Sermon Tone Analysis

Acts 15:1-5, 22-29

Faith of the Baptists — Consulting the Brothers

 

Some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.

So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers.

When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.

But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the Law of Moses.”

…Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.

They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.

Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth.

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.

If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.

Farewell.”[1]

Baptists are an independent people.

It has been observed that wherever there are two Baptists, there will be at least three opinions.

As a long-time Baptist, I plead guilty to this charge on behalf of the brothers.

We Baptists believe in the autonomy (independence) of the local church and we stress the freedom of the believer.

However, we frequently lose sight of the fact that when our independence overrides our desire for unity in the Faith, we have deviated from the Faith received from our fathers.

Whilst we insist on the independence of the believer, we are equally insistent that there is no room for deviation from foundational truth.

Certain revealed truths define us as Christians, and adherence to accepted doctrinal truth defines us as Baptists.

There can be no deviation from these truths without transforming us into something we are not.

As Christians, we believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man.

We believe that He died a sacrificial death because of our sin, that He raised from the dead, and that He ascended bodily into Heaven where He is seated on the right hand of the Father.

We are convinced from Scripture that it is by faith in the Risen, Reigning Son of God—faith without any merit on the part of mankind—that sin is forgiven and man is brought into a living and right relationship with the Living God.

We believe that these truths are revealed in the Bible, which is inerrant and infallible in the original manuscripts.

As Baptists, we are perhaps best known as consistent advocates of religious liberty.

We hold to the autonomy of the local church—no outside agency can dictate to the local congregation in matters of faith and practise.

We champion the concept of the priesthood of the believer, believing that we each enjoy equal access to God.

We accept two ordinances—baptism of believers and the Lord’s Table for those who have identified with Christ in baptism as believers.

We promote the biblical doctrine of a regenerate church membership; and we hold to two offices within the church—elders and deacons.

All these truths arise out of our conviction of biblical authority for faith and practise.

The message today explores the interdependence of Christians.

I do not deny the need for balance in our interactions, and I am certain that we need to define the parameters of co-operation.

Nevertheless, we do benefit through consulting the brothers in the Faith when questions of faith and conscience arise.

I invite your consideration of an incident that occurred in the early church as we examine this matter.

The Conflict — /Some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

And /…/ Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them/.

A church is a community charged with holding the members responsible for moral, ethical and theological decisions.

The manner in which we live and the truths we teach are never in isolation from other congregations.

Disagreements over worship style, while entertaining, are not worthy of prolonged discussion.

Questions of polity, while important to our identity as Baptists, should not be central to our faith as Christians.

However, should a church promote unethical behaviour, or should a church even tolerate unethical behaviour, there must be no deliberation, sister churches must call that church to account, and if the congregation refuses to act with integrity, the churches that seek to honour Christ must break fellowship with that congregation, however close previous relationship between those churches may have been.

The step of disfellowshipping the errant congregation must always be taken with the hope that the tolerance of wickedness will cease.

Should a sister congregation tolerate immorality among its members and that toleration of immorality becomes known, affiliated churches are bound by love for the Saviour to rebuke that sister congregation and to cease all ecclesiastical interaction with the aberrant congregation until the error is corrected.

In a like manner, when a church promotes immoral behaviour and refuses to cease promotion of that wickedness, we are obligated by our love for the Risen Son of God to cease all association with the errant congregation in hope that they will become ashamed and correct the sin.

Similarly, when a church embraces and~/or promotes errant doctrine, especially doctrine that distorts soteriological truth —the doctrine of salvation, distorts theology proper—the doctrine of God, or that distorts Christology—the doctrine of Christ, it is incumbent upon sister congregations to call that church to account.

Again, if a congregation persists in doctrinal error, it will be necessary for the honour of the Lord Christ to refuse to fellowship with that church until the error is renounced.

However, the message today does not so much seek to be a manual for dealing with error so much as it is a message challenging us how to respond to doctrinal questions that may arise.

