Acts 15:13-21 Bible Teaching

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Okay, we left off three weeks ago in Jerusalem where Paul and Barnabas traveled from Antioch to discuss the topic of whether Gentile converts must be circumcised.

All the other apostles and the Elders from Jerusalem were present to hear the pros and cons of the situation.

Remember, some Jews who had converted to Christ were insisting that all converts must be circumcised in order to be saved.

Three weeks ago we covered what Peter, who stood up first said to their petition and how he ended with (verse 10)
Acts 15.13-21
January 8th 2017
Milk
Acts 15:10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.

Then we read verse 12 which says:

12 Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.

And then . . .

13 And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: (which is where we will pick it back up today) . . . . So James says, Now listen to me (verse 14)

14 Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.
15 And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,
16 After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:
17 That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.
18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.
19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:
20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
21 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.

There are some passages here that can easily be misunderstood and so we’ll try and make our way through so that doesn’t happen.

Back to verse 13

And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:

As you know there are two apostles named James. The first is John’s older brother and the other is known as James the Less, who was related to the Lord. He is known as the Son of Alpheus which distinguishes him from the elder James and they think he is known as the less because he was small in stature.

We know that this has to be this James because the brother of John James was beheaded by Herod in Acts chapter 12, becoming our first Apostle to be martyred.

According to 1st Corinthians 15 James the Less had a after resurrection conversation with the Lord, he is the author of the Book of James and it is believed (in part because of his role here) that he was the one who actually presided over the Church in Jerusalem.

I think I mentioned last week that if Peter was truly the Pope given the keys by Christ to govern the entire Church that once he had spoken the thinking would have been done. But the fact that both Paul and James voice their opinions after illustrate this to be a religious myth.

So he says, “Listen to me . . .” and he says

(verse 14) Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.

Simeon is a Hebrew name and James being a Hebrew uses it. The Greek way to write Simeon is Simon and it was Jesus who called him Petras (Peter in English)

“Simeon has declared how God at first did visit (another way to read this in the Greek is God selected) the Gentiles to take out of them a people.”

Now, let’s talk about this for a minute. We know that way back in the day, at the beginning of the human race even, God selected, created, formed Adam and then Eve to be His children.

A fail.

He then, out from the human race chose a man of Faith named Abraham to father a people who God would make a people.

Abraham was not alone on earth when God called Him out of Ur of the Chaldees – there were Chaldeans running all over da place.

I mention this because out from among the human populace God called unto Him a people. They, of course, were to perform some really important things in God’s plan to redeem the world.

Did God love the Chaldee’s (and others?) Of course. But he chose to use some of the Children of Abraham to bring about His plan to redeem them all and to bear His name to the World.

This is why we read God saying in Numbers 6:27 “And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them.”

Now that the Gospel was going out to all the world – all people – James says that God did this to take from out of the Gentiles . . . “a people for His name.”

Are there other people who do not bear His name on earth (amidst those who do?) Of course. They just aren’t bearers of His name, meaning they are not His, not His Children, Not His Sons and Daughters.

Again, are they His creations. Certainly. Does He love them? More than we can believe. But there are those who are literally His – so much to that they bear His Name – the highest appellation a human being can receive – to call Yahway their Father, their Papa – and for Him to call us His Sons or daughters.

So this was at least one reason He reached out to the Gentile nations (according to James the Less) to take out from among them “a people for His name.”

In the face of this every Christian has a couple questions to ask themselves. First, are we one of those people and second, what does this look like?

The answer to the first question, “Are we one of those people” is answered through another question:

Do we have faith in His Only Begotten Son? Do we believe He is the way, truth and life? That He is the only way to the Father, and we receive Him by faith?

If so, we are among them that have been called out “for His name.”

The second question, “what does it look like to be called out for His name?” and the answer to this is really, really easy – it looks like His Only Begotten Son because His Only Begotten Son was the first among us to actually bear His name – as the Son of God – the Son of Yahway. if He bore that name so well that on a number of occasions God said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” and with this being the case we know that by following Him we too will be well pleasing to the Father.

