Settling Controversies, Dealing with Our Differences

This morning, we are going to look at Acts 15 and the first five verses of Acts 16. What do we find in these chapters?

First, in Acts 15:1-29, we find the apostles and the elders in Jerusalem settle a controversy about what non-Jews must do to be saved. Then, in Acts 15:30–16:5, we find Paul and his associates encouraging the believers with the decision that was reached in Jerusalem. Notice that Acts 16:4 mentions this decision, showing that that event is in mind all the way through to that point in Luke’s narrative.

So, in this passage we are told of some kind of controversy that threatened to break up the church. But the crisis is averted. The unity of the church is preserved.

Now anyone who knows anything about the church knows there are lots of troubling things that have succeeded in breaking us all up. Here we see a crisis avoided, but we also see hints that things will not always work out so well.

Luke speaks honestly and tells his history accurately. The church has to deal with controversies, disagreements, troubles, even divisions. There is a lot that is at work against us, trying to break us up.

The unity of the people of God is one of the themes of this passage that I want us to consider this morning. It is an important subject, more important than many Christians today really ever consider. We have become comfortable, content even, with the things that threaten to divide us. We have forgotten Jesus’s prayer for his people, in John 17, where he prayed that those who believe in him would “all be one” so that the world would see that Jesus is in fact the savior of the world. In Christ, all of us who believe in Jesus have been unified. We must confront the various challenges that threaten to destroy that unity. And we must make this a very high priority.

This passage today stresses how important this is, emphasizing the demarcation and distinctiveness of God’s people, while also helping us think through the disagreements that we who are counted as God’s people will also have to work through.

The Demarcation of God’s People

First, the demarcation of God’s people. A demarcation is something which determines the boundary or limits of something. If the people of God are going to be unified, then there has to be some way of demarcating them.

The Sign of Circumcision

We are here in Acts 15, after Paul and Barnabas have completed their missionary journey and returned to the church in Antioch, declaring “all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:21). But then certain men from Judea came to visit this church, and they were teaching this: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

In verse 2 we are told that Paul and Barnabas “had no small dissension and debate with them.” That is “good classical understatement”; this was a point of major contention.[1]When Paul and Barnabas arrive in Jerusalem for a meeting with the apostles and elders to resolve the matter, we again are told what the position of their opponents was. Verse 15 says that “some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees” were making the argument that, “It is necessary to circumcise [the Gentile Christians] and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” And in verse 7 we are told again that there was much debate over the matter.

Let’s see if we can understand both sides of the debate.

This side that Paul and Barnabas disagreed with was making the argument that the Gentiles who had come to believe in Jesus needed to be circumcised and needed to “keep the law of Moses” in order to be saved. We might think, “Here are these legalistic Pharisees telling people they have to earn their salvation by doing good works.” But that isn’t quite what is going on here.

Circumcision was not so much a “good work” as it was a boundary marker, a line of demarcation. It was commanded by the law of Moses, not because God says it is immoral to be uncircumcised, but because God made circumcision a sign of his covenant with Israel. It was the sign that indicated who belonged to the covenant people of God. The issue being debated here is not about whether one needs to do good works in order to be saved, as much as we might want to read it that way, but whether one needs to become a Jew in order to be rightly identified with the people of God.

And if you think this isn’t an issue any more, then just ask another Christian, “Who are God’s people in the middle east?” There are a whole lot of Christians who will say, “Israel” or “the Jews,” without any hesitation. That answer effectively sides with the circumcision party here in Acts 15.

This makes sense given the belief that faith in Jesus was faith in Jesus as Israel’s Messiah. If you believe that Jesus has brought Israel’s story to completion, not scrapped it but fulfilled it, then surely one who wants in on what Jesus has done needs to come all the way in to that Jewish story to enjoy all the benefits. Right?

Saved by Grace

Well, wrong. Decisively wrong. Now we hear the argument from the other side.

