As Luke tells us, after Paul’s conversion he spends two years in Arabia and then a year in Damascus and Tarsus before Barnabas is sent to look for him and bring him to Antioch where they spend a year teaching until they are commissioned as missionaries. Together, they spend the next ten years traveling and planting churches. They periodically return to Antioch to give reports of their hardships and their success. Throughout those ten years Paul has run-ins and struggles with Jewish believers (the Judaizers) who insist that new believers be circumcised and follow the dietary laws. So, at the end of ten years or fourteen years after his conversion, the first major church council is convened in Jerusalem with the leaders of the church – James and Peter – to decide the issue. Paul and Barnabas travel to Jerusalem to represent the young churches and make their case for Gentiles not being required to convert to Judaism.

In a way, it’s a surprise they were able to go for fourteen years before dealing with this issue – especially as strongly it was felt by some that being a follower of Jesus required following the Law. How had they managed to avoid the issue for so long? Clearly, the church was not being micro-managed from headquarters and there was probably some sense of hoping it would simply work itself out. Not much chance of that given Paul’s personality and the persistence of the Judaizers. It had to come to a head sooner or later.

Acts 15:

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.” 2 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. 3 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. 4 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. 5 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.” 6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7 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. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10 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? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” 12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. 13 When they finished, James spoke up. “Brothers,” he said, “listen to me. 14 Simon[a] has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles. 19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 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. 21 For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

The Council’s Letter to Gentile Believers
The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings.

24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell.

30 So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. 31 The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message.

1.  Why only those three rules? Why not five or ten more? Why not Sabbath or tithing? Why not insist they obey the whole Law or at least the ten commandments? There were hundreds of rules from which to choose and they specifically chose these three: abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood and meat of strangled animals (kosher) and from sexual immorality. There must have been good reason to be so specific.

What were the concerns of the Council? They were concerned that the Gentiles would get unhooked from Judaism and lose themselves in the spirit of the age, that they would be absorbed back into the culture from which they came. On their own, there was nothing to separate them and these three would do that. It would not require them to become Jews but it would, if obeyed, make them distinct.

I don’t think they were men clutching at the past. Had they been, they would have required far more of the Gentile believers. Instead, I think they were looking ahead from a particular tradition realizing they were becoming larger and more diverse than a small sect of Jewish believers. They were figuring out how to deal with growth and change as best they could. They did not want to lose their traditions but they did not want to send the Gentiles off with no link to their roots.

It was not unlike parents wanting to let go, knowing they could not follow but wanting to give some final wisdom and connection that would keep the new believers on the right path. Do you remember the holograph of Superman’s father, Jorel, in the cave? He could not follow but he could send something with the young boy.

Think of it this way. They were giving the new believers luggage for the journey. They were not loading them down with a burden. They were giving them some basic things they would need for the future.

I am not sure we could have given as much latitude as they did. In fact, even though two of three rules are so outdated we don’t even think about them as being relevant, do we? Would we be as secure as they were, especially if we had to reduce the non-negotiables to just three things. What would we choose? What would we say are the absolutes and the core values about our faith without which we would lose our identity? That’s probably harder to do than we realize.

Yet, if you get away from those few things you inevitably drift toward legalism. If you do not focus on the fewest core principles you will begin to add rules and regulations to make sure people obey. You end up with what we have now. No one can be trusted to believe in the principles so we have to implement thousands of pages of rules.

2.  What then are the underlying principles of these three observances. What is packed in the luggage for them?

First, in a world full of images and beliefs that are worthless, empty and weightless there is one true God who alone is real. Everything else is vain. But, the temptation of idols is hard to resist. They are attractive – even practical – and they seduce slowly and unnoticeably. They draw us in and we hardly realize it when the trap snaps shut and we are caught. So, we need something tangible that reminds us of how dangerous and subtle they are. Don’t get too familiar with people who worship idols.

Second, in a world that is so caught up in lust there is a place for purity. As Paul says so well in Romans 1, the world has exchanged the truth of God for a lie and have suppressed the truth. Their thinking has become darkened and a dead-end. They have given their minds over to depravity and justified it by refusing to retain the knowledge of God. Every good thing – not just sex – has become an object of their lust and they long to have what is not theirs.

