, people came from all over the Mediterranean world to consult the priestesses of Apollo (called pythia) for advice.  The Pythia descended into the oracle grotto to seek inspiration from the god by allowing herself to be possessed by a spirit.  She then arose and uttered the god’s instructions to the inquirer – first in an ecstatic, gibberish speech and then typically in the form of Greek verse.  The first-century writer Plutarch, himself a priest of the Delphic god, refers to the priestesses as engastrimythoi (“belly talkers”) because of the sound of their voices as the god or spirit spoke through them.[1]

This girl, then, would be connected in the minds of the people with the python spirit, a spirit that was not considered to be malevolent by the Greeks.  However, Christians do not accept that there are such harmless spirits that we can or should consult.  We believe that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit that has been given to lead us into all truth, and not a spirit of divination.

What is confusing here, though, is what the girl says.  “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.”  Why is this confusing?  It is confusing because the demon within her is actually speaking the truth.  They were indeed “servants of the Most High God” and they did indeed “proclaim…the way of salvation.”

What is happening here?  For starters, there is the divine title that the demon uses:  “the Most High God.”  It could be that this is something of an offensive maneuver against the apostles.  That is, it could be that the demon was using the name of God in an almost mocking way or a way that demonstrated presumption on the devil’s part, though this would not have been apparent to those who heard her using the divine title.  The name of God is holy and sacred and is not to be used in vain or arrogantly or with any intention other than genuine worship.  Whatever is happening here, we can be sure that the devil is not using God’s name with worshipful intent.

You may note certain similarities between this scene and Jesus’ encounter with the Garasene demoniac in Luke 8.  Listen closely:

²⁶ Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷ When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” ²⁹ For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) ³⁰ Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. ³¹ And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. ³² Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. ³³ Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

You will notice that here too the devil uses the title “the Most High God.”  Why, then, does Paul cast the demon out?  Why silence a demon that is, in fact, speaking truth?  The 15^th century German Reformed Hebraist Konrad Pellikan argued that behind the actual words of the demon were nefarious motivations aiming ultimately at deceiving those who listened.

[I]t is the deceitful genius of Satan, that he is the father of lies, not only because he always speaks through manifest lies but because he also misuses the manifest truth to convince people of lies for the purpose of deceiving them, so that in the end, by the appearance of truth, he convinces people of falsehood.  Satan’s cleverness and trickery are of no use to him against Christ, for Christ also cast out demons of this sort and forbade them to speak.  In fact, here Paul orders the demon to be silent in the name of Christ, and it departs from the girl.  It was an unmistakable sign indicating that, even if Satan speaks the truth from time to time, nevertheless he does so to deceive.  Therefore we must close our ears to Satan’s voice whether he speaks factually or not, lest we are seduced to the lies of Satan by some version of the truth.[2]

Origen said that in casting the demon out, Paul was imitating Christ who “does not accept witness from demons” and that Paul “considered testimony given by the spirit of Python unworthy of his message.”  Chrysostom argued that Paul cast the demon out because he “did not want to make him believable” and went on to say that “if Paul had admitted his testimony, the demon would have deceived many of the believers.”  He further said that the demon was using “agreement for the purpose of destruction.”[3]

There is wisdom here, but the very fact that we are having to try to figure out exactly what is happening here is evidence of the devil’s craftiness.  The devil is crafty and may attack the Church through confusing, disruptive followership.  He appears here to be a member of the Church, advancing and proclaiming the name of Christ.  However, Paul saw it for what it was:  a subtle attempt by Satan to deceive by masquerading as a worshipper of God.

Be careful!  Not all who use the language of the faith have the heart of the faith.  Such was the case with this demon possessed slave girl.

The devil is also adaptable and may, when confusing attempts fail, attack the Church through inciting anger fueled by ignorance. (v.19-24)

But what happens when the devil’s craftier attempts fail?  Consider what he does to Paul and Silas.

¹⁹ But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. ²⁰ And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. ²¹ They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.” ²² The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. ²³ And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. ²⁴ Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Failing to deceive through his more subtle efforts, the devil next turns to a frontal attack.  When Paul cast the demon out, he lost the girl’s owners a great deal of money.  People would pay her owners to hear what the python spirit would say through her.  Paul ended that.  You will also see another parallel here between this story and that of the Gerasene demoniac:  the casting out of the demons in both stories cost somebody money and this leads to great displeasure.

So the devil now works through the anger of the people as they appeal to the authorities for help.  He appears to do so through what were likely some anti-semitic sentiments in Philippi, or at least xenophobic (fear of foreigners) sentiments.  Remember that there were not enough Jews in this area even to have a synagogue, so he is playing on the fears of the people concerning this largely unknown group:  “These men are Jews.”

Furthermore, they allege that Paul and Silas are fostering civil unrest and even illegal activities.  In doing so, you can see shades of the tactics of the Jews before Pilate when they were seeking Roman involvement in their efforts to rid themselves of Jesus.  They played the politics card:  “These guys are upsetting the people and causing trouble and encouraging illegal behavior in our town!”  This, of course, got the attention of the authorities and leads to direct persecution:  beatings and imprisonment and the stocks.

For our purposes, let us notice the progression in Satan’s tactics:  (1) subtle attempts to deceive and (2) blatant efforts to persecute.  The devil does not move to his more nakedly aggressive efforts until his more subtle efforts are sniffed out.  When it is clear that the little demon possessed girl cannot derail the missionary team, then and only then does he turn to outright persecution.

There is a disturbing lesson in this for us:  what might it say about us that the devil so rarely has to resort to outright persecution against us?  What might it say that he never has to move toward his “Plan B” of oppression?  Might it not mean that he has no need to do so since we are so rarely able to get past his “Plan A”?

In other words, he rarely has to persecute us outright because he is so effective at tripping us up with his subtle, crafty efforts.

Would that we followed the Lord Jesus closely enough and carefully enough that the devil had to make more blatant efforts to eradicate us.  As it stands, he does not need to eradicate us because he has so effectively distracted us.

Live in such a way that the devil has to go to “Plan B” against you!  Do not give him the satisfaction of being able to sideline you with little girls being annoying!  Make him bring out the big guns!

But the devil is always a creature and can never withstand the authority of the Creator. (v.18^b-c)

These satanic efforts must regrettably be understood.  They must be appreciated so that the devil can be effectively guarded against.  But in all of this talk about the devil and his wiles, we would be blasphemously mistaken if we did not end with this crucial point:  the devil is always a creature and can never withstand the authority of the Creator.  He is crafty, but he is not God.  This is evident when we go back to the actual moment of exorcism in verse 18.

^18b-c Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

Clinton Arnold points out that it would have been considered “unusual” for somebody to cast out a Python spirit “which was thought to be a good and helpful spirit, not a malevolent one.”[4]  But out this spirit must come!  Why?  Because we know that if a spirit is not from God it is from the devil himself.

Paul turns to the girl, rebukes the spirit, and, Luke tells us, “it came out that very hour.”

There is something theologically profound in the lack of elaboration in this.  Paul commands an exit “in the name of Jesus Christ” and the devil must flee!  How beautiful!  How powerful!  How very important for us to remember!

The devil may attack, but he is a defeated attacker.  He may discourage, but he is a defeated discourager.  He may persecute, but he is a defeated persecutor.

What we are experiencing on this side of heaven is simply the last, desperate thrashings of an enemy who knows his days are number.  He has been defeated, but he has simply not yet been destroyed.  We live between his defeat and his destruction and, as a result, we are the objects of his dark rage.  But the light shines in the darkness and the light is Christ!

Church:  the devil is no match for the Lord Jesus!  He cannot withstand the Lamb Who was slain and risen, Who has ascended but Who is coming again!

He cannot withstand the strong name of Jesus.

He quakes in fear before the Lamb who conquers.

He shudders in dread.

As Luther reminds us in his beautiful hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”:

And though this world, with devils filled,

Should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed

His truth to triumph through us:

The Prince of Darkness grim,

We tremble not for him;

His rage we can endure,

For lo! his doom is sure,

One little word shall fell him.

Amen, and amen.

Acts 16:6-15

⁶ And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. ⁷ And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. ⁸ So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. ⁹ And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” ¹⁰ And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. ¹¹ So, setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace, and the following day to Neapolis, ¹² and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city some days. ¹³ And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. ¹⁴ One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. ¹⁵ And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.

Acts is a book filled with memorable characters.  Of course there are the towering personalities of the Church:  restored and emboldened Peter, the courageous martyr Stephen, the inspiring missionary Philip, the radically converted and radically missional Paul, peacemaking Barnabas, tempestuous John Mark, and young Timothy.  Then there are the bad guys:  the persecuting Sanhedrin, the greedy Simon Magus, the blasphemous (and wormy!) Herod Agrippa.  And these are just a few of the colorful characters of this fascinating book.

But there is one character that stands above them all.  In fact, He is such a dominant character that some, like John Chrysostom, actually referred to the book of Acts by His name.  I am talking about the Holy Spirit.  He is on every page of this book.  John Chrysostom called the book of Acts, “The Gospel of the Holy Spirit.”  I love that!

The story of Acts truly is the story of the Holy Spirit.  Let me explain.  Before Jesus ascended to the Father in Heaven He promised us that He would send the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, to take up residence in His people.  And, of course, in Acts 2 we see that happen.  Jesus ascends to the right hand of the Father and the Holy Spirit descends upon the Church.  That means that the chronicle of Acts is a chronicle of the Holy Spirit’s leading of the Church in and throughout the world to further the reach of the Kingdom of God.  Thus, this book really is “The Gospel of the Holy Spirit.”

