Two for the Price of One

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Don Merritt

Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Acts 15:36-41

In this brief passage we get some interesting insight into the humanity of these two New Testament giants. I think that in passages like this, it is best to take the text at face value, resisting the temptation to fill in the gaps with speculation and opinions that the text itself doesn’t quite provide. In that spirit, here’s what we actually know about the incident: Paul had an idea that he and Barnabas ought to retrace their first journey’s steps and see how the churches were doing that they had established. Barnabas thought they should take Mark along on the trip and Paul did not because he hadn’t completed the first one; they couldn’t agree on this, so they didn’t go on the trip Paul suggested. In the aftermath of this, Barnabas and Mark went to Cyprus, and Paul took Silas through Syria and beyond. At this point, Luke hasn’t told us where Barnabas and Mark went after Cyprus or where Paul and Silas went after Cilicia.

Here’s what Luke did not tell us: He did not tell us that there was a personal break between the two men, there is no mention of drama, just that they had a sharp disagreement, which doesn’t necessarily mean they fell out. You also might have noticed that neither of the men got mad and left the church or spread division and gossip about the other; they just didn’t decide to go on the trip Paul suggested. Unless Luke provides details later, or Paul does in one of his letters, that’s the story.

Do you see, dear reader what I’m doing here?

I’m quite familiar with what many commentators like to do with this story at this point in a study of Acts, filling in details that aren’t in the text. The problem with that is that if we allow ourselves to indulge in such speculation, we tend to miss something really cool: Instead of one missionary trip, there will be two, and thus these two guys, by having a disagreement, just doubled the Gospel’s reach. Have you ever asked yourself why our disagreements result in division and discord, and their disagreement benefitted the Gospel? You see, these early “greats” were still human, and the early church wasn’t perfect or without the humanity of its members, but at least in this instance, the parties involved responded by building the Kingdom twice as fast, instead of just being pissed off and sulking.

Personally, I think there’s a great lesson for us here; don’t you?

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The Conference in Jerusalem (2)

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Don Merritt

The apostles and elders met to consider this question. After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.  He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

Acts 15:6-11

As the Jerusalem council begins in earnest, there is much discussion of the proposition that Gentiles must be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses before they can be saved by grace. Peter rose to speak, and in a single paragraph spoke volumes to those assembled. First of all, he reminds the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem church that he requested their blessing to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles, and that they had assented to his request. Then he pointed out that God Himself had made the choice to give the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles. This was a sort of “kill shot” for the Pharisaic contingent that insisted Gentiles must become circumcised Jews before being Christians, since it was obvious that God had made no such requirement of them.

He cinches the argument in the next sentence:

He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith

With his point fairly won, Peter now points a rhetorical finger at his opponents:

Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?

Game over.

After Paul and Barnabas tell their story, James stepped up to agree with Peter and actually offered a sort of compromise: They would not demand circumcision (which was basically a joke) but require that the Gentiles follow certain Mosaic principles

Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For the Law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. (15:20)

James’ idea was agreed to, and the letter was drafted and delivered to Antioch by a delegation appointed for that purpose (15:22-35). The believers in Antioch received the delegation and the letter they bore with obvious relief, and the matter was settled… sort of.  As I noted before, circumcision would keep coming up as time passed, and those Mosaic principles would only last for a time.

Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, working to build the church there and strengthening the body of believers, but as we will see next time, nothing stays the same for long.

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Photo of the Week: June 15, 2016

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Don Merritt

That cool water looks pretty inviting right about now…

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The Conference in Jerusalem

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Don Merritt

Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.

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

Acts 15:1-5

This is where one of the great controversies of the first century began; certain Jewish believers started teaching that Gentiles must be circumcised before they could receive God’s grace, for after all; God’s grace was really intended just for the Jews… right?

A conference is held in Jerusalem to decide the question and the Antioch (predominantly Gentile) church sends Paul and Barnabas as its representatives.

As the text tells us, they were warmly welcomed when they arrived in Jerusalem, and they began to tell the apostles and elders, all about everything that God had done through them among the Gentiles. It was at this point that certain believers from “the party of the Pharisees” make their assertion that Gentiles must first be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses.

This assertion has some very serious problems: First, every man who reads this can tell you that an adult male will only submit to circumcision if one of three things is present:

  1. Superhuman faith.
  2. Extreme levels of an intoxicating substance.
  3. Overwhelming force.

Unless one or more of three factors is present, anyone who comes at that particular region of a male with a knife is not likely to live to tell the tale; we’re funny like that. As a result, this could be seen as a rather thinly veiled way to keep Gentiles out of the church.

Secondly, what these men were trying to do is to mix covenants, which is a theological error of immense proportion that a great part of the New Testament is written to warn us against. Two excellent examples of this are the entire books of Galatians and Hebrews which both make the case that the Law is over and done with, that the Old Covenant is “obsolete” and will “soon disappear” (Heb. 8:13). As hard as the New Testament authors tried to prevent this, the controversy continued throughout the first century, yet a controversy is one thing, the real disaster happened a few centuries later.