Third, in a world that cares little about life there is a place that sees it as God-given, almost holy. While those early Christians lived in places where rulers had absolutely no regard for life and turned sacrifice into sport the Christians were to recognize that life belongs to God and is entrusted to us.

3.  What do these observances represent for these Greek believers? What is the gift the Council is giving them? I like to think about it as a trail of crumbs they will have to find their way home if they get lost.

More than that, it was the DNA for true religion they could use to recreate what is extinguished. They were the stem cells, the very basic elements from which they could restart.

They were a life preserver for the deep waters that would keep them from drowning in the flood that surrounded and at times overwhelmed.

Fix your eyes on the one true God. Hold fast to the value of life. Keep the church pure and free from lust of all kinds.

These are the three distinctives that the culture in which you live cannot counterfeit. Hold to them and you will be safe.

4.  But times change. Cultures change and the spirit of the age is different now. It may be the Church today requires different advice and we need to find new principles. Maybe we need to convene a new Council and pick different requirements. Meat offered to idols and strangled animals are not a problem, are they?

But perhaps the Spirit of the age is the same and we just need to find different requirements to serve as bread crumbs, DNA and life jackets. We still need reminding daily even if the rituals are different. We still need some basics that reinforce for us that there is only one God and everything else is weightless and empty; that moral purity is essential and it is not just a personal choice but immorality corrupts the whole church. The whole church is affected by lust and darkened thinking; and we need reminding that life is precious and it belongs to God.

But, maybe, we do need a new Council because we have become the church at Jerusalem and there is a need to not burden new believers and those who are turning to God with our rules and regulations. Maybe it is not necessary to be a traditional Christian to turn to God. Converts can love Christ without the labels and burdens we might impose on them – and every Jerusalem has burdens that they have become used to and expect others to follow. Maybe the established church has the same role as the Council – support efforts to reach new people and that’s okay. Not everyone can stretch and there is no reason to ask the Jerusalem church to become the Gentile church. We may be closer to the conditions of the earliest church than we think. There is a great shift going on now. The center of the church is shifting from the West to the South. People are calling themselves Christ followers and not Christians because Christian now connotes a political agenda. People are leaving institutions and joining movements. People are leaving traditional churches and hoping to be more in touch with the Spirit than the structure. How will we respond?

5.  I know how Paul responded because he tells us in Galatians.

Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2 I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. 3 Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. 4 This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5 We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 6 As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. 7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised,[a] just as Peter had been to the circumcised.[b] 8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas[c] and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

Did you catch that? “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.” What happened to the other three? It’s a fair question and not unlike Paul to change things around when he saw fit. Essentially, Paul realized better than those held in high esteem that the horse was out of the barn. While the intent of the leaders had been good, it would have eventually stifled the growth of the church. For Paul, the one requirement above all others was the same as Jesus had left the disciples. Love one another. Sacrifice for each other. Practice humility and self-control not for simply for personal growth but for the maturity of the Body. For Paul, the only DNA was the work and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It was not a well-defined system or set of policies and procedures. It was interpreted in many diverse ways but if the Spirit was not present then there was no church at all. The core for Paul was “love one another” and that is what he taught wherever he went. How do we nail that down to a particular set of rituals and practices? Unfortunately, we cannot so every generation must interpret the new commandment. How do we love one another? That is our distinctive identity – not regulations. That is what has always made the church so messy and impossible to control. We don’t have a Constitution or set of fast rules that tell us what to do in every situation – other than love one another. The rituals and regulations are right for a season but they are not eternal. What is eternal is vague and still fundamental. Love one another.

So, if the principle is permanent – love one another as I have loved you – then what are the three requirements we have in our luggage for the journey.

First, take care of each other: “Bear one another’s burdens”
Second, submit to one another: “In humility value others above yourselves”
Third, your life is not your own: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.”

I know. It is much easier to follow food laws and well-defined regulations. That way we know who is in and who is out. We know where we stand and how we are doing. We have a set of sure guidelines for the practice of church. But then Paul comes along and says, “The entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor as yourself.” But, that is what makes the church supernatural. It is the impossible command that can only be done through the power of the Holy Spirit. Everything else – growth, miracles, organization, power, influence – we can do on our own but one thing we are lacking. It is that one thing alone that makes us the Church – we love one another.