But even that is not enough to say.  It must also be said and noted that what happened to the early Church way back then was intended to be normative for all Christians throughout the ages and all over the world.  In other words, the Holy Spirit was likewise promised to you.

When you accept Christ, He gives you His Spirit to take up residence within you.  The Holy Spirit then guides and leads and directs and informs and illuminates and convicts and reveals and teaches you as you too move throughout life.  That is critically important to understand because that means that your life individually and our life as a Church corporately is a continuation of the story of Acts!  The story of the Church and the Spirit’s leading of the Church therefore continues in and through us.

This is what makes the current neglect of the Holy Spirit in many of our churches so very, very tragic!  When we fail to teach and understand and, most of all, experience and walk with the Holy Spirit, we fail to appreciate the One who was given to lead us throughout life itself.  Yet, many of us do neglect the Holy Spirit and do not think often of Him.

In his wonderful book on the Holy Spirit, tellingly entitled Forgotten God, Francis Chan said this:

The benchmark of success in church services has become more about attendance than the movement of the Holy Spirit. The “entertainment” model of church was largely adopted in the 1980s and ’90s, and while it alleviated some of our boredom for a couple of hours a week, it filled our churches with self-focused consumers rather than self-sacrificing servants attuned to the Holy Spirit.  Perhaps we’re too familiar and comfortable with the current state of the church to feel the weight of the problem. But what if you grew up on a desert island with nothing but the Bible to read? Imagine being rescued after twenty years and then attending a typical evangelical church. Chances are you’d be shocked (for a whole lot of reasons, but that is another story). Having read the Scriptures outside the context of contemporary church culture, you would be convinced that the Holy Spirit is as essential to a believer’s existence as air is to staying alive. You would know that the Spirit led the first Christians to do unexplainable things, to live lives that didn’t make sense to the culture around them, and ultimately to spread the story of God’s grace around the world.

There is a big gap between what we read in Scripture about the Holy Spirit and how most believers and churches operate today.  In many modern churches, you would be stunned by the apparent absence of the Spirit in any manifest way. And this, I believe, is the crux of the problem.

If I were Satan and my ultimate goal was to thwart God’s kingdom and purposes, one of my main strategies would be to get churchgoers to ignore the Holy Spirit. The degree to which this has happened (and I would argue that it is a prolific disease in the body of Christ) is directly connected to the dissatisfaction most of us feel with and in the church. We understand something very important is missing. The feeling is so strong that some have run away from the church and God’s Word completely.

I believe that this missing something is actually a missing Someone-namely, the Holy Spirit. Without Him, people operate in their own strength and only accomplish human-size results. The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation.  And the church is not empowered to live differently from any other gathering of people without the Holy Spirit. But when believers live in the power of the Spirit, the evidence in their lives is supernatural.  The church cannot help but be different, and the world cannot help but notice…

The church becomes irrelevant when it becomes purely a human creation. We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God…

Given our talent set, experience, and education, many of us are fairly capable of living rather successfully (according to the world’s standards) without any strength from the Holy Spirit.

Even our church growth can happen without Him. Let’s be honest: If you combine a charismatic speaker, a talented worship band, and some hip, creative events, people will attend your church.  Yet this does not mean that the Holy Spirit of God is actively working and moving in the lives of the people who are coming. It simply means that you have created a space that is appealing enough to draw  people in for an hour or two on Sunday.[1]

What challenging and, frankly, terrifying words these are!  But how very, very true.  We dare not operate without the Spirit of God!  We cannot operate in the will of God without the Spirit of God!  But, foolishly, we attempt to do this very thing.

Let me ask you:  when you look back over the last twelve months, would you say that they were marked by a radical dependence upon the Spirit of God?  Would you say that you sought the Spirit’s leading, the Spirit’s guidance, and what the Spirit was saying to you?  Or did you attempt to live your life on your own terms?  If so, how did that work out for you?

To remedy this, and to prepare us for the coming year, let us consider how the Spirit led Paul and his team in Acts 16.  Here we read of the second missionary journey of Paul.  The way that Luke describes the Spirit’s activity is most helpful and teaches us a great deal about how we should learn to think of and understand the Spirit.  We will consider our text under the banner of four lessons we must learn about the Spirit’s guidance.

Learn to see the Holy Spirit’s “No’s” as “Yes’s” that are about to be revealed. (v.6-8)

Let us first notice something interesting about Luke’s record of Paul’s initial travel efforts at the beginning of the second missionary journey.

⁶ And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. ⁷ And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. ⁸ So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.

What appears to have happened is this:  Paul and his team set out for the region called “Asia” which lay due west of the city of Lystra where he had picked up Timothy.  He likely was intending to go the city of Ephesus which was in Asia.  But, Luke tells us, the Holy Spirit forbade it.  Thus, Paul sets his eyes north to the region of Bithynia and starts that way.  Luke tells us that “they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.”

Some have noted that Luke refers to “the Holy Spirit” in verse 6 and “the Spirit of Jesus” in verse 7.  There is, of course, no question that both of these are referring to the same Holy Spirit, but some have wondered that the subtle shift in designation may reference the way in which the Spirit communicated to them.  Who knows?  Rather, it is important for us to note that, in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is indeed the Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit from the Father.  There are significant implications here for our doctrine of the Trinity:  God is Father, Son, and Spirit.  We see that reality played out throughout the New Testament.

For our purposes, however, let us note the fascinating fact that the Holy Spirit says “No!” to Paul and his team twice here at the beginning of their second missionary journey.  He says “No!” to what they want to do.

But here is the crux of the matter:  His “No!” is simply a “Yes!” that is about to be revealed.

John Stott mentions a fascinating idea from A.T. Pierson concerning how the Spirit leads us in life.

A. T. Pierson in his The Acts of the Holy Spirit drew attention to what he called ‘the double guidance of the apostle and his companions’, namely, ‘on the one hand prohibition and restraint, on the other permission and constraint. They are forbidden in one direction, invited in another; one way the Spirit says “go not”; the other he calls “Come”.’ Pierson went on to give some later examples from the history of missions of this same ‘double guidance’: Livingstone tried to go to China, but God sent him to Africa instead. Before him, Carey planned to go to Polynesia in the South Seas, but God guided him to India. Judson went to India first, but was driven on to Burma. We too in our day, Pierson concludes, ‘need to trust him for guidance and rejoice equally in his restraints and constraints’.[2]

That is so well said!  “The double guidance” from the Holy Spirit:  prohibition and permission.

But here is the problem:  we, as modern spoiled Americans, have such a sense of selfish entitlement that we are too busy pouting about the prohibitions of the Spirit to see the permissions that are within them.  We are so busy sitting in the corner stewing over His “no’s” that we cannot see His “yes’s.”  And this is a great tragedy, for a willingness to see the Spirit working in the “no’s” as well as the “yes’s” is profoundly liberating.  It frees us to see God-ordained Kingdom opportunities in the otherwise unpleasant happenings in life:  demotions and cars breaking down and missed flights and hospital visits.  It frees us to see that all of these are but divine “yes’s” hidden in what we see as inconveniences and setbacks and even tragedies.

Learn to see God’s “yes’s” hidden in God’s “no’s.”

Learn to see the Holy Spirit’s guidance in both the normal decisions and the miraculous revelations. (v.9)

We must also learn to see the Spirit’s guidance in both the mundane and the spectacular.  Having just led Paul and his team through largely unspecified but apparently fairly ordinary means, the Spirit now speaks to him in a surprising way.

⁹ And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

The Spirit now speaks through a vision.  Paul sees a man saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”  This is anything but ordinary.  However, it immediately follows the Spirit’s ordinary leading.

If you step back and look at verses 6-10, you will see the two general ways that the Spirit speaks:  through normal decisions and through miraculous revelations.  The danger for us as Christians comes in forgetting that He uses both, and He seems to use the former primarily.  If a believer believes that the Spirit must speak only through dreams and visions and miraculous signs, he will attempt to manipulate the Spirit or others by unduly reading the miraculous into the ordinary or, even worse, by claiming to see the miraculous when he or she really does not.  This turns us into manipulators and consumers of the spectacular, demanding all along that the Spirit speak in shocking ways.  If, however, a person limits the Spirit to the ordinary (which, we should remember, is never merely the ordinary anyway), then he or she refuses to believe that the Spirit may yet speak through signs and wonders and visions.  This, obviously, is unfortunate for the Spirit may indeed choose to speak in such a way.

This is why it is so very refreshing to see the Holy Spirit speaking in both ways to Paul and his team.  Learn to see the Holy Spirit’s guidance in both the normal decisions and the miraculous revelations.

Learn to obey the Holy Spirit promptly and with complete commitment. (v.10-12)

And what of our response to the Spirit’s leading?  May this early missionary team’s response serve as a model to us.

¹⁰ And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. ¹¹ So, setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace, and the following day to Neapolis, ¹² and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city some days.

“Immediately we sought to go into Macedonia.”

Immediately.

Church family, have you, like Paul, resolved to go wherever the Spirit leads you?  Have you made a prior commitment, like Paul, to do as He asks without question or delay?  Amazing adventures lay before us if we will dare to put our hands to the plow with resolute courage and refuse to look back.  If He calls you, will you go?

