God’s Word for You

Acts 15:22-29 The letter

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, September 14, 2020

22 Then the apostles and the elders, along with the whole church, decided to choose some of their men and send them to Antioch along with Paul and Barnabas. So they sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, 23 with the following letter:

This decision was perhaps done by a vote, although the Scriptures rarely show any voting. We should remember that our culture fought wars over the right to hold our own elections and resolve matters by voting. What might seem ordinary or a “right” to us was not ordinary and certainly not a right of any kind for our ancient brothers and sisters. Here, however, there may indeed have been a show of hands in agreement. We should notice that the group in Jerusalem that had supported circumcision for the Gentiles made no protest. They had been shown their error, and they supported the forming of this delegation.

Notice that two pairs of men were chosen. Paul and Barnabas represented the leaders from Antioch and were as well-known as anyone else might have been to the Gentiles. Judas Barsabbas and Silas were chosen to represent the leadership from Jerusalem. Judas Barsabbas is unknown to us unless he was related to the Joseph or Justus Barsabbas who was considered as a replacement for Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:23). Silas, also called Silvanus, later became a regular companion for Paul and is often mentioned in letters with Timothy (2 Corinthians 1:19; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1). He was also with Peter when the apostle composed a letter to the Christians in Asia Minor (1 Peter 5:12).

Sending representatives from both Antioch and Jerusalem showed a unity of the two regions, and also showed the wisdom of sending two witnesses from each place, so that every matter could be established by the testimony of two witnesses (2 Corinthians 13:1; Deuteronomy 19:5). To make matters easier and to establish clarity in the message, a brief letter was also composed:

“The apostles and elders, your brothers, to the Gentile brothers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia, greetings. 24 We have heard that some people have gone out with no orders from us, and that they troubled you with what they said, unsettling your minds. 25 We have decided, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 So we have sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. 28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, from blood, and from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.”

The letter firmly distances the leadership of the whole Christian church from the claims of the circumcision group. It serves as an introduction from the four men who carried the letter and presents them as men able to speak about these things with their own words (“by word of mouth”) on behalf of the council. Finally, it includes the resolution, based on James’ concerns, to encourage avoiding certain things.

The order of these things is changed from the way James presented them, with sexual immorality taken from the second place in the list and moved to the last position. This has no bearing on the prohibitions themselves. The re-grouping brings together the things that more clearly deal with idolatry since the way one dispatched an animal was often associated with pagan worship.

Sexual immorality is set apart. Although sexual sins were commonplace in pagan worship, sexual immorality had spread throughout the world as a matter of lifestyle and personal choice quite removed from any act of worship. Countless forms of sexual sins exist: sex outside of marriage (a sin, Genesis 34:2-4), adultery (a sin, John 8:3), having sex with someone who is engaged but not yet married (a sin, Deuteronomy 22:23-24), bigamy and polygamy (both sins, Genesis 2:24), lewdness (a sin, Ezekiel 23:21; Mark 7:22), voyeurism and pornography (a sin, Matthew 5:28; Susanna 15-16), rape (a sin, Deuteronomy 22:28), homosexuality (a sin, Romans 1:27; 1 Corinthians 6:9), prostitution (a sin, 1 Corinthians 6:15-16), living with a lover who is not your spouse (a sin, John 4:18), having sex with an animal (a sin, Exodus 22:19), deserting your spouse (a sin, Genesis 2:24; 1 Corinthians 7:10-11; cp. 1 Timothy 5:9), and divorce except for reasons of adultery or desertion (Matthew 5:32). In addition, there are dozens of forbidden degrees of relationships in sex and marriage, such as not marrying one’s mother, etc. (Leviticus 18:6-20), some of which are no longer forbidden in many countries. Any of these sins and sinful temptations might seem to be bred into some people, or in others might seem to be more a matter of exposure by one’s culture. But either way, they are sins. God does not promise that we will have easy lives, but that we will have crosses to bear because of our faith and testing to show our faith (Matthew 16:24; 1 Chronicles 29:17; Job 7:17-18). Who isn’t predisposed to one sin or another? But we repent even of those sins, acknowledging that they are a special thorn in our flesh, and we ask God to help us.

The prohibitions made here in the letter by the Council of Jerusalem were meant to help Gentile believers show their faith with their lives. As we have seen in the Epistle of James, good works are not necessary for salvation, but faith is always accompanied by good works. We show our faith with the things that we say, think, and do.

Consider the wisdom of this letter, and imagine how you might have responded when you heard it for the first time, especially if you were involved in one of these sins and had never considered it to be a sin before. What would you do? Would you be willing to give up a part of your life, something your family considered to be important, for the sake of Christ. This is what some of the Gentiles went through, and this is still what many new coverts go through even today. Pray for them. Be patient with them. The path of showing your faith with your life is not an easy one, and many people feel terrible guilt over past sins. But a sin that is repented by a Christian and forgiven by Christ is a burden no longer. The gospel of Jesus Christ overwhelms us with God’s kindness and grace: “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:12).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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