“After there had been much debate,” verse 7 says, Peter took the floor. He recounted his own experience of ministry to the Gentiles, the one we were told about in Acts 10. And what Peter says here, in verses 8-11, must be read as Peter’s argument against the necessity of circumcision for Gentile converts. So, when he says, “we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus,” we must not all of a sudden turn back and read the argument for circumcision as an argument for the performance of moral good deeds.

Again, it is tempting to do that because we have assumed that this is what the whole point of the gospel and of salvation is all about. Are we saved by doing good deeds or are we saved by grace, regardless of our deeds? Every Protestant Christian knows the answer to that question. But I don’t think that that is the question that is here on the table, and if we miss this, we are missing a very important point.

One reason we might miss this is because of the word salvation. In this context, to be saved is the same thing as being counted as one of God’s people. The circumcision argument is: “These Gentiles have believed in Jesus, like we have. Great. But they still need to come all the way in and actually become Jews if they want to be counted as the people of God.”

But, “No,” says Peter. They will be saved the same way we Jews will be saved: by the grace of the Lord Jesus.

Troubling the People of God

There is a sense in which this “grace” is contrasted with “works,” but it will not do to think of grace as “doing nothing” rather than the “doing something” suggested by “works.”

In verse 10, Peter says that to require the Gentiles to become Jewish—to be circumcised and to commit themselves to observance of the Mosaic Law—would be to put a yoke on their necks that not even the Jews had been able to bear. This is a strange way for a Jew to speak; there is plenty of evidence of Jews speaking of the yoke of the Law as a joyful privilege.[2] We can think of the 119th Psalm, and its 176-verse celebration of and love for the law of God. But with great privilege comes great responsibility, and to be defined as the people of God by adherence to the Mosaic Law was certainly a great responsibility. It was a responsibility that everyone knew Israel could not bear. Israel’s failure had led them to exile rather than to being the vessels of salvation for the rest of the world. Israel was to be a light to the nations, but they had been overcome by darkness themselves.

It is clear as we read on that to contend for salvation by grace and not by works cannot mean salvation without doing anything. As Paul says elsewhere,

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Eph 2:8-10).

There is an implicit connection between grace and the good works of salvation that God does expect his people to walk in. Keep reading and you’ll see that this is of concern here, too.

The Distinctiveness of God’s People

You see, there must be something distinct about the people of God. The line of demarcation is “the grace of the Lord Jesus,” but the distinctiveness of God’s people is another way by which they should be identified.

The Council’s Decision

Notice that after Peter speaks in verses 7-11, “the assembly fell silent.” No one could argue with what he said. The Gentiles who heard the word of the gospel and believed were given the same Holy Spirit that the Jewish believers had received in Acts 2. This is proof that God has “made no distinction between” the Jew and Gentile believers. Barnabas and Paul took the opportunity to share their account of what God had done through them among the Gentiles. It was further evidence for what Peter had just argued.

And that’s when James takes the floor. This is James the brother of Jesus, and many would probably assume he would be partial to the circumcision party. In Galatians, Paul speaks of “certain men” who “came from James” to Antioch and calls them “the circumcision party.” Their presence had caused Peter to stop eating with the Gentiles, something that Paul denounced as conduct that “was not in step with the truth of the gospel” (Gal 2:11-14). But that was before this council had been convened, and undoubtedly James had not yet been able to think the issue all the way through. What he says here leaves no doubt that he was persuaded by the arguments of Peter and Paul and Barnabas.

After all, he saw in Peter’s testimony of his ministry among the Gentiles validation from the words of the prophets, especially Amos 9:11-12, which he cites in verses 16-17.  Here is another Old Testament prophecy about eschatology, the “last days” when God would finally act decisively. When that happens, not only will God restore the fallen dynasty of David, but the result of that restoration will be that the rest of humanity will seek the Lord, yes, even “the Gentiles who are called by my name.”

