A MISSIONARY MAKER: 28th Sept 2010

Acts 15:22-35 – The Council’s Letter to Gentile Believers.

“Why I can eat Black pudding”
So why can I eat black pudding?
The Council after yesterday’s debate decides on four very simple instructions to give to the new Gentile believers.
It seems they refer somewhat back to elements of what is called the ‘Noahide Law’. This was the simple law that Gentiles needed to adhere to ‘in order to enter the world to come’ [Kingdom of Heaven]. The Jews had a higher standard to live at because they had a special calling [see my blog on 8th Sept 2010 - “Spirit trumps System pt 1”].
They give four instructions:

Why these four?
The first makes total sense; the next three seem a little random when you consider all the other Jewish customs that are left out.
Also…
Why don’t most Christians adhere to the last three now?
Hint: What is God?
Yes: Love.
The last three were in order that the new Gentile believers could sit down with the Jews to have a meal. They could fellowship together. Without this compromise on the part of the Gentiles, the Jews would be bound by their understanding of the law not to have fellowship or break bread with their spiritual brothers.
This fellowship was vital to display the Kingdom!
You cannot display God, His love or the Kingdom as an individual.
It is only really as a community.
In a world that was [and still is] marked by race, class and color; this unity of different ethnic groups banded around Jesus made a huge statement.
That is why I guess many of those who follow Jesus nowadays do not adhere particularly to the last three.
The first instruction on sexual immorality is there for the same reason by the way.
Think about it.
Where else, however, should this principle apply in my life?
It is therefore a sad d irony that have the arguments we often do about our different religious ‘laws’, when the vast majority of them are there to bind us together in such as way as to demonstrate heaven on earth.
Praying on this principle today.

A MISSIONARY MAKER