Let us remember that our preset plans may hinder us if we elevate them above the Spirit’s leading.  There is something sad about saying, “I will live right here all my life.  I will live on this street and no other.  I will live in this town and no other.  I will not leave my parents.  My children will not leave me.  Here I stand and here I’ll die!”

But what of the Spirit’s leading?  What if He calls you to leave and to go?  What if His adventure for your life is greater than your plans and assumptions?  I ask you:  if He calls you will you go?  Will you go anywhere?

My mother and father are here this morning.  I love my parents.  They are wonderful parents.  They live in South Carolina and I live in Arkansas.  It is not easy to leave one’s parents.  I love my mom.  My mom loves me.  But I’ll tell you the greatest gift my mom ever gave me.  She told me that when I was a baby she looked at me and prayed to God and said, “He’s yours.  Do with him whatever you need to do with him.”

I grew up hearing and knowing that.  My parents set me free to follow the Lord.  I thank them for that today.

Have you done the same?  I am not saying that being a Christian means you will leave your hometown or even your street.  Not necessarily.  The Lord in His wisdom may choose for you to stay right where you are.  And, if you want to stay right where you are too, then how wonderful is that?  But what if He does not?  What if He desires you to go to Macedonia?  What if the Spirit calls and says, “Come over here!”  Will you go?

Learn to obey immediately.

Learn to see the great adventure hidden in the Holy Spirit’s “ordinary” callings. (v.13-15)

And finally, learn to see the great adventure hidden in the Holy Spirit’s “ordinary” callings.  So the Spirit shuts the door on Asia and on Bithynia.  Why?  What does the Lord have in store that is so important?  A city greater than Ephesus?  A region more strategic than Bythinia?  Let us see.

¹³ And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. ¹⁴ One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. ¹⁵ And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.

Paul and his team come upon a group of ladies sitting by the river.  The fact that they come here on the Sabbath is significant, as F.F. Bruce explains:

At Philippi…there does not appear to have been a regular synagogue. That can only mean that there were very few resident Jews; had there been ten Jewish men, they would have sufficed to constitute a synagogue. No number of women could compensate for the absence of even one man necessary to make up the quorum of ten. There was, however, a place outside the city where a number of women—either of Jewish birth or Gentiles who worshiped the God of Israel—met to go through the appointed Jewish service of prayer for the sabbath day, even if they could not constitute a valid synagogue congregation. Paul and his companions found this place, by the bank of the  river Gangites, and sat down with the women and told them the story of Jesus.[3]

The picture gets clearer.  Philippi was apparently a place with such a small Jewish population that they do not even have a synagogue.  But Paul’s custom, of course, was to go first to the synagogues.  So in the absence of a synagogue they looked for a place of prayer.  They found it.  Some ladies were there, including a lady named Lydia.  John Stott has offered some interesting insights into her name:

One of the women, named Lydia, came from Thyatira which was situated by the Hermus Valley on the other side of the Aegean, within provincial Asia. Because that area was previously the ancient kingdom of Lydia, it is possible that ‘Lydia’ was not so much her personal name as her trade name; she may have been known as ‘the Lydian lady’. Thyatira had been famed for centuries for its dyes, and an early inscription refers to a guild of dyers in the town. Lydia herself specialized in cloth treated with an expensive purple dye, and was presumably the Macedonian agent of a Thyatiran manufacturer.[4]

So the Lord opens the heart of Lydia (this “Lydian lady”) so that she can hear and receive the gospel.  She does so, is saved, and she and her family are baptized.  This is, of course, a wonderful occurrence, but I cannot help but marvel at how God’s plans deviate from the supposed sense of our own.  Meaning, if one of our missionaries were to bypass populous areas in order to go to lead one woman to the Lord, would not part of our coldly analytical minds question the wisdom of this?  Why bypass Ephesus to see this lady?  Why bypass Bithynia to see this lady?  Why bypass the big crowds to come to a place that did not even have a synagogue?

Why?  Because God gets to write the story and God gets to determine the adventure whether or not it makes sense to us.  I’ll tell you who it did make sense to:  Lydia.  She and her family believed and passed from death to life.  The Spirit sent Paul to her.  There is something so gloriously crazy about this whole story!  That God would lead Paul here…to her!  Why?  We know not, other than that God wanted it so and Lydia had her part to play in the story as well.

Do you see how the Holy Spirit leads us in surprising ways to surprising places for surprising reasons?  Do you see how Paul’s willingness to trust God led to this amazing scene of salvation?  Do you see now the folly of operating on a purely rationalistic basis and not leaving room for the Spirit’s surprise callings?

John MacArthur, Jr. summarized our text by concluding “God uses people with the right passion and the right priority, with the right personnel taking the right precautions, to make the right presentation in the right place.”[5]

Indeed!  Indeed He does!

Do not begrudge the Holy Spirit’s leading in your life.  He has amazing things He wants to do through you!

Somebody posted this on Twitter yesterday and I thought it particularly moving and powerful.  It is an image of Eve meeting a pregnant Virgin Mary.  A few things stand out.  First, the expressions on their faces:  Eve looking shamed and distraught, holding the apple, yet hopeful and awestruck with raised eyebrows as she puts her hand on Mary’s stomach.  And Mary looks understanding and consoling, putting a hand of comfort on Eve’s cheek.  Then as you look at their feet:  the serpent has Eve in its coils signifying his grasp on the sons of man and the death that he brings, yet his head is under Mary’s heel.  I saw one comment on Twitter bemoan this depiction by rightly pointing out that it is Jesus, not Mary, who crushes the serpent’s head.  But I would counter that by saying that the entire focus of this powerful image is on the coming baby.  I take the crushed head to mean that through the baby that is coming, the devil will be defeated.  Christmas does indeed signal the beginning of the end for the devil, and it was through Mary that the King of all Kings comes.

Check it out.  A truly moving idea for a Christmas image.

I’ve been to Honduras six times now.  A team from Central Baptist Church will be returning in February of next year and then again in May of 2016.  We travel under the auspices of Baptist Medical Dental Mission International.  Honduras is a special place with special people.  It is also a place, like every place, that needs Jesus.

I saw yesterday the following infographic comparing Honduras and the UK in The Daily Telegraph.  I’m posting the infographic here because it illustrates the current situation in Honduras in a pretty compelling way.  (You can go here to read the Telegraph article.)

Acts 15:36-16:5

³⁶ And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” ³⁷ Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. ³⁸ But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. ³⁹ And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, ⁴⁰ but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. ⁴¹ And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. ¹ Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. ² He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. ³ Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. ⁴ As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. ⁵ So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.

It is one of the truly ironic developments of the story of the early Church that immediately upon the heels of the masterful display of careful, reasoned, biblical conflict resolution demonstrated in the Jerusalem Council, two of the Church’s leading luminaries would have a personal falling out that would lead to them going separate ways!  It is also oddly refreshing, for it humanizes these great men and reminds us that they were just that:  men.  It also provides us an opportunity to see how two committed followers of Jesus handled a division resulting from a conflict that they simply could not figure out how to resolve in the immediate.

In other words, while the ideal is and ever will be the visible unity of the Church, we must unfortunately also consider how Christians who are going to divide should do so with as little damage caused as possible.  Such division is never desirable, of course, but it is likely sometimes unavoidable.  Thus, while we should bemoan that Paul and Barnabas parted ways at the beginning of the second missionary journey, even here we can benefit from how they do so.

It is possible to disagree and even (unfortunately) to move on to separate ministries without wishing each other ill.

The first missionary journey ended with Paul and Barnabas returning to Antioch, then being sent to Jerusalem for the Jerusalem Council, then returning again to Antioch.  It is here, in the undoubtedly heady days of the Church’s official embrace of Gentile believers that Paul proposes the next chapter of his teams missionary story.

³⁶ And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” ³⁷ Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. ³⁸ But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. ^39a And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other.

What has happened here?  Paul and Barnabas have “a sharp disagreement.”  Clinton Arnold points out that “the word translated ‘sharp disagreement’ (paroxysmos) is a rare and colorful word” that “is used only twice in the Greek Old Testament – in both instances to express ‘the furious anger’ of God.”[1]  Obviously, something has happened and something not good at all!

The roots of the problem can be traced to John Mark leaving the team in the first missionary journey.  We read of this in Acts 13.

¹³ Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem, ¹⁴ but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia.

“And John left them and returned to Jerusalem.”  He “withdrew” from them, Luke tells us in Acts 15:38.  Why?  We cannot know for certain, but, as was mentioned earlier, there may a clue in Luke’s reordering of the names in Acts 13.  In Acts 13:2, the Holy Spirit said to the Church, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”  So originally the order was (1) Barnabas then (2) Paul.  And this makes sense.  Barnabas was a respected Christian leader, had been a Christian longer than Paul, had a track record of high Christian character, and actually was instrumental in getting the Church to accept Paul as a brother.  So this ordering of words did not mean that Barnabas was more important than Paul.  It just meant that Barnabas was the natural leader of this early missionary team.

But later in Acts 13:13, at the beginning of the verse in which we learn of John Mark’s abandonment of the team, we notice that the order has changed:  “Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos…”  While we should not read too much into this, it is significant and almost certainly signifies that somewhere along the way Paul assumed leadership of the team instead of Barnabas.  There is no reason at all to think that this signifies a problem between Paul and Barnabas.  For all we know, Barnabas, recognizing Paul’s amazing giftedness, might have even recommended that Paul take the lead.  Or maybe it did bother Barnabas a bit.  Who knows?  All we know is that there is no evidence that it did, or that Barnabas took issue with it, or that he opposed it.  Paul simply came to be acknowledged as the captain of the team, and that for good reason.  But it was certainly no slight against Barnabas!