The study focuses on the response of churches to questions that disturb the peace of a congregation, and for which clarity is sought.

If we will fully understand the issue, it will be helpful to consider the setting of the conflict.

The First Baptist Church of Jerusalem was a Jewish congregation.

The First Baptist Church of Antioch was a Gentile church.

They shared the Faith, but they represented separate cultures.

Nevertheless, the Antioch church respected the Jerusalem church.

All the Apostles held membership in the Jerusalem congregation, and many of the elders of that congregation had personally heard the Master as He taught.

The Faith of Christ the Lord is rooted—firmly rooted—in the Old Testament.

The Gentile congregation looked to the Jewish congregation somewhat as the “older brother” in the Faith.

There was respect because of their precedence in the Faith.

The Gentile congregation had consistently taught the message they had received from the first scattered members of the Jerusalem Church [*Acts 11:19-26*].

Paul, a teacher in Antioch, had received his message from the Master Himself.

His message declared that salvation—the forgiveness of sin, life in the beloved Son, acceptance by the Father—was all of grace.

The Christians of Antioch had believed and taught that Jesus died because of our sin, that He was raised from the dead for our justification, and that when we accept Him—the Risen Lord of Life—as Master of our life that we are saved.

This was the message that Paul and Barnabas had preached among the Gentiles during their first missionary journey.

Salvation is by faith.

The grace of God is freely extended to all who will receive it.

Salvation is offered in Christ the Lord.

It was this Gentile church in Antioch that had sponsored the first missionaries and the message they had proclaimed was the message of grace and life in Christ the Lord.

When Paul and Barnabas returned from their mission, they gathered the church together and declared all that God had done with them, and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles [*Acts 14:27*].

However, there was no respite from their labours.

The text begins with the conjunction, */ka/**/í/*—but, as it is translated in the text that I am using.

The word suggests an event that occurs immediately, without pause, following their return to the home church.

A contingent of teachers from the mother church arrived in Antioch, and they were teaching that it would be necessary to be Jewish to be saved.

The men would need to be circumcised.

The implication of their message was that the Gentiles would need to embrace the entirety of rabbinic law—keeping Kosher, observing the Sabbath, maintaining the entire catalogue of minutiae that had encrusted the Mosaic Law throughout the centuries—if they would be really saved.

It was tantamount to insisting that people must make themselves acceptable before they can be saved.

The congregation was naturally disturbed.

Two distinct messages were presented.

One was the familiar message of grace that they had believed and that they had received.

The other message, bearing what appeared to be the imprimatur of the Apostles, appeared novel since it taught that salvation was dependent upon the  performance of certain rites.

They were confused and the peace of the Body was disturbed.

The undercurrent of the text, masked by our English translation, is forcefully suggestive.

My text says that Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them.

The word translated dissension is a Greek term that is used of an uprising or a rebellion.

The first readers of this account would know that Paul and Barnabas went toe-to-toe with these errant teachers.

They were unwilling to see the Gentile congregation browbeaten and treated as heretics by these self-appointed regulators of orthodoxy.

Thus, the missionaries resisted the error to the point of insurrection.[2],

[3]

The Master Himself compares the people of God to sheep [e.g.

*John 10:1-15*].

We are a gentle people, generally unwilling to fight, and certainly we do not enjoy fighting.

Among us are always found spiritual bairns who may be easily led astray and readily confused by plausible arguments.

Those appointed as elders and those who serve as teachers must always be on guard against error, and they must be prepared to confront that error when it is surreptitiously introduced to the congregation [e.g.

*Acts 20:28-30*], as was the case in Antioch, when the Judaisers taught their error privately.

The contemporary image of pastors is a caricature.

They are “nice.”

Ministers don’t raise their voice and they don’t oppose anything or anyone.

The minister must always be glad for the opportunity to pray before every turtle race that comes to town.

Ministers never offend anyone, no matter how wrong the action of the people.

However, such an image is a distortion of reality.

The pastor is an undershepherd and he must one day give answer to the Great Shepherd for oversight of the flock.