Working Through Our Differences [part 1]

I, along with some of my kids, are fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That’s the name for the category of films all based on the Marvel Comics superheroes created by Stan Lee. In this series of movies, there are several films based upon individual characters. So, there are Iron Man movies, and Captain America movies, and Thor movies. But then, scattered into this catalogue of films there are movies in which all of these characters come together; these are the Avengers. While everyone has got their own storyline, every once-in-a-while their stories all come together.

I suppose that each of these movies in the Marvel Comics series could stand alone by itself. You could watch only the Iron Man movies and catch the drift of what is happening. Or you could watch only the Avengers movies and still pretty much keep up with understanding who the characters are and what is going on. But, to really get the fullest picture and best understanding of the whole Marvel superhero saga brought to life by Stan Lee, you really need to see all the movies; both the individual superhero films, and the Avengers films in which they all come together.

We are working our way section-by-section through Paul’s letter to the Galatian churches. Today we are beginning chapter two. And even though Galatians is a single letter written by an individual person—the apostle Paul—there is something of an Avengers moment happening alongside of this scene. In the first 10 verses of Galatians 2, which we are going to look at today, Paul is making a report to the Galatians churches about a specific event which took place. There is some debate in the community of academic theologians about exactly which event Galatians 2 is referencing. I agree with many scholars that the evidence best points to connecting Galatians 2 together with Acts 11.

So, before we read the individual ‘Iron Man’ perspective of Paul from the first 10 verses of Galatians 2, let’s set up the larger picture of the scene by looking at something of an ‘Avengers’ portrayal of this exact same event as told by Luke in Acts 11.

Acts 11:19–30 NIV

19 Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. 20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. 22 News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24 He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. 25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. 27 During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) 29 The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. 30 This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.

Now then, with this story from Acts 11 showing us the larger scene taking place, we can get a better understanding of what Paul is talking about in these opening verses of Galatians 2.

Galatians 2:1–10 NIV

1 Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2 I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. 3 Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. 4 This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5 We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 6 As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. 7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. 8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

Connecting the Scenes

Alright, let’s tie these two versions of the same event together and see what is going on here. In Luke’s version of the meeting in Acts 11 there is no mention of the conflict between the Jewish Christians and the new Greek converts, even though Luke does tell us that the church is flourishing among the Greeks. Then again, it is not really the purpose of Luke’s version of events to focus on the tension; there is no reason for it to come up in his telling of the story. Paul, on the other hand, draws that part of the story right to the middle because it very much plays into the reason he is writing to the Galatian Christians. It is the same story, but we are seeing two perspectives based upon whether we read about it from Luke in Acts 11 or we read about it from Paul in Galatians 2

Luke does not mention conflict between the Jews and Greeks, but that is not the point of Luke’s story

Paul asks for a private meeting to confirm the gospel they teach so he can address the tension

Paul fills in for us that while he and Barnabas are in Jerusalem, along with Titus, he has a private meeting with just the main apostles of the Jerusalem church. In the passage, Paul refers to them as the pillars of the church. And he names them for us too: Peter, James, and John. The purpose of this meeting is to confirm with them that the gospel he is preaching among the Greeks that proclaims freedom from the law of Moses is a gospel message that the apostles in Jerusalem fully endorse as well.

outcome: some apostles will work among the Jews, other apostles will work among the Greeks

Look at the outcome of this meeting. Paul says that the main apostles in Jerusalem add nothing additional to the gospel Paul is teaching, and they extend the hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas as equal apostles in the church. But there is a difference. Look at how it ends. The apostles in Jerusalem remain dedicated to working among the Jewish people within the church. But Paul and Barnabas are to remain dedicated to working among the Greek people within the church.

different people with different habits and values are all welcomed, the apostles do not exclude one group in favor of another

Consider that decision and what it meant for them at that time. There was a time of tension and division in the church between the Jews and Greeks. This is a tension brought on because they are not all lining up with the exact same list of habits, routines, and values. I suppose the apostles could have just picked a side and said, if you want to be a part of the Christian church, then everybody does it this way. But that is not what they do. Instead, they hold onto the variety of people that were coming to faith in Jesus in ways that acknowledged the tension of their differences.

Recognizing Our Differences

Let’s talk about differences for a few moments. We know from Paul’s writings that tension existed among Christians based upon cultural differences. Jewish people followed the laws and customs of Jewish people passed down by Moses through the Old Testament. They followed kosher eating habits. And since table fellowship was such an important piece of community, the differences of table manners were a constant and blaring issue. Circumcision was another cultural practice of the Jewish community which, for them, was very importantly tied to the covenant connection they had with God. For the Jewish people, to refuse circumcision was to refuse God’s covenant.