So if Jesus was worldly let us be worldly.
If He was unforgiving don’t forgive!
If He was a bitter be bitter. And
If He was selfish be selfish.

But since He was selfless . . .
And giving (even of His own life) . . .
And healing, and kind, and did not judge, and forgave all, and made a Kingdom not of this world but of the world to come . . . well, you get the drift.

To bear the name of God, to actually be His children, then we would bear the image and ways of His Only Begotten Son.

This is how it is in the human world right? McCraney’s are very McCraney-ish in my world. We are opinionated, and stand up to wrong, and have issues with authority, and can be fierce, and can get into all sorts of mischief . . . this is what it has meant to be “a child of McCraney.”

(HollyWeed?)

So now ask yourselves, “what does it mean to be a daughter or son of your earthly father and mother?”

What comes with that name?

And then let’s all remember that we have been “born from above,” that this is not us, that we are all new creatures in Christ, God’s children, and therefore embody Him and His ways and not the things of our flesh or of our natural fathers.

The dash board on one of our cars is out and so I have no way of knowing where I am in relation to gas.

Someone was using that car for a few days and when I got it back I drove Mary to work in the morning and ran out of gas. I also forgot my wallet at home.

So I walked to a corner Shell station and took my new laptop and my cell phone and went in, picked up a gas can and approached the counter.

I explained my situation and asked if I could take the can and a couple gallons of gas and go get my wallet to repay.

“Nope.” Came the answer, snippy and without any sort of compassion.

I said, “I have a very expensive laptop here and my cell phone (which was dead, by the way so stop thinking of solutions for me will you) “and I will leave them with . . .”

“Nope,” she interrupted. “I will come back – I need this laptop and my . . .

“nope. Nope. Nope.”
The Son of William McCraney was rising up in my heart.

“Why?” I asked.

She moved her head side to side, “cause we aren’t in the barter business, that’s why.”

“But I’m not bartering. I’m using these items as security.”

(beat)

“Nope.”

I was boiling over inside. Raging! It wasn’t so much the rejection as it was the attitude. So condescending. So cold and snide.

And traits of my father were at full attention in that moment – ready to act.

I thought of throwing a brick through the window, slashing her tires, and then when reason took over . . . (beat) and I was thinking more rationally . . . (beat) I thought I’d come back to the place, take up hundreds of items to the counter, let her ring them all up, . . . and then tell her I didn’t want them and walk out.

Inflamed by the ways of my flesh that come with my name. As I walked back to the car the spirit started working on me.

“Shawn, you have wanted to know what its like to be a common man in the world – with your tattoos and hair and dress – now you know.”

“Oh,” I thought.

And the notion to get revenge popped right back up and I decided to asked the Father of our Spirits what He had to say, and I heard (in my heart) a very clear message:

“Don’t you believe that I am capable of teaching her?”

And the desire so revenge melted away in the light of His wisdom, and in the person of my Father . . . and yours.

So James has said that God, through Simon Peter, had selected the Gentiles to receive the Good News so as to collect a people for His name and then he adds:

15 And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,

At this point James cites the Old Testament – Amos 9:11-12 to be exact – to prove that the prophets of the Old Testament spoke of the day when God would reach out to the Gentiles to gather more under His name.

This was important, to these questioning Pharisees, what the scripture had to say, as it is very important to us – by the Spirit.

Now we encounter something really interesting about James citation of Amos (or at least Luke’s recording of what James said) – he cites from the book but what we have here, once again, is neither verbatim in the Hebrew nor from the Greek translation of the Hebrew in the Septuagint.

The 17th verse is directly from the Septuagint but verse 16 only the general sense of the passage is retained.

In my estimation this does not affect the meaning but what it does do is it illustrates that it is not the exact words but the Spirit of them that matters – information that is really valuable when dealing with King James Onliest folks who demand exact quotations from that specific translation.

