“Church meetings, smeetings”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Acts 15: 1-11 (Forward, p. 86) CEV p. 1152

I have often said, “I thank my God that He sent His only begotten Son—and not a committee. I say this because sometimes committees, and meetings in general, are the bane of my existence. Not only do they take up lots of time, talk and effort, but sometimes they get precious little done.

Meetings, however, have always been with us. In today’s passage we hear of the proceedings of one of the early church meetings, what has been called the Council of Jerusalem. This one—as is often the case, was called on account of necessity—of necessity because someone had raised an issue that needed to be dealt with.

And here was an issue that not only needed to be dealt with but was urgent. It concerned a matter of life and death, of eternal life, in fact. It had to do with nothing less than salvation and how it was to be achieved.

It had arisen because some Pharisees who had become believers insisted that Gentiles had to be circumcised in order to become Christians. Now, here the text is somewhat ambiguous. In verse 1, we read, “Some people came from Judea and started teaching the Lord’s followers that they could not be saved unless they were circumcised as Moses had taught.” This is pretty plain: no circumcision = no salvation. In other words, we have to do something in order to be saved. So, there goes the idea that salvation is based solely upon God’s unearned, undeserved favour, and not on anything that we do. That way, it is no longer a gift, no longer grace. It is no longer by faith alone in what God has done for us.

However, in verse 5, some Pharisees are recorded as saying, “Gentiles who have faith in the Lord must be circumcised and told to obey the Law of Moses.” So, here we have faith plus something else, in this case circumcision and obedience to the Law—which then, has the same effect. It is no longer faith alone. Now, in case we would want to be unduly critical, this kind of thinking happens frequently in Christian circles: ‘faith and baptism, faith and observance, faith and Sunday attendance, faith and the ‘proper’ kind of dress, or faith and acceptance of certain beliefs. Whatever way you put it; it is no longer faith alone that saves the person.

Here, however, the apostle Peter squashes all these suppositions. He merely reminds his listeners of what God had done previously. God had shown His acceptance of the Gentile believers in Caesarea by bestowing upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit simply on account of their faith (verse 8). (See also Acts 10). Nothing else was required on their part. And, by Peter’s reasoning, if God had said that they were ‘okay’, then how can we decide otherwise.

So, what came of this impassioned plea on the part of Peter? (We don’t hear the outcome in the above passage, but it comes in verses 12-22a). Here we see several things. Firstly, Barnabas and Paul recounted the wonderful things God had done among the Gentiles. Then, James, the Lord’s brother, in speaking to the crowd, reminds them that this exactly lines up with what the Scriptures had foretold (Amos 9:11-12). He suggests then that they should then expect nothing more of these Gentile believers than some very minimal requirements:

Eating no food offered to idols

Eating no meat that has been strangled or still has its blood in it

Not indulging in sexual immortality.

Having already decided upon our basis for salvation, then what do these four things amount to? These four things were especially offensive to practicing Jews, especially with their recent history with the nasty Seleucid kings, who not only subjugated them but also required them to indulge in these four things. And so, these minimal injunctions were both a sop to these folks and their all too raw recent memory, but also a tangible way of saying to them that they had been heard.

And so, we find something very interesting—and instructive—within this church meeting. There is, on the one hand, appeals to the Holy Spirit, to Scripture and to experience, but there is also a very real attempt to listen and to hear out others of a varying point of view or persuasion. Surely, both these would be useful in our meetings today.

Forward notes (using Acts 15:12-22a) “Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God” (verse 19).

“I think it’s human nature to be exclusive. There’s excitement and delight in being part of something that feels elite.

“When I worked at a church in the suburbs of Los Angeles, our staff received access to Club 33 in Disneyland, thanks to a particular parishioner. It remains one of the most exclusive places I’ve ever visited and continues to be one of my few sources of ‘name-dropping.’

“When our churches adopt an exclusive attitude, we have a problem. It may not even be intentional. Sometimes, we assume a guest knows all the ins and outs of our liturgy and the locations of all the exits and restrooms. Other times, we add conditions before someone can be part of (and participate in) the community. An extreme example occurs when people are awarded different statuses based on how much money they give to the church. I wonder what Jesus would say about some of our practices, intentional or not, that keep people who want to turn to God away from us.”

Moving Forward: “Imagine attending your church for the first time. Would you find it inclusive or exclusive? What changes need to be made?”

[Note: Club 33 is a private, rather exclusive, dining lounge in the various Disney attractions, originally reserved for corporate donors but now open to membership by individual patrons.]