What is interesting to see, however, is that immediately after the order of the names changes, John Mark leaves the team and goes back to Jerusalem.  Why is this interesting?  Because John Mark and Barnabas were cousins.  Many have theorized, on that basis, that John Mark took issue with Paul becoming the leader instead of Barnabas remaining the leader.  Let us quickly acknowledge that we cannot know this for certain.  What we do know is that Luke changes the order of the names, Paul is established as the key leader of the early missionary endeavor, John Mark leaves the team and goes back to Jerusalem, and this action irritated Paul to, obviously, a pretty significant degree.

There is no doubt that Paul saw John Mark as having needlessly abandoned the team.  Thus, when Barnabas informed Paul that he wanted his cousin to rejoin the team, Paul had none of it.  This gave rise to an intense disagreement that, in turn, gave rise to the two men going separate ways.

Who was right and who was wrong?  Who knows?  Likely they both had a point.  Paul undoubtedly was hesitant to take back on board a man he perceived to be waffling in his commitment or maybe a man who had a personal issue with Paul.  In Paul’s defense, let us remember that this was dangerous and potentially deadly work that required complete commitment and resolve.  Paul was not being petty.  Paul knew what lay before them.  He himself had already been stoned almost to death.  Could he really be expected to take along with him a man who might still be unsure of his or of Paul’s position on the team?

And what of Barnabas’ position?  Had Barnabas not shown amazing grace to Paul and opened a door for him to be accepted by the Church after the early Church recoiled from him in uncertainty and fear?  If Barnabas had given Paul a chance, why could Paul not give John Mark a chance?  Did Paul not know what it was to have a significant change of heart?  Could John Mark not have had a similar change of heart?  Could Paul not have been more understanding, more compassionate of John Mark’s struggles, whatever they were?  In discussing this, my wife reminded me that Jesus had reinstated Peter after his denials, so why could Paul not reinstate John Mark after his desertion?  These are all good questions.

A.T. Robertson has offered a nice summary.  After pointing out that “Paul felt a lively realization of the problem of having a quitter on his hands,” Robertson said this:

No one can rightly blame Barnabas for giving his cousin John Mark a second chance nor Paul for fearing to risk him again.  One’s judgment may go with Paul, but one’s heart goes with Barnabas.[2]

That is a nice way of putting it, and Robertson is likely correct:  most of us can probably see some truth on both sides.  Even so, Paul and Barnabas conflict and they conflict in no small way.  The conflict so much that they separate.  What is interesting, however, is what Luke tells us about their separation.

^39b Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, ⁴⁰ but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. ⁴¹ And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

They separate, but their (now) respective ministries move forward for Kingdom advancement.  There is no evidence here or elsewhere that Paul or Barnabas wished each other ill or harm.  On the contrary, it is almost certainly the case that two men wished each other all the best.  They simply did so after concluding that they could no longer work together.  This is sad, but not as sad as it could be.  It was unfortunate, but it did not turn vicious and ugly.

There is a point here for us:  if you must part ways with another believer over an issue that appears unresolvable, do so in the best good will possible, cheering one another on as you go.  God, who is always able to bring some good out of bad situations, appears to have used the division for the furtherance of the gospel throughout the world as the two teams went in separate ways.

We would be remiss, however, if we did not mention a very important fact.  Later on in his life, Paul, in 2 Timothy 4, says something very telling to Timothy.

⁹ Do your best to come to me soon. ¹⁰ For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. ¹¹ Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.

Did you catch it?  “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.”  Beautiful!  Here we see the reconciliation of Paul and John Mark.  We should not miss this.  It is a critical fact:  the division was not permanent.  It did end.  They separated for a season but not forever.  In the end, they came back together.

Perhaps you have seen this before in your own life.  Perhaps you have had to part ways with a brother or sister in Christ for a season. But then God brought you back together.  You had both grown to the point where you could again work together.  Do not act in the moment in such a way that future reconciliation will be highly unlikely!  Do not burn bridges!  Always remember that your immediate division need not be a permanent division.  Keep ever before you the words of David in Psalm 133:

¹ Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!

² It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!

³ It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.

If handled rightly, temporal divisions in ministry do not have to mean that the ministries fail to prosper, grow, and advance the Kingdom.

After this unfortunate division, we see Paul and Barnabas move on with their new teams.  We do not hear about Barnabas’, but we do get a glimpse of Paul’s.  It is a picture of continued effective and strategic ministry.

¹ Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. ² He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. ³ Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. ⁴ As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.

Paul picks up Timothy in his travels.  This would be one of the most significant relationships in both men’s lives.  Interestingly, Paul circumcises Timothy.  This may strike us as odd, occurring as it did in the immediate aftermath of the Jerusalem Council’s decision not to require such external observances for a person to be saved.  However, Paul did not circumcise Timothy in order to secure his salvation.  On the contrary, Luke tells us that Paul circumcised Timothy “because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.”

In other words, Paul did not circumcise Timothy with the traditionalist Jewish converts to Christianity in mind.  He circumcised him with the non-Christian Jews whose synagogues he hoped to enter and to whom he hoped to preach the gospel in mind.  Though Timothy would have been considered Jewish because his mother was Jewish, he would not have been considered anything like a faithful or good or devout Jew because, undoubtedly under his father’s Greek influence, he had not been circumcised.  And if a failure to be circumcised was a problem for some Jewish converts to Christianity to handle, how much more so for non-Christian Jews!  His lack of circumcision would therefore be a huge impediment to the missionary task, and so Paul had him circumcised.  Paul would lay out his philosophy of avoiding offense in missions work in 1 Corinthians 10:

²³ “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. ²⁴ Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. ²⁵ Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. ²⁶ For “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” ²⁷ If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. ²⁸ But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience— ²⁹ I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? ³⁰ If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? ³¹ So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. ³² Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, ³³ just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

Seeing the Jews saved was Paul’s great passion in life.  So he removed a possible offense by having Timothy circumcised.  Then, they pressed on.  They ministered in the synagogues and proclaimed the gospel.  They also reached out to the existing churches, informing them of the Jerusalem Council’s decisions.

Our text ends on an encouraging note:

⁵ So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.

Sometimes divisions happen.  It is unfortunate when they do!  But the presence of a division does not necessarily have to mean the derailing of ministry if all involved commits themselves to not seeking to destroy each other in the process.  We do not know a whole lot about the division between Paul and Barnabas.  We have clues, but that is all.  What we do know, however, is that they proved that principle that divisions, if handled rightly, do not have to mean that the ministries fail to prosper, grow, and advance the Kingdom.

Fight for unity!

Fight for peace!

Fight for visible unity and peace!

But if, in the course of your journey, you and another Christian must part ways, do so firmly committed to lifting up the other, to guarding the unity of the Church, and to not attacking one another as enemies.  And do so ever hopeful for a reunion one day.  For whether we reunite here or in glory, we will be together again.

Let us strive to live out that glorious fact here and now.

On November 18, Christianity Today published an article by Ron Sider entitled “Tragedy, Tradition, and Opportunity in the Homosexuality Debate.”  I worked through it slowly once, then again.  I was so impressed by it that I took to Twitter to promote it and even stated there that I think the article perfectly captures my own feelings on the matter.  I also contacted Dr. Sider to thank him for the piece.

I am still deeply grateful for the piece, but after sending it to a number of friends and hearing their feedback and perceptions of the article, I think I should downgrade “perfectly” to “comes very close to” capturing my own feelings on the matter.  It’s interesting how the perception of friends can assist one in reading a text more carefully, picking up on things you miss on your own.  I have decided to post Sider’s article here and interact with it throughout.  In an effort not to be overly long, I won’t spend an excessive amount of time on those areas I agree with other than to note, briefly, why I do.

But there is one particular area that, on yet another reading, gives me pause and with which I will interact at some greater length.  You can read the original here though I am including the work in its entirety below.  (I have not asked permission from CT to do this.  Should they object to having the entire article posted, I will, of course, remove it.)  I will interact with the article throughout in this color.

Tragedy, Tradition, and Opportunity in the Homosexuality Debate

Acts 15:1-35

¹ But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” ² And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. ³ So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. ⁴ When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. ⁵ But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” ⁶ The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. ⁷ And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. ⁸ And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, ⁹ and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. ¹⁰ Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? ¹¹ But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” ¹² And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. ¹³ After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. ¹⁴ Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. ¹⁵ And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, ¹⁶ “‘After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen;
I will rebuild its ruins,
and I will restore it, ¹⁷ that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,
says the Lord, who makes these things ¹⁸ known from of old.’ ¹⁹ Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, ²⁰ but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. ²¹ For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.” ²² Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, ²³ with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. ²⁴ Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, ²⁵ it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, ²⁶ men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁷ We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. ²⁸ For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: ²⁹ that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.” ³⁰ So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. ³¹ And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. ³² And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. ³³ And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. [KJV: ³⁴ Notwithstanding it pleased Silas to abide there still.] ³⁵ But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.

Let me share with you some words from Will Willimon.

How many Christians have had their enthusiasm smothered by the bickering of the church?…These church meetings with people crowding the microphone, bickering over budgets, basing their vote on their personal prejudices rather than on the Word of God – how many Christians have had the fire of their initial enthusiasm extinguished by unpleasant church meetings?  Why can we not all act like Christians and agree?  Why does there have to be such contentiousness within the Body of Christ?[1]

These are good questions, all!  Why indeed?  Unfortunately, the Church throughout the ages has experienced a great deal of contentious strife.  This happens in our own day, but perhaps there is some comfort in knowing that it happened in the ancient Church as well.