When the Roman Emperor Constantine decreed that Christianity was to be legal in the Empire, that was a pretty good thing, but then he went a step further and made it the official state religion, but in doing so, he gave the theologians of the day a real quandary, for the New Covenant does not make a theocracy, for it teaches that the Kingdom of God is not of this world, and theocratic government is very much of this world. Their solution was to introduce certain parts of the Old Covenant into their theology so that Christianity could be a state religion. The result of this mixture of theologies is that we have been fighting amongst ourselves ever since, and all too often the cause of our disputes can be traced back to gross error.

In our time, we have in many places, a similar impulse as those Pharisaic brothers at the Jerusalem conference. We see this manifest when we tell a new believer that he or she must believe and do something or other to be a Christian. We might tell someone, for example, that they must so many classes or sign a creed or doctrinal statement, or we might tell them that they must first stop smoking or sinning or get their lives in order before they can be a Christian, but that isn’t the Gospel that Jesus and the Apostles taught, and it isn’t what we read about in Acts 2:38. The Good News is that you don’t have to get your act together to receive Jesus Christ, and that by receiving Him; the Holy Spirit will come and help you to get your act together.

When we get together next time, we will find out what the brothers at the conference had to say about the Pharisses’ assertion…

 

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An Incredible Adventure

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Don Merritt

Acts 14

And so Paul and Barnabas moved on to Iconium, where a great number of both Jews and Gentiles received their message; they performed signs and miracles to confirm the Word of Truth as they went along through the town, and they ministered boldly for quite some time. Of course not everyone accepted the Truth, and opposition rose up to the message culminating in plot by leading Jews, together with leading Gentiles to cause bodily harm to the two men, and they were forced to move on to Lystra.

In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. (14:8-10)

That had quite an impact on the crowd, but not quite the kind of impact Paul had expected, for the Gentiles took this as a sign that they were embodiments of pagan gods. When Paul and Barnabas realized this, they reacted:

“Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them. (14:15-18)

Some Jews arrived in town from Antioch and Iconium who turned the people against them, and Paul was stoned in the streets, his body dragged out of town and left for dead, but he was not dead; they moved on to Derbe.

They were well-received in Derbe, where a large number were moved to follow The Way, after which Paul and Barnabas retraced their steps, strengthening and encouraging the fledgling churches there, appointing elders and telling them that, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (14:22). Finally, they arrived back in Antioch, where they told the church everything that they had encountered on their incredible adventure.

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Paul Steps into the Limelight

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Don Merritt

Acts 13:13-52

When the time came, Paul, Barnabas and John Mark left Cyprus and sailed for Asia Minor. For whatever reason, Mark decided he had had enough and went home; Luke does not tell us why he did that, thus we can only speculate. The rest of the party set out for Pisidian Antioch which was quite a distance inland, beyond the Tarsus Mountains. Upon arrival, they proceeded to the synagogue, where Paul stepped up as the leader and delivered a barn-burner of a message.

As had Peter before him, Paul went through the history of Israel, showing the chain of events that had led to the present day and the preeminence of Jesus, the Son of God. The Jews who were present, along with a number of Gentile converts were electrified by his message, and you might be too if you read it; it was certainly one for the ages. Afterwards, the leaders of the synagogue invited them back the following week to teach further about Jesus.

So far, so good.

The following Sabbath, not only the synagogue members, but the whole town came out to hear what Paul would say Apparently, the Jewish leaders were upset by this; Luke says they were jealous of Paul. I don’t know about you, but this makes me wonder… what had they expected; didn’t they know that this young Paul was a real up-and–comer… a Pharisee among Pharisees? Surely they knew that he was one of those young men who would later be called the “best and the brightest” of their generations…

Whatever the case may have been, they turned on Paul and Barnabas, contradicting them and heaping abuse on them:

Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us:

“‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

Acts 13:46-47

Two things jump out at me here: The first, and obvious one is that this is the pattern we have seen before; the gospel is proclaimed first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. Second is a point that many will have a problem with: When the Jewish leaders decide for whatever reason to reject the message of Christ, Paul and Barnabas were done with them. Neither Paul nor Barnabas got down on their knees begging them to reconsider, and no, they didn’t share the love… the Jewish leaders turned on the message, and the messengers turned on the Jewish leaders. In doing this, they shared God’s love with the ones who were still receptive to it; the Gentiles.

The result?

When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed. (13:48)

The Jewish leaders weren’t quite finished; they stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, who withdrew from the area, but the Word spread throughout the region

I must admit that this is a tough lesson, maybe that’s why many commentators don’t speak of it as plainly as I just did, but Paul had warned them the week before when he quoted the prophet:

“‘Look, you scoffers,
wonder and perish,
for I am going to do something in your days
that you would never believe,
even if someone told you.’” (Acts 13:41; c.f. Hab. 1:5)

For Paul and Barnabas it was on to Iconium…

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In the Still of the Morning

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Don Merritt

Maybe I’m just a morning person, maybe you think I’m nuts, but morning is my favorite time of day.  I think it’s worth it to enjoy the stillness of the early morning light.  I took this photo very early one  morning.  The air was warm, the birds were singing and other than that all was quiet; the scene was glorious…

I sat by the water and reflected on the greatness of our God, recalling those great characters of the Scriptures who have gone before, and how often they did the same thing that I was doing.