Notice that last expression. The Gentiles being called by God’s name is critical to what James has now concluded. The phrase is used regularly to refer to Israel as God’s chosen people, but in using it in reference to Gentiles, it suggests that when this prophecy has been fulfilled, the Gentiles, too, will be identified as God’s people without any need for them to first become Jews.[3]

If God has taken from among the Gentiles a people for his name, then the question has been answered. Such believing Gentiles are counted as members of God’s family as Gentiles. There is nothing else they need to do. They certainly do not need to now become Jews. Indeed, to do so would undermine the whole gospel message, because it would suggest that God’s decisive moment had not yet come. Or, as Paul writes to the Galatians, it would mean that Christ has died in vain (Gal 2:21).

Flee from Idolatry

But Christ has not died in vain. His death has done what God intended it to do. What did God intend by the death of Christ? Well, several things. Many things. There is no one simple way to say it. During this Holy Week ahead of us, take the time to think it through again.

But here the point is that Christ’s death and resurrection has created one new family, composed of both Jew and Gentile, in other words, of all humanity. There is one people of God, one holy catholic church, as we say today. So, then, it is imperative that we act like the people of God.

In verse 19 James gives his judgment on the matter. Apparently, his decision was what settled the matter, but we cannot deduce from this the correct form of church government we need to practice in our day—although many of our existent denominations have often tried to do so. What matters for our purposes is that the decision reached at this council was two-fold. First, “we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God.” They are not to be required to become Jews by being circumcised and required to keep the Mosaic Law.  They are members of the same family, just as they are with their faith in Christ. That’s it. Full stop.

But second, that does not mean that Gentiles who believe in Jesus can now go on living like they always did. Yes, the unity of the church matters—there is neither Jew nor Gentile in Christ—but so does the holiness of the church. So, the Gentiles must not be required to start living as Jews, but they certainly must not go on living like the pagans they once were.

Verses 20 and 29 give us the requirements that the Gentile believers are to uphold. Four things are mentioned from which the Gentiles are to be required to abstain, and they are probably not the four things you or I would give as an answer to the question, “What is the expected behavior of those who profess to be Christians?” To know what is being imposed on all believers, but especially on Gentile believers, we need to consider the social setting in which we would find all four of these things together, and the answer is in a pagan temple, and especially at a temple feast.[4]

In other words, “what is being prohibited is the attending of temple feasts and all that they entail.”[5]The Gentile Christians are being told they must give up their “idolatry and the accompany acts of immorality.”[6]This is more or less what the Mosaic Law was forbidding at its most fundamental level anyway, and the council is insisting that it is at this fundamental level that Gentile Christians are to reflect behavior that will not compromise their witness as followers of Jesus. One scholar puts it this way:

Discipleship of the Crucified leads necessarily to resistance to idolatry on every front. This resistance is and must be the most important mark of Christian freedom.[7]

In our context, this is even more challenging, because idolatry is not so easily identified as it was in an ancient pagan context. But this is what we must insist upon, for all who call themselves believers in Christ. This is what you must require of me, and what I must demand of you. It is all about faith, or rather, faithfulness, loyalty. Do we believe “Jesus is Lord” or do we give our true allegiance to someone or something else?

I am concerned that some have stopped paying attention to this decision of the first Church Council in Acts 15. On vacation recently, I kept seeing a slogan which said: “I stand for the flag and I kneel for the cross.” I’m all for patriotism, but as a Christian I must not ever let my love for my homeland rival my commitment to the kingdom of God. I can’t stand and kneel at the same time. Or, as Jesus said, I cannot serve two masters.

The Yoke of Jesus

So, yes, our behavior as Christians matters, because our unity as Christians matters. If God has “made us alive together with Christ”—and that’s what it means to be saved by grace according to Ephesians 2:5—then “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Those who are believers in Jesus are obligated now to live in ways that show the world what it looks like to be completely loyal to Jesus as our Lord.

This is not a heavy, unbearable burden, filled with all sorts of rules that you can’t keep straight in your mind nor hardly keep up with in your life. “My yoke is easy; my burden is light,” says Jesus.

