AD,

Mostly unpacked so I'm back!! With hopefully some new thoughts....

How can two groups from diff cultures live together in one church without on the one hand compromising the grace of Christ in legalism or on the other offending the sense of decency of some good Christian brothers and sisters? That is exactly the issue that this early church is struggling with in Acts 15. This would be no different than if I were to worship say in Bulgaria today. There would most likely be an immediate cultural clash because of customs very strange to me.

We've already established the cultural issue here was whether circumcision was necessary for salvation (15:1). Peter voiced the solution..."we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." (v 11).

James agreed referring to "all the Gentiles who bear my name" (v17). In other words, the Gentiles might remain Gentiles and still be saved. Circumcision was not necessary.

We must be clear what this council did not do. It did not require circumcision or the keeping of the sabbath or tithing or the kosher regulations. These rules marked out a Jew from a Gentile and in the end were not enforced upon Gentile Christians.

Paul would have been satisfied with the ruling for his concern with "works" and "law" in Romans and Galatians is not with moral rules, but with those practices that marked out Jew from Gentile. That they were not necessary for salvation is a point of agreement between Paul and the council.

We also need to be clear about the nature of worship in the early church. Christians met in homes. A city church would have many cells each with perhaps a maximum of 60 people depending on the size of the house. At each service the central feature was a meal with a loaf of bread broken in the beginning and shared with a cup of wine at the end. In between would be a potluck meal. So Jew and Gentile believers would be eating together.

Therefore Pauline discussion of food in 1 Cor 8-10 and Romans 14 was to assist a church in living together. It had nothing to do with regulating private behavior.

So what does this all mean in the context of Acts? All of them have to do with the Mosaic law drawn from Leviticus 17-18. The first issue in those chapters in Lev is the sacrificing of an animal to anything other than Yahweh or even sacrificing it to him outside the appointed place. Thus a Jew would find it impossible to eat meath that came from a sacrifice to a god other than Yahweh. Most meat found in pagan markets was in some way associated with idols. Paul does not believe that this contaminates the meat (1 Cor 8-10) although he rules out going to a meal in an idol temple. He stated clearly that love would make one refuse to offend a weaker brother (a Jew) on this issue.

The other issue in Lev is that of blood. There were two ways in which blood might e eaten. In many cultures blood was eaten directly as in blood sausage and pudding. In some cultures the manner of slaughter might lead to retention of blood in the meat maybe even deliberatly to keep it tenderer. But neither of these ways were acceptable to the Jews. It must be poured out.

The third issue in Lev 17-18 is that of inappropriate sexual relations. It would be highly disturbing to a Jew to have table fellowship at the Lord's table with a person who had an inappropriate relationship. Paul opposes just such a relation in 1 Cor 5.

What we are talking about then is Paul's rule of love in Romans 14 summed up...."The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteeousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17).

If the Gentile Christians would keep the minimal food standards not so much in what they did privately at home but in what they brought to church or served Jewish believers, and if they would observe minimal rules of sexual decency, then Jews and Gentiles could live and function together in the church. As long as the principles were based on love and unity Paul had no problem. Only when the legal rituals became a means of salvation then he put his foot down.

Go to Rev 2:14,20 and you'll see a similar rule put here. There are examples of Christians in the early church who felt bound by the rules. But at the same time there is often an observing of the rules and an ignoring of the reasons for them. Even now in different cultures these things still can come up with strange culture clashes. In some cultures it might be the way a woman dresses that might offend. If we adopted their cultural patterns we might feel a rigid legalism upon us that would stifle our growth.

Paul should be our guide. He clearly prohibits sexual immorality for ALL Christians everywhere, leaving the dietary rules to our own conscience before God and our love for our fellow Christians.

AD POSTS #204


Hello AD,

I'd like add some more thoughts on the matter of Acts 15 in an attempt to close this part of the discussion before I break away from JU for the Thanksgiving holiday.

V. 1 "certain men" are those Jewish Christians who had belonged to the sect of the Pharisees.

"teaching the brethren" are those Gentile Christians.

"Unless" Means you observe the Law of Moses generally, in all its regualations as food, purifications, etc.

The matter in dispute was an important one and it was decided to submit it to the APostles as a body. If the opinion held by the Jewish Christians had been generally accepted, the admission of the Gentiles into the early Church's fold would have resulted in dissension and utter disunity. The Chruch's growth would have been fettered and the Old COvenant itself would have lost its real character as an introduction to Christianity being fulfilled by CHrist's Cross and the New and everlasting Covenant in His BLood.