We last saw that the early Church, when faced with a divisive and controversial issue, came together in the Spirit of God to make decisions.  We considered at that time the content of the controversy.  We saw that the critical question was this:  was Jesus enough or should the Church proclaim that salvation came through Jesus and the keeping of the Law, particularly the mark of circumcision?  Thankfully, the early Church proclaimed the sufficiency of Christ alone to save by grace alone all who would come to Him through faith, Jew and Gentile alike.

The content of the Jerusalem Council is most important, but the process of the Council is important as well.  In other words, we should consider not only what they said but how they said it.  When we do this we find that the Jerusalem Council stands as a model for how to disagree and yet maintain Christian character and witness.  Willimon states that “the method of debate in 15:7-21 is a useful guide for how the church ought to argue.”[2]  Furthermore, in the Journal of Biblical Perspectives in Leadership, J. Lyle Story wrote an article entitled, “The Jerusalem Council: A Pivotal and Instructive Paradigm,” in which he argued that “Luke uses Acts 15:1-16:5 not only to legitimize the Gentile mission, but in being one of a series of case studies that demonstrates a process of conflict–resolution–advance of the Christian message, it reveals how the Church can resolve its conflicts, which will lead to an advance in terms of internal strength and numerical growth.”[3]

This is well said.  The Jerusalem Council does “reveal how the Church can resolve its conflicts.”  The method of the Jerusalem Council will will be our focus today.

I have decided to approach this by offering seven principles for Christian conflict resolution.  They arise from the text itself and are demonstrated by the Church in Acts 15.  They stand as markers for us today and should be embraced by the Church and by Christians today just as they were then.

1.  Seek the wisdom and counsel of wise Christians outside of those immediately involved in the conflict. (v.2)

Let us first notice that when debate arose among two groups, they all agreed to seek the wisdom and counsel of wise Christians outside of those immediately involved in the conflict.

² And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.

Read that carefully.  The conflicts began in the church at Antioch between Paul and Barnabas on the one side and those Jewish believers who were advocating the necessity of circumcision on the other.  At this point, it is confined to the Antioch church.  However, Luke tells us that “Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem.”  Who appointed them?  The church at Antioch did.  Why?  Because they realized that this issue had implications that were much larger than their own congregation and they further realized that an issue this big really did need the insights and wisdom of the larger Church.  So they sent those involved in the disagreement to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem.

I ask you:  have you ever considered seeking the wisdom of a circle larger than your own?  This principle of ever-widening circles of involvement is firmly rooted in scripture.  For instance, we see this in Jesus’ instructions concerning church discipline in Matthew 18.

¹⁵ “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. ¹⁶ But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

While the situations are a bit different, the principle is clear in each:  we often need the wider voice of the Church to resolve localized conflicts and we should seek this when significant conflicts arise.  The believers at Antioch understood this.  So should we.

I have heard of churches honoring this principle in creative ways.  I have heard of a church in which two business men locked in a seemingly unresolvable conflict sought the assistance of the church.  In this case, they asked for a larger group of Christian business people to convene, to hear their sides, and then to help them resolve the problem.  They committed themselves to humbling themselves before other Christians who loved them and who sought to be impartial and objective and biblical in the matter.

Such could happen today if we determined to seek the church’s help.  Consider the wisdom of seeking help when you conflict with another Christian in ways that seem unresolvable.

2.  Do not go personal.  Treat each other with dignity. (v.5,7,13,23)

We also see an air of dignity and mutual respect in the way that the participants of the Jerusalem Council addressed each other.  Consider the terminology in the following verses.

⁵ But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”

⁷ And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

¹³ After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me.

²³ with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.

“Believers.”  “Brothers.”  “Brothers.”  “The brothers.”

What is significant is that these words are seemingly applied to the whole audience, which certainly included the brothers who were in error.  And let us remember:  one side in the debate was definitely in the wrong.  These efforts at Christian conflict resolution did not include slathering a fake and vapid veneer of toothy but empty congeniality over very real issues that needed resolution.  In the end, the brothers in error will be told in no uncertain terms that they are wrong.  But there is the point:  they were referred to as “brothers” and “believers.”  Meaning, the brothers did not allow the discussion to go personal.  Peter did not stand and say, “Hey, you vile, wicked, heretical heathens, pay attention!”  James did not stand up and say, “For starters, you guys are idiots.”  Insults like that are known as ad hominems, “to the person.”  They did not throw ad hominems at those in the wrong.  Rather, they respected their dignity as human beings and stuck to the issues at hand.

It is helpful to consider how ineffective and counterproductive personal insults are in reaching resolution.  Nobody, locked in an intense debate, has ever said, “You know, I was convinced you were wrong until you questioned my sanity and my intelligence…then I knew that you were right.”  Nobody has ever said, “I was about to walk away in disagreement until you insulted my mother…then I knew that I was in the wrong.  Thank you!”

No!  Insults degrade and tear down constructive dialogue.  Insults and personal attacks move us further from resolution, not closer to it.

The early Church did not launch personal attacks against those in error.  Rather, they treated all with dignity.

3.  Look at the question from God’s perspective and not merely from your own. (v.7-9)

What is more, they sought God’s perspective on the matter and did not restrict themselves merely to their own viewpoints.  This is evident in Peter’s words to the Council.

⁷ And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. ⁸ And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, ⁹ and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

Do you see what Peter did?  He essentially says, “Listen, let us consider how God views the matter.  God saved them just like He saved us.  God gave them the Holy Spirit just like He gave us the Holy Spirit.  God accepted them just like He accepted us.”

Essentially what Peter is doing here is taking the conversation upstairs instead of downstairs.  Taking the conversation downstairs means sinking further and further into the morass of our own agendas, our own assumptions, and our own desires to be right, to win.  Taking the conversation upstairs means ascending into God’s will together:  asking what the Lord would want in this situation, asking how He might work and guide us through these difficult issues.

G.R. Evans, in his wonderful biography of John Wyclif, quotes a 14^th century Dominican Provincial who, when faced with a difficult question and decision, “asked to be excused from answering so hard a question and advised that when his order faced difficult business (ardua negotia), it was the custom of the friars to sing a hymn and invoke the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit might guide them to the truth.”[4]

This is sage counsel.  Seek the Lord’s perspective when you conflict.

4.  Be orderly. (v.12)

And seek the Lord in an orderly manner.

¹² And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.

“And all the assembly fell silent.”  There was an orderliness about these proceedings.  The brothers in error speak.  Peter speaks.  Paul and Barnabas speak.  James speaks.  In fact, the counsel appears to be more and more orderly as it progresses.  This is a rarity in human conflict.

Our innate inclinations are to let our passions override our reason and to let conflicts grow in intensity and strife.  It would perhaps be a good idea for all of us to remember that if, in a conflict, we find ourselves speaking (1) increasingly louder, (2) increasingly faster, and (3) with increasing emotion, we and all involved would be best served if we stopped speaking altogether and took a long walk to cool down.  It is likely the case that nobody has ever regretted being quick to hear and slow to speak.  There have been regrets uncountable around the opposite behaviors, however.

5.  Let the scriptures speak over your opinions. (v.14-18)

Tellingly, James, in his concluding speech, appeals to the Bible.

¹⁴ Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. ¹⁵ And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, ¹⁶ “‘After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen;
I will rebuild its ruins,
and I will restore it, ¹⁷ that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,
says the Lord, who makes these things ¹⁸ known from of old.’

Whether we know it or not, there is a priority of sources to which we appeal in any disagreement.  The default and preferred sources are our own opinions and ego.  We do not have to be taught to appeal to our own ego and opinions.  We are born knowing how to do this.  That is, we tend to put our own feelings on any given matter in the driver’s seat when we disagree with others (and when we do not).  But this does not necessarily have to be so.  We could, for instance, allow the scriptures to speak.  James does so here, and it is refreshing that he does.

It is astounding how many Christians will abandon the primacy of the Bible when they are caught in a disagreement with somebody.  At times it appears that our commitment to the authority of the scriptures is largely theoretical.  We do not mind letting the Bible have the final say on matters of doctrine.  However, we grow more and more uncomfortable when it comes to the practical matters of living life and especially to issues of conflict resolution.

How many Christians, however, have taken to social media outlets like Facebook to (usually passively aggressively) voice their frustrations about another person instead of going to the person themselves and alone as the scriptures prescribe?  How many Christians gossip about other believers with whom they differ, attacking them behind their backs, when the Bible allows no such thing?  Why are we so quick to believe the Bible when it says, “For God so love the world…” but not when it tells us to go to those with whom we differ directly and alone and resolve the conflict?

Furthermore, when we are conflicting on controversial issues, are we content to allow the Bible to have its say?  When you think of the great hot-topic issues today, do you search your own opinions of how you think God should view an issue as opposed to searching the scriptures to see how God does in fact view the issue?  Who gets the last word?  You or the God’s Word?

For James, the definitive issue in the Jerusalem Council was, “Thus saith the Lord.”  So may it be with us as well!

6.  Fight for unity. (v.22,23,25)

And these brothers fought hard to preserve and maintain the unity of the Church as well.  Consider:

²² Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, ²³ with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.