These things were powerfully meaningful customs that were woven into the very center of what it means to live a religious life. For the Jewish people of the early church, these things were not just lifestyle choices, they were non-negotiables. Customs like kosher meal habits and circumcision were not take-it-or-leave-it preferences, do whatever you like. These were standards which were essential to their religious identity and character and expression. But when Greeks started coming to faith and joining the community of the church, they brought differences in what it meant to express religious identity and religious character.

helpful categories to work with our differences: personal preferences, biblical absolutes, and biblical convictions

Kevin Harney and Bob Bouwer in their book, The U-Turn Church, talk about differences in the church in ways that are helpful. They identify categories which help us think about and analyze our various differences. The categories they use are these: personal preferences, biblical absolutes, and biblical convictions.

Personal preferences would be things like worship music styles and Sunday dress. We all have choices about things like these that don’t fall in the same place; we have differences. And these are choices that for some of us play a regular and significant role in the expression of our religious identity. And for some of us these are choices that are very powerful and meaningful as expressions of our faith. But they are still just personal preferences. And Christians do certainly carry differences around our personal preferences.

On the other end of the spectrum are biblical absolutes. These include foundational components of Christian faith that cannot be moved or compromised. We would include in the category of biblical absolutes things like the divinity of Jesus; that he is in fact the second person of the trinity who is both fully God and fully human. We would also say that justification by faith alone through grace alone is a biblical absolute. If you throw that one out, then you throw out the entire gospel and everything that it means to be Christian. In fact, if you want a handy list of everything that we would place in the category of biblical absolutes, just look line-by-line down the apostle’s creed. Christians do NOT carry differences around biblical absolutes. We must all be of one mind and one heart on these things in order for us to maintain one faith and one gospel.

What I find so helpful about Harney and Bouwer’s book is this third category, biblical convictions. It is certainly true that there are some differences we carry in the church which are more than just personal preferences. But at the same time, it might be a stretch for us to categorize them as biblical absolutes. These are practices and perspectives and traditions which for us are rooted in the Bible. And we carry a strong preference to these perspectives and traditions as powerfully meaningful expressions of our biblical faith. But they are not absolutes. Or in other words, we are not ready to condemn differences as heresy which have no place in the Christian church.

Let me give an example. Infant baptism. We in the reformed tradition place a high value on the sacrament of infant baptism as an expression of God’s covenant promise which is given before we ever know who God is or that he loves us or that Jesus sacrificed himself for us. That is why we baptize infants; because it is a sacrament that points to God’s grace given to us. In this church we hold that as a biblical conviction. But at the same time, we do not condemn people who practice adult believer’s baptism as being heretics. We do not say that the only way to be a Christian is to be baptized as an infant. People of Christian faith who practice adult baptism are still Christians as well. We may have differences here. These are differences that are more than just personal preferences. We may hold these as powerful and meaningful convictions which are rooted in scripture. But they are not absolutes. There is room in our biblical faith for these differences to exist. The core of the gospel message which we proclaim remains intact even within these differences of biblical convictions.

we have always tended to have the most tension within our differences of biblical conviction

So, it is more than just a personal preference. But it is less than a biblical absolute. This category of biblical convictions is a place where our differences become difficult. Besides the example of infant baptism, we could identify several other issues which fit this category of biblical convictions; issues that have powerful and meaningful roots in scripture, but we also acknowledge these are differences we can carry while still holding to the one faith we profess. Think about it. In the Christian Reformed Church, we acknowledge that there are different biblical convictions about creation as seven 24-hour days, or creation as divinely orchestrated evolution. In the Christian Reformed Church, we acknowledge that there are different biblical convictions about the role of women serving in ministry leadership. In the Christian Reformed Church, we acknowledge that there are different biblical convictions about the acceptance of the LGBTQ community within the church. We are still trying to work our way through that one.

Let’s acknowledge that these are tough issues, that we have differences, that these differences can be powerfully rooted in us as biblical convictions, that these differences create tension. But let’s also acknowledge that tension caused by differences in biblical conviction is nothing new. It existed when our ancestors were divided by what they thought the Bible said about slavery. It existed when their ancestors were divided by what they thought the Bible said about the earth being flat. And we see today that it existed all the way back in the very first New Testament churches in the time of Paul and the other apostles.

apostles acknowledged that there was a tension because of differences, but they did not allow those differences to get in the way of their focus and commitment to the gospel.

I’m afraid that none of this gives us clear answers on all of the divisive issues that are creating tension among people in the church right now. I wish it did because there certainly is an awful lot of tension between people in our world at the moment. I sort of wish we could just open a Bible and go down the entire list of divisive and tense issues and just check them all off one at a time with a nice clean answer. But this story in Galatians 2 doesn’t give us that picture. It was not the solution for the apostles to say to those Greek Christians, we’re going to do things the Jewish way and if you don’t like it then you Greeks have no business being a part of us. And it was not the solution for the apostles to say to those Jewish Christians, we’re going to do things the Greek way and if you don’t like it then you Jews have no business being a part of us. Rather, they acknowledged that there was a tension because of differences, but they did not allow those differences to get in the way of their focus and commitment to the gospel.