In order to settle the question, Sts. Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem to consult with Peter and the other Apostles. After much discussion, St.Peter rose up and said, "Men, brethren, you know that in the former days (about 9 years previously) GOd made choice among us, that the Gentiles, by my mouth should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe. ANd God who knoweth the hearts gave them testimony, giving to them the Holy Ghost as well as to us, and made no difference between us (who were circumcised Jews) and them, (the uncircumcised Gentiles)purifying their hearts by faith. Now, therefore why tempt you God to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear. But by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we believed to be saved, even as they." When St. Peter finished speaking, "all the multitude held their peace. v. 12.

Then James, the apostles known as James the Less, and bishop of Jerusalem, spoke (which KFC has already well explained). It was then decided by the whole Council of Jerusalem, the decree written down. Again, the decree has two parts, one dogmatic and moral; the other disciplinary. After this, Sts. Paul and Barnabas travel to ANtioch and delivered the decree to the Church there.

So good to see you back, your thoughts here are "sharp as a tack."

My Thanksgiving prayer for all...

Good and gracious God we come before You united with all who give You thanks and praise. Fill us with gratitude for Your many blessings both physical and spiritual. In Jesus, your Son, Our Lord who gives all things freely according to our needs. Continue to bless us and give us Your peace. Amen.

The BLOG that would not die!!! da! da! da! DAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

The (boring) blog that would not die!

Hey wash your mouth out SC.....  

Reply By: SanChoninoPosted: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 The BLOG that would not die!!! da! da! da! DAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! The (boring) blog that would not die!

is not {boring}

Reply By: KFC Kickin For ChristPosted: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 Hey wash your mouth out SC.....

yeh! wiff the white stuff you scrape off of battery posts!!

Jeez, what are you guys talkin' about here.

Clearly Jesus was neither Jewish nor Christian, but was a noble prophet of Allah the Mighty, as is taught to us by Mohammed. After being spirited away by the Imam Ali, (unlike the false teaching of his crucifixion, clearly God substituted someone in his place)he remains in paradise, until the day when he returns at the head of the Mahdi Army alongside of the twelveth Imam, to cleanse the earth of foul unbelievers.

And as to whether he was real, I mean come on, you can see his footprints in the stone at the Dome of the Rock, and his fingerprints etched into one of the pillars.

Allah Karim dudes,
I'm going downstairs to eat a nice juicy ham sandwich........

Jesus definitely was not a Christian, as Christians follow Christ and Jesus WAS Christ. He did not have to follow himself, since he WAS himself.

Spc Nobody Special,

There is a saying that what can be freely asserted can be freely denied.

Christ is God...and the only holy religion revealed by God is Old Covenant Judaism fulfilled by Christ in the New and Everlasting Covenant.

You use the word "clearly" twice....."clear" only to those who believe in the heretical doctrines designed by Mohammed.

Reply By: lulapilgrim

Ah, you missed my ususal DELICATE note of sarcasm. Also, spend some more time in comparitive religious studies (know thine enemy as thyself and in a thousand battles you will never lose. 2nd Armarments 3:16.....or Sun Tzu, whichever). I'm a christian, albeit not necessarily a great one, and my politics are pretty heavy on the right. I'll give you that I haven't blogged much for eight months since I've been busy in Iraq, (I'm also in the army, and home on leave halfway through a deployment) but even if you haven't read any of my stuff, the dead giveaway is Muslims don't do pork. It's haram. Forbidden. No way Jose. Hence the ham sandwich joke.

I haven't read the Koran in awhile, but I do believe that most of the dietary laws included a lot of the crap from Leviticus and Numbers that Jewish dietary law was based off of. In that climate and conditions, they were good not only for keeping you spiritually clean, failure to follow them was a good way to end up dead from contagion.

I got it...lol....the Ham Sandwich was a DEAD giveaway.

  

My apologies to all for my delayed reply as I am out of town and will be taking a class this week in Dallas, TX.



KFC, your case is built upon a false premise.

28 For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; 29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well. (Acts 15:28-29; KJV)

You even disprove yourself by stating the reference points in Leviticus that show these two aspects as being Torah based.

....

What I see you stumbling on is this notion that Salvation came through Torah. It NEVER came through Torah. Never did and never will. You drive down the right side of the street and stop at stop signs but probably don't consider yourself a legalist to the rules of the US roads do you?

Salvation always has and always WILL come through the shedding of blood (in the NT case the blood of Messiah) and repentance.

Two things rooted in Torah as KFC, clearly pointed out.


On a different note:

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!