Now, what we read here, unless we approach it very carefully, can be misunderstood and used to describe something that is simply not true.

That something is to believe that verse 16 is a futuristic promise or prophecy that is talking about the rebuilding of the temple at the coming of Christ – a position errantly posed by futurists.

I want to read verse 16 (which again is citing Amos) very carefully –

16 After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:

Again, James is citing this then – while He is responding to the Church in Jerusalem and talking about the Gentiles getting the Gospel.

Have the gentiles been given the greenlight to receive the Gospel at this time?

They have. James is reminding his audience that Simon Peter opened this door. And James uses verse 16 and 17 to connect what it says in Amos to prove this.

Was the temple and Jerusalem standing when James said this to the Jews there? They certainly were.

So while Amos appears to be speaking of the rebuilding of the city and the temple of David it cannot be speaking of this.

Why?

In verse 16 James quotes Amos who says . . . “and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down.”

When James said this the temple was NOT fallen down so we know that Amos was using the phrase the tabernacle of David which had “fallen down” to mean something other than the actual tent (or even temple).

In other words, James cites Amos who in his day spoke of this as a passed event!

And we know that James could NOT use it to refer to a future event (like when the temple falls in 70 AD) or he would have said, “which will be fallen down.”

So what did Amos mean when he wrote, “and will build again the tabernacle of David which (all the way back in his day) IS fallen down?”

When Amos wrote the House of Israel was in bondage to Babylon and this was imagery of the House or tabernacle of David having fallen down.

It’s as simple as that.

And the way we KNOW that this was how the Jews would understand this is when James quoted the passage none of these questioning knowledgeable Jews challenged him on his interpretation.

The tabernacle of David, in their eyes, had fallen down when the Nation was in captivity and that is what this passage was referring to – and cannot be used by the futurist machinations to support their view that this passage speaks of a future falling and then a future rebuilding of the temple.

In any case, James cites verse 16 and 17 from Amos and says:

16 After this (captivity) I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David (the Nation of Israel), which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: (even the Jewish Rabbi’s have always believed that God was speaking of the time when He would give them their Messiah) (and verse 17) and to James point here relative to the Gentiles

17 That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.

Again, if we were to really do a study of these two passages and what is actually said in the Old Testament in the Hebrew and the Greek it would take a month and in the end the variations cannot be explained.

However the general sense is not materially different – in the day of the Messiah, who would come and rebuild the Nation which had fallen, the residue of men – the Gentiles – would begin to seek after the Lord too.

That was a lot of discussion to explain this, wasn’t it. Nevertheless, the explanation was important.
And then James adds:

18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

The apparent meaning James seems to have in saying this is God sees everything – past, present, future – and He knows what He will accomplish through His plan among men.

We know that from before the beginning – before Adam – God knew. That in His work through the COI, He knew and had a plan and all his works are so arranged in his mind that He will achieve what He wants.

KNOWN UNTO GOD ARE ALL HIS WORKS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD.

Now, upon this statement I am forced – I must – pause and speak to something that drives me crazy. It is something that is the result of long discussions about Man, his free will, God’s sovereignty, and God’s desires and will.

I speak to it frequently because I am honestly of the opinion that our understanding of it is lacking and narrow.

So, Known unto God are all his Works from the Beginning of the World.

What do YOU think are His desires? Some say this, others that – but what could they be?

If or since He is a God we are to trust, and believe, and look to, wouldn’t it be fair to say that all of His desires are good?

I say so. So that is the first point I would like to propose – God’s desires from the beginning have all been nothing but good.

The second question is then does He force His desires upon humankind? Looking at the very first couple – Adam and Eve – we can say no. No force.

He knows ALL things from the beginning.
His desires are good.
But He does Not Force.

Finally, knowing all things from the beginning, does God GET his desires?

In my opinion this is where things get sticky. Since He does NOT force human beings it is doubtful that He gets all that He wants. It’s not that He couldn’t get all He wants but free will is paramount to Him and His goodness therefore being good and including His allowing us to choose, He must not get His will all the time entirely.