Finding Our Common Ground

the prophetic revelation of Agabus in Acts 11 points to a pandemic

Bring it back to Acts 11. This passage may have more to do with our current moment than we realize. A prophet in the early church named Agabus announces that there will be a famine affecting the entire Roman world. This is no small thing. So many people in that time survived one agricultural season to the next. A famine which covered the entire Roman world meant death by starvation for many people. It would be fair to label the prophetic revelation of Agabus in Acts 11 as a pandemic. This famine would lead to a health crisis that would threaten lives everywhere. So, what did the church do? I love what N.T. Wright has to say about this passage in his recent book, God and the Pandemic. N. T. Wright puts it this way.

They do not say either ‘This must be a sign that the Lord is coming back soon!’ or ‘This must mean that we have sinned and need to repent’ – or even ‘this will give us a great opportunity to tell the wider world that everyone has sinned and needs to repent’. Nor do they start a blame-game, looking around at the civic authorities in Syria, or the wider region, or even the Roman empire, to see whose ill-treatment of the eco-system, or whose tampering with food distribution networks, might have contributed to this dangerous situation. They ask three simple questions: Who is going to be at special risk when this happens? What can we do to help? And who shall we send?[i]

Christians in Antioch responded to pandemic by asking: Who is most at risk? How can we help? Who do we send?

The whole reason Paul and Barnabas come to Jerusalem in the first is because the Christians in Antioch responded to a pandemic by asking: Who is most at risk? How can we help? Who do we send? Paul does not ignore this in Galatians 2. He ends this section in verse 10 by saying,

Galatians 2:10 NIV

10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

differences in preferences and convictions did not stop the church from responding in love with actions of support

Even though Paul acknowledges in Galatians that there were divisive issues creating tension among the people in the church, those differences and those tensions did not stop the people of the church from remaining focused on the task before them. The Greek Christians in Antioch were in disagreement with the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem about this whole circumcision and kosher thing. But they still took up an offering and each one gave whatever they were able, and they sent this gift to those who were at greater risk, the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem with whom they were sharply divided in tense disagreement.

I remember that when this whole Covid-19 thing hit back in March, this church completely transformed the setup of our emergency food pantry to fill up the entire lobby area. We expanded hours of operation and made it a drive-thru pick up right in the front circle. We had a stretch there in which our pantry was distributing ten times the amount of emergency food aid as usual. I think we asked the exact same three questions: Who is most at risk? What can we do? Who can help? And this church stepped up and you all got it done.

But now here we are almost seven months later. And can I admit that this has carried on longer than most of us thought it would have? Can I admit that, along with so many of you, I’m a bit weary of living in pandemic mode? Is it alright to admit that we all may be just a little bit on-edge? There are some differences and disagreements around in our community that are causing tension. I think it is okay for us to admit that.

But here is the question for us today: Are you allowing personal preferences or even biblical convictions to mistakenly become biblical absolutes? Because it seems like in our moments of weariness and anxiety that churches here in America are having a more difficult time staying focused on the task of the gospel. This church and so many others are looking ahead and considering next steps of moving forward. I am as ready as anybody to get ministry groups back on track, get classes meeting again, get things back indoors before it gets much colder into the fall. And now more than ever we do that in a way that remains focused on the task before us, a task that is not about personal preferences or even about biblical convictions, but a task that calls us back again the biblical absolutes of the gospel. We keep those same three questions in front of us: Who is in need? What can we do? Who is willing to help?

God looked upon the pandemic of sin and brokenness in the world and God made some decisions; three questions: Who is at risk? What can we do? Who will go help?

God the Father saw that we were the ones helpless to do anything about it ourselves; God the Son stepped in the provide himself in our place; God the Holy Spirit resides in our hearts and remains as our help and guide

Even in the tension of issues about which we may disagree, God continues to provide for his church today as he provided for his church 2000 years ago. In that time and place God worked through some to provide for the Jewish Christians, and God worked through others to provide for the Greek Christians. But they did so remaining embraced in the hand of fellowship. God still works through his church like that today. He does not cast anyone aside. He does not limit his invitation of grace to only a select set of personal preferences or styles. Instead, God looked upon the pandemic of sin and brokenness in the world and God made some decisions. Three questions: Who is at risk? What can we do? Who will go help? God the Father saw that we were the ones helpless to do anything about it ourselves. God the Son stepped in the provide himself in our place. And God the Holy Spirit resides in our hearts and remains as our help and guide.

Those, my friends, are biblical absolutes. And it is in the hope of this gospel certainty that we step forward guided by that same focus. May we continue to be people who follow Jesus with eyes open to see those who are most in need around us. May we continue to be people who use the blessings given to us so that all may come to flourish in the new life offered to us in Jesus. And may we continue to be people who are willing to reach beyond our own preferences and our own convictions so that the ones who need Jesus the most will see God’s love for them through the love that we share.

[i] Wright, N. T.. God and the Pandemic (pp. 31-32). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.