But it is still a yoke, an obligation. The easiness of the burden is all about the fact that it is about being set free from the death-enslaving yoke of idolatrous behavior. To be God’s workmanship, his poem, his work of art, compels even ordinary Christians toward the production of “the extraordinary deeds which display the fresh order God is bringing to his disordered world” through Christ, and by his Spirit.[8]

In verse 30, Paul and Barnabas, accompanied by Judas and Silas, return to Antioch with the letter of decision from the church council in Jerusalem. They gathered the church together and read it out loud, and “they rejoiced because of its encouragement.” The decision did not impose a heavy burden of tedious rules and regulations, and neither must we. It remains a constant temptation for churches to do that to its people, and when a church culture begins to feel that way, it is running against the grain of the gospel of grace. Christians ought to be encouraged and strengthened by our distinctiveness, as we see happening in verses 30-35, not burdened and troubled by what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

The Disagreements of God’s People

Let’s not pretend, however, that this will settle all our disputes. There are other texts in Scripture that can help us with our differing views on whether this or that habit or practice is idolatrous. But even right here in this text we get some help with the fact that there will always be things that God’s people disagree about.

Paul and Barnabas Disagree

Right after Luke records this story about the Church Council in Jerusalem, he tells us that this happened.

And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are” (Acts 15:36).

This is the beginning of Paul’s second missionary journey, and it started with another sharp disagreement, this time between Paul and Barnabas.

Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, even though he had withdrawn from them on the first expedition. Paul was insistent that Mark not go with them. “And there arose a sharp disagreement,” a quarrel that was intense enough that “they separated from each other” (Acts 15:39). Luke does not give more detail. We don’t know how heated their argument became.

All we know is that the second missionary journey was split between two groups of missionaries: Barnabas took Mark and sailed away to Cyprus, the route they took on the first journey. But Paul chose Silas and “went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches” (v. 41).

Multiplied Efforts

We can’t know who was in the right here, or even if there is a way to decide such a thing. But Luke does not hide this detail; he is realistic about life in the church. Disagreements happen. Sometimes they are so sharp that division happens. Someone is disgruntled and leaves the church. Sometimes there are even painful church splits. It happens, and we should not be flippant about it. We must do everything we can to live in peace with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

But sometimes it just doesn’t seem possible to come to agreement, and we have to go separate ways. There was no church council convened to decide the matter here, and surely that’s because we need to learn that not all the things we might disagree about means that one or the other is on the wrong side of the line of demarcation, nor that one or the other has compromised on the distinctive trait of utter loyalty to Jesus as our king.

By the way, this story does seems to have a happy ending, but even now we can discern something positive: there are two missionary groups heading out to speak the good news.

Ministry Flexibility

Luke lets us follow Paul and Silas as they arrive in Derbe and then Lystra. They take on Timothy, and have him circumcised. Lest we think Luke has forgotten what he just wrote about, the next verse says that Acts 16:4 “As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.” 

So, why did Paul circumcise Timothy? It seems that Paul surprises us with his decisions at almost every turn, which suggests we might not be thinking the way he thinks about the ministry of the word.

In sum, what is seen here is Paul’s cultural sensitivity. Instead of making Timothy a sideshow to the gospel in terms of whether he was a Jew or not, Paul permitted circumcision so that the gospel would remain the main topic. Knowing which principles are worth standing up for and which ideas are not worth elevating to an importance they do not deserve is a sign of discernment and leadership. Not every issue is worth starting a war over when it comes to the gospel and the ethnic unity of the church.[9]

And so it remains for believers today, to grow in wisdom and learn how to strive for both unity and holiness, never pitting one against the other, always confident in God and his kingdom, and in Jesus as the world’s true and living Lord.

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[1] Ben Witherington, III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), 450.

[2] Witherington, Acts of the Apostles, 454.

[3] I. Howard Marshall, “Acts,” Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 591-92.

[4] Witherington, Acts of the Apostles, 461.

[5] Witherington, Acts of the Apostles, 462.

[6] Witherington, Acts of the Apostles, 463.

[7] Ernst Käsemann, cited in N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 410, note 203.

[8] N.T. Wright, Lecture Notes on Ephesians: All the Fullness of God (Houston, TX, June 9-12), 2024.

[9] Darrell L. Bock, Acts, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Robert W. Yarbrough and Robert H. Stein (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 524.