We might imagine that God desires that all human beings would choose Him all the time. But this is not the case and being good, He allows or permits it.

This leads us to a final point – there is a difference in scripture between God’s permissive will and His expressed will.

His permissive will takes into account our free will decisions – and while He might desire us to do something other than what we choose He allows Man to make their choice – come what may.

We see this over and over again in scripture – from the Fall of Adam, to the practice of polygamy, to a number of other instances (like people rejecting His only begotten Son while in the flesh) that God allows us permissively to do what we will.

However, God also has an expressed will – and there is NOTHING on earth that will circumvent or stop that from happening.

In such things He will have His way. Wrapping it all up, there is a place in scripture according to the Greek, where His expressed will is made.

For instance, we read in 1st Timothy 2:4

“Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”

Do you know what the Greek says God’s will is in this verse? It’s permissive. He would love to have all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth but He will not make it happen.

Men are free.

Nevertheless, God is greater than men. and from the beginning He has not only known all things He brings about His firm or expected will through them.

This brings us to another verse, that says something similar to 1st Timothy. It’s in
2nd Peter 3:9 where we read:

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

The Greek here is His expressed will – so while he would love for all to be saved, He is NOT WILLING that any should perish but that ALL should come to repentance – and all will.

That is good news. That is the power of an all Good God who, knowing all things from the beginning, has presented a magnificent plan whereby all people – all – will come to repentance and NONE will perish.

He has made this possible by and through His only begotten Son. At this point James voices his view of things and says (verse 19)

19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:

In the language that a judge would give James says I now judge the matter (as the Greek word is Krino).

The King James says, my sentence is, but the Greek means, “I now give my judgment.

This is not to affirm that James was the authority and final voice – but he actually as nobody else steps up to comment any more.

And what does he say? First,

that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:

Let’s back off on these folks and stop trying to impose on them unnecessary and burdensome rites and ceremonies. And . . . (verse 20)

20 . . . that we write unto them, (we send a written message out to the Gentile converts – a direct proof that the apostles would write and communicate their insights to them)

And he gives four specific things that they avoid.

that 1. they abstain from pollutions of idols, and 2. from fornication, and 3. from things strangled, and 4. from blood.

Take note of a few things. They had gathered to talk about the Gentiles – who had no written law given them by God prior – needing to BE circumcised.

James says, “let’s leave them alone.” But then he adds what they ought to avoid.

We also note that in the four items given he says nothing about drinking alcohol (which was abundance in the pagan world) nothing about Sabbath observances, nothing about tithes, nothing about dress. He names four things. Why these four things?

Remember, we have to try and see everything in the context of the time, the circumstances, and what the early church was up against.

Here we had Pharisees that had come to faith, and were demanding that the Gentiles get circumcised as a means to be saved. But in midst of a thousand opportunities to divide with each other, James writes and tells these Gentile converts (in that day and age) that they ought to avoid just four –

1. they abstain from pollutions of idols, and
2. from fornication, and
3. from things strangled, and
4. from blood.

Now we’ll break these down in a moment before we wrap everything up, but I would suggest first of all that these are all related and not just random things these gentile believers needed to avoid.

In and around that ancient world paganism – and all that it entailed – was rampant.

Nothing was more repellant to Jews than pagan idolatry and so a gentile converts involvement in anything related to its activities would have caused tremendous division. So James believed that they ought to tell Gentile converts to avoid connection to this side of heathenism – specifically four areas, including:

Abstain from pollutions of idols.

The word “abstain” from pollutions generally means refrain from all things associated with idols but here James seems to especially mean eating the flesh of animals sacrifices to idols.

It was one thing for the Jews to eat common foods WITH common men but to have these common men eating meat that was first sacrificed to idols was too much.

We know from 1st Corinthians 10:25-29 that the meat, after being offered in idolatrous sacrifice, was often sold in the open markets or was served up at feasts.

It became a very important question whether it was right for Christians to partake of it. The Jews would contend that to eat it was, in fact, partaking in the idolatry.

