May 14, 2017 – Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 15:1-18 Jerusalem Council

Standards

This is a turning point in the life of faith. Without this conversation, we’re probably all keeping kosher, circumcising, and worshipping on Saturday. This is a really big deal.

One group of believers says that one set of rules must be followed. That unless one is circumcised according to the rule of Moses, one cannot be saved. Another group of believers, Paul and Barnabus among them, disagrees. So Paul and Barnabus decide to head to Jerusalem to have a conversation with the elders and apostles, you know, the Session.

So we have a ruckus in the church, the early church. Peter testifies what God has done, and that the mission to the Gentiles had been handed over to him. Peter tells what God has done, and that God makes no distinction between ‘us and them.’ And then Peter asks why the church would hold new believers to a standard that they had not been able to meet. Instead, Peter asserts that they were saved by grace as we were…

And then Paul and Barnabus speak about what God has done with the Gentiles that they have witnessed, and that God chose the people from among the Gentiles once, so why not again.

We still have these conversations – what must we do to be saved? How much must we be transformed? What must we do? And what must God do, or have done? What conversations are we having now about these things?

833 – O Love That Wilt Not Let me Go

321 – The Church’s One Foundation

318 – In Christ there is no East or West