Give ear to my words, O Lord,
    consider my sighing. 
Listen to my cry for help, 
    my King and my God, 
    for to you I pray.
In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice;
    in the morning I lay my requests before you
    and wait in expectation.

Psalm 5:1-3

There is nothing like reflection and prayer in the early morning stillness, before the bustle of the day begins.  It sets our sights on the goal, it sets our minds in the right direction. The whole day will be better, our walk with Christ will be closer, and somehow life makes sense after all.

Yes, it’s true; there’s nothing like the stillness of the morning!

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The Road Trip Begins

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Don Merritt

Acts 13:4-12

Saul, Barnabas and Mark sailed to the island of Cyprus, and when they arrived, they began to proclaim the Word of God in the synagogues. There was a certain Roman proconsul named Sergius Paulus who sent for Saul and Barnabas because he wanted to hear the Word of God. Yet he had a sorcerer in his entourage named Bar-Jesus (Elymas) who was a Jewish false prophet; here the story begins…

Elymas was opposed to the Word, and did all that he could to turn his master against the message that Saul and Barnabas were teaching. Apparently, Saul, under the leading of Holy Spirit, turned on Elymas:

Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. (13:9-11)

This is a very interesting few verses, for not only does the story take an unusual twist, but it contains three very interesting elements. First is that Saul was also being called Paul, and so was he known thereafter. Second, we have the third time that God, through the Holy Spirit takes decisive punitive action against someone in the book Acts, the other two being the story of Ananias and Sapphira, and most recently, Herod. In this, rather than striking the man dead, He made the man blind, and that is the second time someone who was attempting to stop the Word has been struck blind; Paul himself having been the other.

The third thing is this: In Scripture, blindness is an apocalyptic element. It symbolizes an inability to see the Truth of God’s message, which was certainly true for both Saul in his early persecution of the church, and for Elymas the false prophet. When each was struck with blindness, it was a stark dramatization of their spiritual condition. On the other hand, when we see Jesus restoring sight to the blind, we see an illustration of the work of Spirit in restoring lost humanity to a spiritual condition in which they can see Jesus and the truth He spoke in their rightful light.

This little demonstration was not lost on Sergius Paulus:

When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord. (13:12)

Will it be lost on us?

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The Path of Life

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Don Merritt

The path of life is not a wide one that is full of traffic and congestion, it is more quiet than that.  It isn’t a great highway, it’s more like a quiet country lane…

Maybe if your life’s path is full of noise and traffic you should take the next exit and get on that other road.

As you walk along, you come across many things, some are beautiful, some not.  There are turns, twists, hills and dips.  Sometimes you come across a cool and refreshing stream, other times you go a long way in the hot sun, with dust and bugs all around.  As you move along you come across places where you can’t see much because of the high brush on either side… and then there’s a fork and you must decide which way to go.

On such a lane you might want to notice the footprints of those who’ve gone before.  If they have gone one way at the fork in the path, you get the idea that this is the way to follow…

There have been many who have gone down the path of life before us, and the legacy they left for us was to follow the footprints of the One who made the path in the first place; following those footsteps will get us to the end of life’s path, right where there is a little narrow gate: Go through that gate and enter in to eternal life, for Jesus has told us all about it:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Matt. 7:13-14

Yes, when you get to the gate go right on in, those who have gone before, and the One who made the path will be glad to see ytou’ve made it home.

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Pastoral Scenes

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Don Merritt

I’ve always wanted to live in a rural setting, but up to this point I haven’t made it happen.  I grew up in the big city, moved to a small town and now live in an urban setting once again.

I realize that wherever you live there are advantages and disadvantages; I’m better at dealing with urban disadvantages than rural ones…  but there’s something about a rural setting that has a pull on me.

Maybe it’s just the novelty of it when I visit, but it seems like you can be closer to God in the country.  The air is pure, nature is all around and you can hear the birds and crickets instead of trucks, sirens, horns and people shouting. Yet, there is really more to it, I think.  When God created man, He put the man into a garden and the man had the job of tending the garden for God.  In the country, man and God are working together again to craft nature for a life-sustaining purpose; maybe that’s it.

Or, maybe that’s just my imagination getting the best of me!

In any event, I like to visit the countryside, to have my ears ringing because of the absence of noise and to breathe in clear air.  It has the effect of renewal for me, and it gives me a chance to hear that still small voice that tells me I’m in good hands and within loving arms that never grow tired.

Thank you Lord for times spent in pastoral settings…

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