²⁵ it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul

The Church fought for unity both in its methodology and in how it explained its decisions to the churches.  “It seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church…”  “it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord…”

They are fighting and striving for unity.  They know what is at stake.  They know that the world coming to know the gospel hinges at least to some extent on the survival and faithfulness and flourishing of God’s Church.  They are saying to those Christians awaiting a verdict, “We are together!  It is going to be ok.  We have made a decision.  We are unified.  Here is the answer and now let us unite around the gospel.”

7.  When in doubt, advance the resolution that will honor Christ, further the gospel, and strengthen the people of God. (v.31-32)

The fruit of the Council’s decision is most illuminating.

³¹ And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. ³² And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words.

The Council’s decision opened the door to unity, to joy, to encouragement, and to the strengthening of the brothers.  In short, it honored Christ, furthered the gospel, and strengthened the people of God.

G.R. Evans lists three criteria from the great 11^th/12^th century French abbot Bernard of Clairvaux which could be used in making any decision:

An exhortation of [John] Wyclif’s given at the inception of a Doctor sets out his personal idea of the academic calling.  A scholar, especially a theologian, should be honest…When he speaks or writes he should ask himself the three questions listed by Bernard of Clairvaux:  an liceat, an deceat, an expediat.  Is it allowed?  Is it appropriate?  Is it profitable?[5]

This is helpful:  “Is it allowed?  Is it appropriate?  Is it profitable?”  In the case of the Jerusalem Council they asked if their decision would ultimately profit the Church.  Will we be stronger and more faithful and healthier and better as a result of making this decision?  Will the Church be built up or destroyed?  Will this bring us closer to Jesus or further from Him?

These are questions of fruit, but the fruit of any decision can help us determine the wisdom of the decision.  If the fruit of a decision honors the Lord Jesus, advances the gospel, and unifies the Church, it is the right decision.

Brothers.  Sisters.  Hear me:  we will conflict at times.  It is inevitable.  Be it two people in this congregation or two groups in this congregation.  I thank God for the health of this church, but let us not be naïve:  conflicts will come.  When they do, what will we do?  How will we act?  Will we take the path of personal victory at all costs?  Or will we honor the Lord Jesus and His bride and choose the path of biblical, God-honoring conflict resolution.

Much depends on which path we choose.

May we choose the path that most honors Christ.

Larry Eskridge’s God’s Forever Family is a fascinating look at one of the more intriguing movements within American Christianity:  the Jesus People.  Beginning in the late 1960’s in California, the Jesus People began as a movement of Christian kids who identified with the hippie culture of the time as well as hippie kids who embraced the gospel as it was being presented in culturally relevant, fresh, attractive, and often controversial ways.  Eskridge tells of the movement’s origins in the Haight Ashbury area of San Francisco, of its geographical expansion, and of the colorful characters that played key roles in the movement’s advance, evolution, and, at times, missteps.

It is a story of indisputably passionate zeal for the gospel of the Christ.  At its best, the Jesus People introduced an enthusiasm for sincere, relevant worship and modeled a stunning boldness in evangelistic witness.  At its worst, it was a movement high on zeal but, occasionally, low on doctrinal foundations.  This made the movement at times susceptible to charismatic false teachers or ideas that could lure segments of these predominantly young people away from biblical truth and orthodoxy.

One of the major and, personally, most challenging aspects of the story was the way in which established churches responded to the movement.  At times, they did so admirably.  Though I would want to add some cautions, I think that Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel should be commended for having a great burden for these young people.  At other times, the established churches did not respond well.  I cringed to read accounts of established churches turning up their noses at these young people and their unconventional ways of speaking and dressing.  Eskridge quotes one elderly church lady’s response to being asked if she could help house a homeless young hippie.  After looking at the young man with his disheveled and unclean appearance, she responded, “That dirty thing between my clean sheets?!”  In a microcosm, that was the general response and mindset of the churches that refused to engage these young people.

Other important and very interesting aspects of the story include the birth of contemporary Christian music out of the Jesus People movement, the hijacking of certain elements of the Jesus People by David Berg’s Children of God cult, Billy Graham’s admirable openness to and championing of the Jesus People, the eastward and even international expansion of the Jesus People with greater or lesser success (depending on numerous regional factors), the communal living experiments among many of the Jesus People, and the numerous testimonies of Christians attesting to just how powerfully God moved and worked in and through this movement.

Whether you are familiar with this movement or not, you will benefit from this very well-written, extremely informative, and wonderfully engaging book.

Acts 15:1-21

¹ But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” ² And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. ³ So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. ⁴ When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. ⁵ But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” ⁶ The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. ⁷ And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. ⁸ And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, ⁹ and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. ¹⁰ Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? ¹¹ But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” ¹² And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. ¹³ After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. ¹⁴ Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. ¹⁵ And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, ¹⁶ “‘After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen;
I will rebuild its ruins,
and I will restore it, ¹⁷ that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,
says the Lord, who makes these things ¹⁸ known from of old.’ ¹⁹ Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, ²⁰ but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. ²¹ For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

R. Kent Hughes recounts a story told by Winston Churchill that is worthy of our consideration.

Winston Churchill told of a British family that went out for a picnic by a lake.  In the course of the afternoon the five-year-old son fell into the water.  Unfortunately, none of the adults could swim.  As the child was bobbing up and down and everyone on the shore was in a panic, a passerby saw the situation.  At great risk to himself, he dove in fully clothed and managed to reach the child just before he went under for the third time.  He was able to pull him out of the water and present him safe and sound to his mother.  Instead of thanking the stranger for his heroic efforts, however, the mother snapped peevishly at the rescuer, “Where’s Johnny’s cap?”[1]

That’s a jarring little story that makes a crucial point:  it is a travesty to be unable to celebrate great things because of a fixation on lesser things.  I offer this story to you because I think it might help us understand what is happening in this amazing fifteenth chapter of Acts.  If we were to use the story as an allegory for Acts 15, we might interpret it along these lines:  the little boy drowning in the lake represents the Gentile world which was lost and drowning in sin, death, and judgment.  The man who dove in and pulled the boy to shore would represent Paul, Barnabas, Peter and, indeed, all those within the early Church who felt that they should take the gospel to the nations and call all people to salvation in Christ Jesus.  The mother on the shore missing the greater good news because of a fixation on the boy’s cap would represent those Jewish converts within the Church upset that the Gentiles who were being saved had not embraced the external rite of circumcision.

The events of Acts 15 are crucial because the very future of the Church hung in the balance.  At the heart of this debate and this council was this question:  do non-Jewish converts to Christianity have to embrace circumcision in addition to accepting Christ?  In other words, was Christianity a reform movement within first century Judaism or was it something more, a truly global message for all people with worldwide ramifications?  Or, to put it yet another way:  is Jesus enough?  Is his death on the cross and His rising from the dead and his grace sufficient to save, or must we add the Jewish rites to the faith of the believer for him or her to be saved?

James Montgomery Boice has written, “The hardest of all ideas for human beings to grasp is the doctrine of salvation by grace alone.  This is because we all always want to add something to it.”[2]  I believe he is right.  We do indeed want to add something to the doctrine of salvation by grace alone.  We deep down seem to have trouble believing and accepting the amazing good news that Jesus is enough.  That struggle has always been with the Church and it is reflected in Acts 15.

The early Church wrestled with a crucial question:  Is Jesus enough?

Acts 15 is the record of the first Church council.  It is occasioned by a controversy that arose around Gentiles coming to Christ through the ministry of Paul and Barnabas.

¹ But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

On this side of the cross, and as Gentiles ourselves, we may scoff at such a question.  But to do so is to betray an ignorance of just how difficult it was for Jewish converts to understand fully the uncomfortable implications of the person and work of Christ on everything they thought they understood about holiness and salvation.  Bluntly stated, circumcision was a big deal.  It was important.  Had you grown up a Jew you would have heard and known the words of God to the great patriarch Abraham in Genesis 17.

⁹ And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹ You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, ¹³ both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

This seems clear enough.  Circumcision was the sign of covenant faithfulness and belonging.  It was a crucial outward act of obedience demonstrating, ideally, that a person’s heart was turned towards God.  As a result, circumcision was considered essential for Jews and possibly for Gentiles as well.

Craig Keener explains that some Jews felt Gentiles could be saved without circumcision so long as they kept the commandments given to Noah.  Others, however, argued that they had to convert to Judaism and receive the mark of circumcision.  Keener points out, “Josephus reported that some of his colleagues demanded the circumcision of Gentiles who had come to them for refuge, but Josephus himself forbade this requirement.”[3]

Even so, it is perhaps difficult for us to appreciate just how important the sign of circumcision was to the Jews and how difficult it was for some Jewish converts to be able to say that Gentile believers did not need to receive the sign.  Consider, for instance, these words from the Jewish book of Jubilees that was written around 180-170 B.C.

Anyone who is born whose own flesh is not circumcised on the eighth day is not from the sons of the covenant which the Lord made for Abraham since he is from the children of destruction.  And there is therefore no sign upon him so that he might belong to the Lord because he is destined to be destroyed and annihilated from the earth because he has broken the covenant of the Lord our God.[4]

Fast forward to the days of the early Church and these Jewish believers in Christ had to come to terms with just what it meant for the mark of circumcision that Christ had laid down his life.  Did the Gentiles have to be circumcised?  Was faith enough?  Were they truly clean if they did not follow the Law?

Difficult questions indeed for this first generation of believers, and it gave rise to no small controversy.