But the Gentile converts would allege that they did not eat it as a sacrifice to idols nor that it lent to them being idolators.

As idolatry was forbidden to the Jews in every form, and as partaking even of the sacrifices to idols, in their feasts, might seem to “countenance” or “endorse” idolatry, the Jews would be utterly opposed to it; and so – here we go – for the sake of peace, James advised that they be recommended to abstain from this activity.

Paul would later say eat what you want unless it would offend others.

Now listen, is this a problem today? Not directly. I suppose in some ways we might stretch ourselves to even see that the meats offered up in markets have been sacrificed to the idols of capitalism but such thinking is a stretch.

But if someone is fine with eating such (if such is around) Paul later says, let them eat. Besides, the concern really has no basis in our world today – at least in civilized countries.

Now to a biggie – fornication.

This has been a real question in commentators minds. Why would James include this when it was pretty obvious that fornication ought to be avoided by people converted to God through Christ.

Well, for starters, maybe it wasn’t so obvious to the Gentile converts. But I think there is something more to this being said here.

The word used here–porneia—can mean any sort of sexual licentiousness in any form.

The trouble is James’ comments (and the debates surrounding the circumstances at hand) have been all about adherence to the ceremonial law and not the moral law – so why add in something about the moral law to the Gentiles?

Some commentators have supposed that James speaks here is referring to “the offerings” which harlots would make in their idol worship and I tend to think this is the case and not just James mentioning fornication.

Commentators Beza, Selden, and Schleusner all think that the word, while referring to sexual sin, was actually meant to mean idolatry, as it is frequently used in scripture to mean “unfaithfulness to God,” which is why adultery in the Old Testament typically means idolatry.

One Bible commentator (Heringius) believes that James is speaking of Christians marrying non-believers but, we ought to try and stick with the usual interpretation of the word which again, refers to any sort of sexual sin. I just think its mentioned because it was part of the heathen pagan rites. And then another tie to pagan rites:

3. AND FROM THINGS STRANGLED

That is, from animals or birds that were killed without shedding their brood. The reason why these were considered by the Jews unlawful to be eaten was, that thus they would be under a necessity of eating blood, which was positively forbidden by the law.

Hence it was commanded in the law, that when any beast or fowl was taken in a snare, the blood should be poured out before it was lawful to be eaten, Le 17:13.
And finally

Four: AND FROM BLOOD

The eating of blood was strictly forbidden to the Jews. The reason of this was that it contained the life (Leviticus 17:11,14)

The use of blood was common among the heathens. They drank it at their sacrifices, and in making covenants or compacts. To separate the Jews from them in this respect was one design of the prohibition.

All of this was for them at that time.

We do not typically face similar quandries. But if we do – if you happen to be at an event of idol worship where fornication is occurring, animals are being strangled and their blood ingested – remember these words of James, will you?

James concludes with verse 21

21 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.

The meaning of this verse seems to be that the law of Moses, which prohibited these things, was read in the synagogues constantly.

And because this was still going on in that day (the Jews were reading the Law of Moses and all of its warnings of these things) they were to comply in these four areas until, at least, when the Law of Moses would be lesser known in the world among believers.

Let’s top here.

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Welcome
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Silence

Okay, we left off three weeks ago in Jerusalem where Paul and Barnabas traveled from Antioch to discuss the topic of whether Gentile converts must be circumcised.

All the other apostles and the Elders from Jerusalem were present to hear the pros and cons of the situation.

Remember, some Jews who had converted to Christ were insisting that all converts must be circumcised in order to be saved.

Three weeks ago we covered what Peter, who stood up first said to their petition and how he ended with (verse 10)
Acts 15:10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.

Then we read verse 12 which says:

12 Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.

And then . . .

13 And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: (which is where we will pick it back up today) . . . . So James says, Now listen to me (verse 14)

14 Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.
15 And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,
16 After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:
17 That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.
18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.
19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:
20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
21 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.