² And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. ³ So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. ⁴ When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. ⁵ But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”

Here we see the sides in the debate.  On the one hand we see Jewish Christians who said, “It is good that these Gentiles have accepted Christ.  But that is just the first step.  They now need the sign of the covenant in their flesh.”  On the other were Jewish Christians like Paul and Barnabas who said, “Not so.  It is enough that they have received the grace of God through faith.  The blood of Christ has rendered them clean.  Their hearts have been circumcised by grace through faith.  Jesus is enough.”

At this point let us simply acknowledge that the Church has struggled throughout her history with the question of whether or not Jesus is truly enough.  There is a kind of allure to the making of external rules and the establishment of a checklist by which we can “prove” that a person is or is not a good Christian.  We call this kind of thing legalism:  the legislation of external rules that ostensibly give evidence of one’s salvation.  This is very dangerous, all the more so because this kind of thinking inevitably devolves from, “Keep these rules as evidence that you are saved,” into, “Keep these rules and you will be saved.”  Thus, the rules became salvation.

Legalism has plagued the Church for ages.  William Manchester has offered a list of behaviors that were forbidden in John Calvin’s Geneva:

feasting, dancing, singing, pictures, statues, relics, church bells, organs, altar candles; “indecent or irreligious” songs, staging or attending theatrical plays; wearing rouge, jewelry, lace, or “immodest” dress; speaking disrespectfully of your betters; extravagant entertainment, swearing, gambling, playing cards, hunting, drunkenness, naming children after anyone but figures in the Old Testament; reading “immoral or irreligious books.

Some of those may make a kind of sense to us.  Others are outright strange.  But that is how legalism works!  Philip Yancey continued with this observation about Calvin’s Geneva:

A father who christened his son Claude, a name not found in the Old Testament, spent four days in jail, as did a woman whose hairdo reached an “immoral” height.  The Consistory beheaded a Child who struck his parents.  They drowned any single woman found pregnant.  In separate incidents, Calvin’s stepson and daughter-in-law were executed when found in bed with their lovers.[5]

Legalism has a tendency to turn dark and violent indeed!  Sometimes it is just silly.  Richard John Neuhaus has commented on a strange dustjacket to a C.S. Lewis book that he once saw.

Many years ago an evangelical publisher brought out a book by C. S. Lewis with his picture on the back of the dustjacket. He was holding his hand in an odd way, as though there was something in it, but there was nothing there. Around his head was a large cloud. It was, of course, a cloud of pipe smoke, but the publisher, in order not to offend, had brushed out the pipe, with the result that Lewis’ head was surrounded by this numinous nimbus. My classmates and I referred to him as See Shekinah Lewis.[6]

Some years back, while pastoring in South Georgia, I drove to Atlanta to pick up a Hispanic pastor of a Hispanic church in New York.  He was flying into town for a mission’s conference our church was hosting.  As we drove back south, we began to talk about legalism.  I mentioned to him that in most Southern Baptist churches of the South, smoking is permissible but drinking alcohol is not.  He chuckled and informed me that in the Hispanic churches of the North, they do not care if you have a glass of wine but they say that you are probably not going to Heaven if you smoke!

These are all interesting and sometimes amusing conversations, but at the heart of them is a deadly serious question:  is Jesus enough to save us?  Is the cross enough?  Is the empty tomb enough?  Should we add external and oftentimes arbitrary rules that are not revealed in God’s Word into the mix?

Peter, Paul, and Barnabas argued that Jesus was enough and that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ.

To resolve the question, the apostles and the elders all gather together to talk it through.  As I mentioned earlier, much was at stake in the Jerusalem council.

⁶ The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. ⁷ And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. ⁸ And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, ⁹ and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. ¹⁰ Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? ¹¹ But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” ¹² And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.

The council began with an open debate on the question.  One side said that Gentile converts had to be circumcised in addition to accepting Christ.  The other said rejected this and argued that Christ was enough.  Then Peter stands to speak.  In his amazing presentation he makes a couple of absolutely key points, especially in verses 8 and 9.

⁸ And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, ⁹ and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

Peter notes first that the Gentiles received the Holy Spirit just like they did.  In saying this he was stressing the equality of these groups before God as evidenced by God’s equal distribution of the Spirit to all who trusted in Christ.  Then, more bluntly, he works out the implications of this fact by concluding that God “made no distinction between us and them.”  This is the crux of the matter.  Do we all stand on level ground before the cross of Christ or not?  We do!  We share in an equality of sin and lostness, to begin with, and then, by grace through faith, we share in the equality of salvation.  He saves all who come to Him!

After going on to question the very premise behind the arguments of the pro-circumcision party by pointing out that not even they had really kept the Law, Peter offers his definitive conclusion:

¹¹ But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.

There it is!  We are all saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus!  Jew and Gentile alike!  There is one way to the Father, and it is not the physical mark of circumcision:  it is Christ!  Thus, we dare not add to the cross.

Paul and Barnabas confirm Peter’s words by offering anecdotal evidence from their first missionary journey:  the Gentiles were being saved and receiving the Holy Spirit!  God was at work among those previously considered to be outside.  They therefore agreed, we dare not add to Jesus!  He is enough!

Tullian Tchividjian, in his book Jesus + Nothing + Everything, has written movingly of the human desire to add works to the cross.

Christianity and . . . For many of us, it may be Jesus and our achievements, Jesus and our strengths, Jesus and our reputation, Jesus and our relationships, Jesus and our family’s prosperity, Jesus and our ambitions and goals and dreams, Jesus and our personal preferences and tastes and style, Jesus and our spiritual growth, Jesus and our hobbies and recreational pursuits and entertainment habits—and, especially, Jesus and our personal set of life rules.

Jesus plus X. The formula looks so innocent and harmless, even commendable (we’re helping Jesus out!). But no such equation can ever lead anywhere good. Ultimately there can be only one equation—Jesus plus nothing.[7]

“Jesus plus nothing.”

Here is the very heart of salvation.  We may thank God that the Jerusalem council repudiated legalism and exalted the work of Christ as sufficient to save us!

James agreed that salvation is a work of grace in the human heart, but showed that holy living and righteousness should be expected of those who have been saved.

Next, James the brother of Jesus stands to speak.  His presentation is powerful and needed because it reveals that while Jesus truly is enough, that does not mean that the life of the believer should not on that basis demonstrate holiness.  In other words, just because we need add nothing to Christ to be saved, that does not mean that those who have been saved by Christ should do nothing as a result.  On the contrary, coming to the Christ who saves by His grace alone means embracing His life, a life of holiness.

¹³ After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. ¹⁴ Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. ¹⁵ And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, ¹⁶ “‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, ¹⁷ that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things ¹⁸ known from of old.’ ¹⁹ Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God,

It is occasionally alleged that James and Paul were at odds over this question, but let us notice that they actually stand in absolute agreement:  Gentiles do not need to be circumcised to be saved.  Salvation is by grace received through faith alone.  This is how we are saved.  But, helpfully, James moves on to talk about what this means for the believer’s life.

²⁰ but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. ²¹ For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

Ah!  So the point is not that we should not call for holiness and right living.  The point is that we do not earn our salvation through external actions added to the work of Christ.  There is indeed a place – a very important place! – for good works in the Christian life.  But they arise out of a heart redeemed by grace through faith and are not earners of the unmerited favor of God.

There was therefore no contradiction in calling upon the believers to not eat food sacrificed to idols (thereby creating confusion in the minds of their pagan neighbors who would interpret such an act as idol worship) and to flee sexual immorality.

But here is the great difference:  the Christian flees sexual immorality not in an effort to warrant his salvation, but rather in an effort to live in trust and peace with the God who has so mercifully saved him.  The Christian does not want to do wickedness.  He flees it not with an eye toward earning a place in Heaven but with an eye toward thanking and honoring the God who made him or her and who saved him or her and who called him or her to a new way of life.  The believer now wants to cast off the cloak of sin, death, and hell and all the wickedness that goes with it.  We now want to honor our great King who laid down everything for us!

Brothers!  Sisters!  We have been saved by the grace of God!  Jesus is enough!  Jesus is enough!  Now, let us live for Him!

Acts 14:19-28

¹⁹ But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. ²⁰ But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. ²¹ When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, ²² strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. ²³ And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. ²⁴ Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. ²⁵ And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia, ²⁶ and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. ²⁷ And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. ²⁸ And they remained no little time with the disciples.

Dave Howard tells an amazing story about a Colombian pastor he worked with named Lupercio Taba.

One Sunday Taba was preaching from his pulpit when a man appeared at a side window of the church, aimed a pistol at him, and ordered him to stop preaching.  The congregation, seeing the danger, dove to the floor and hid under the pews.  Taba, however, went right on preaching the gospel.  The man then fired four shots at him.  Two shots went past the preacher’s head, one on one side, one on the other, and lodged in the wall behind him.  Two shots went past his body, one under one arm, one under the other, and also lodged in the wall.  The would-be assassin then dropped his gun and fled.  Taba, still unmoved, continued his sermon.[1]

There is something surprising and intriguing about a preacher so intent on his sermon that he does not have time to duck when shot upon.  That, friends, is focus!  I think that kind of unflinching resolve is settled upon years before in the past when a man or woman decides that obedience to the Lord God is simply more important than life itself.  That is to say, endurance arises from a clear vision of the priority of things and a determination to lay down one’s life for the first things.

Lupercio Taba did this.  Stephen did it is well, you might recall, when he was being stoned in Acts 7.

⁵⁴ Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. ⁵⁵ But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ⁵⁶ And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” ⁵⁷ But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. ⁵⁸ Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. ⁵⁹ And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰ And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Stephen also was marked by an intensity of focus that rendered him unable to panic in the face of persecution.  What makes his focus all the more amazing is that he actually died!  But he died without ever once taking his eyes off of Jesus.

Singularity of focus is the mother of determination.  Those who are fixated on one great good cannot be bothered with anything that would distract them from it!  To the extent that the Church is focused on Christ, the Church models endurance.  A weak focus on Christ walks hand in hand with a lack of endurance.  A radical focus on Christ walks hand in hand with astonishing endurance!

Jay Adams once wrote, “In counseling, week after week, I continually encounter one outstanding failure among Christians:  a lack of what the Bible calls ‘endurance’; they give up.”[2]  In the light of the example of the early believers, this is quite an indictment!

We cannot, we dare not give up!

Perhaps the patron saint of endurance and singular focus was Paul.  Watch his example in Acts 14:19-28.

Paul demonstrated a God-focused endurance and determination to spread the gospel.

Luke begins with a note of jarring, understated, blunt violence.

¹⁹ But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.

Paul was a man who knew what it was to suffer for the gospel.  Here is his testimony of suffering from 2 Corinthians 11:

^21b But whatever anyone else dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that. ²² Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. ²³ Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. ²⁴ Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; ²⁶ on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; ²⁷ in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. ²⁸ And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. ²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?

In Galatians 6:17, Paul moving writes, “From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.”  And he did!  This most unlikely convert bore beatings and stonings and whippings and imprisonment because Christ and His Kingdom were worth it!  Here, in our text, he is stoned and presumed dead.  They drag him out of the city and dropped his broken, bloodied, bruised body in a heap of dirt and dust and left him for dead.  And when his persecutors left, his friends gathered around to look at the corpse of their friend.  But God said, “Not yet!”  Watch:

²⁰ But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.

Luke, again, understates something very jarring.  In doing so, he heightens the almost bewildered humor of it all!  Imagine the disciples gathered around.  They are looking at the lifeless body of their friend.  “He was a good friend,” Barnabas said.  “He was nothing but kind to me,” said another.  “Could be a little gruff at times, but nobody could deny that he was a work of grace,” said another.  Then they pause, encircling Paul’s body, and softly weep.

Then all of a sudden:  “What are you guys standing around moping for!  We’ve got work to do!  Ouch, I’m gonna feel that in the morning!  Let’s go back into the city!”

I love it!  I absolutely love it!  What most of those who stoned Paul must have thought of seeing him walking back into town!  Ha!  What a wonderfully delicious thought!

Why does Paul go back into the city?  To chastise and rebuke his persecutors?  Nothing in the text suggests that this is why he returned.  Undoubtedly he returned to strengthen the believers there again before moving on with Barnabas to Derbe.

The great John Chrysostom captured the heart of Paul well when he said this to his ancient congregation so many years ago:

Believe me, it is possible to suffer things now worse than what Paul suffered.  Those enemies pelted him with stones, but it is now possible to pelt with words that are worse than stone.  What then must one do?  The same that he did.  He did not hate those who cast the stones.  After they dragged him out, he entered their city again, to be a benefactor to those who had done him such wrongs…He was announcing a kingdom, he was leading them away from error and bringing them to God.  Such things are worthy of crowns, worthy of proclamations by heralds, worthy of ten thousand good things, not worthy of stones.  And yet having suffered the opposite, he did the opposite to what was expected.  For this is the splendid victory.[3]

It is a victory!  There is victory in not giving up, in not quitting, in being willing to pay the price!

Paul called upon the Church to be ready to demonstrate a God-focused endurance and determination to spread the gospel.

Had Paul simply demonstrated this amazing capacity for focus and endurance in his own person, he would be forever enshrined as a singular hero but one beyond our grasp.  On the contrary, though, what he did next was to call the churches to the same focus and endurance that he himself had exhibited.

²¹ When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, ²² strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

It is a sobering thought, and one that seems oddly out of tune when placed beside modern sermons about self-esteem and happiness and success:  “encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

Paul is not saying that by tribulation we earn entry into the kingdom.  Rather, he is saying that the road of the Kingdom and to the Kingdom is, on this side of Heaven, marked by certain hardships.  Sometimes these hardships are intense, such as those suffered by Paul.  At other times they might be less so.  Regardless, it is a fact that that those seeking to live obediently to Christ will pay a price.  Another great Christian from yesteryear, Basil the Great, the 4^th century bishop of Caesarea, put it well when he said this:

The just person’s entire life is tribulation…God does rescue the holy from affliction, but he does so not by rendering them untested but by blessing them with endurance….Whoever rejects affliction deprives himself of approval.  Just as none is crowned who has no rival, so none can be pronounced worthy except through tribulations.[4]

We may be encouraged by Paul’s own example of endurance as well as by his call for the Church to be prepared to accept suffering.  We need not be caught off guard, and we need not buckle when trying times come.  Christ is with His suffering Church in the midst of her pangs.  It is the presence of Christ that enabled Paul to walk back into that city and it is the presence of Christ that enables us to be able to walk back into that board room or that living room or that school room or that church building after we have paid the price for being faithful to our King.

Paul and Barnabas organized the churches for disciple making, stability, and mission.

And it is compelling to see that Paul and Barnabas do not merely proclaim an ideal, they organize the churches for disciple making, stability, and mission.  On his return journey, heading back to Antioch, here at the end of this missionary journey, Paul strengthens and organizes the churches.

²³ And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Paul and Barnabas appoint elders in every church.  What does this mean?  As for the word (“elders”) itself, it needs to be recognized that it is used interchangeably with a few different words in the New Testament, all of which point to the same position in the Church.  Mark Dever explains.

            It is striking that in the New Testament the words “elder,” “shepherd” or “pastor,” and “bishop” or “overseer” are used interchangeably in the context of the local church office.  This is seen most clearly in Acts 20, when Paul meets with the “elders” of the church in Ephesus (v. 17).  Several verses later, Paul tells these same elders to keep watch over themselves and over the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made them “overseers” (another translation for “bishop”).  In the very next sentence, he exhorts these elders, these overseers, to “be shepherds [from the same root as ‘pastors’] of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood” (v. 28).  In the space of twelve verses, the same men are referred to as elders, overseers, and shepherds…Clearly, the New Testament refers to elders, shepherds or pastors, and bishops or overseers in the context of the local church interchangeably.[5]

So these elders would essentially be what we would refer to as pastors today.  As for Paul and Barnabas “appointing” them, does this mean that they simply unilaterally informed the young congregations as to who their elders would be?  Perhaps not.  T.C. Smith has made an interesting observation about this language of appointment.

The word which is translated appointed is cheirotonesantes, which really means “choosing by a show of hands.”  This implies a popular vote on the elders, though it seems more likely that the apostles guided the selection…We suppose that an elder held the position of overseer in the congregation and that the office was patterned after the zekenim (elders) the Jewish structure.[6]

There is some ambiguity in the actual wording of the passage as to how exactly these elders were appointed.  Perhaps there was a combination of congregational affirmation and appointment by the disciples.  Regardless, as John Polhill points out, “In the letters of Ignatius around the turn of the first/second century and in Didache 15:1, it is clear that the congregations elected their leadership.”[7]  So very early on in Christian history we see congregational involvement in the choosing of leadership and we find it elsewhere in the New Testament as well (as, for instance, in the choosing of deacons in Acts 6:1-6).

A friend of mine recently told me that he was at a pastor’s meeting and a met a local pastor for the first time.  In the course of discussing their churches, my friend mentioned that the church he pastored would soon be voting on a new minister.  To his surprise, this pastor he had only just met rebuked him and said the practice of the church choosing its ministers was wrong and unbiblical and sinful.  I would like to suggest that this is extremely wrongheaded, and the evidence would suggest that at least some measure of congregational involvement in the choosing of local church leadership is biblical.

The greater question than these technical considerations is why were these missionaries establishing elders in the churches?  It is because they knew that the local churches would require good, solid leadership to help them remain on course and faithful in the midst of very trying times.  Paul did not intend to leave the churches that God used him to plant to their own devises in the midst of ravenous wolves.  He appointed elders and organized for effective growth and continuance.

And Paul also encouraged the churches to keep pressing on!

²⁴ Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. ²⁵ And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia, ²⁶ and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. ²⁷ And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. ²⁸ And they remained no little time with the disciples.

Celebration time!  Paul and Barnabas return from their first missionary journey with tales of mighty moves of God and astounding displays of His power and grace.  They came home with soul-stirring accounts of what God was doing in the wider world and, in so doing, they gave the people a taste of what God had in store for His Church.

But let us remember Paul’s appearance as he stood before the church that sent him and Barnabas out:  he stood with tattered cloak and a battered and bruised body.

But he stood thus with a fire in his eyes like a champion in the midst of the arena.  He had conquered.  But he had not conquered by sword and spear.  He conquered in the name of Jesus.  He had conquered with the cross of God’s mercy and forgiveness and love.  He had gone forth in the name of the Lamb and born in His body the marks of the Lamb.

He was alive.

He was free.

He was a champion of the gospel calling the gathered Church to rise up and do likewise right where they were.

May we thank God for the focused, enduring, proclaiming passion of Paul and Barnabas and all the great men and women who have gone before us.

What an example!

What a privilege!

What a calling!