"Let's Have a Good Argument!"
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
David C. Wright
Acts 15:1-20
July 19, 2009

         During a worship service in a very old church, when the Affirmation of Faith was recited, half the congregation would stand, while the other half remained seated.  The half that was seated then began yelling at the other half to sit down!  A new pastor at the church didn’t know what to do.  The congregation seemed stuck in its conflict over this aspect of worship.  So he invited a representative from each faction to join him in visiting Pastor Jones, a former pastor of the congregation who was now 98 years old and confined to home.  He hoped that the retired pastor would be able to tell him what the true tradition of the church really was.
          “Pastor Jones,” he said.  “Is it the tradition of the church to stand during the Affirmation of Faith?”
          “No,” replied Pastor Jones, “that is not our tradition.”
          “Oh,” said the younger pastor, “then it is the tradition of the church to remain seated during the Affirmation.”
          “No,” answered the Pastor Jones, “that is not our tradition, either.”
          The young pastor was confused.  “But the people fight all the time, yelling at each other about whether they should sit or stand!”
          “That,” replied Pastor Jones, “is our tradition!”
          Unfortunately, fighting among ourselves is the tradition in a lot of churches!
          But many people feel that the church should be a place free from conflict.  They are deeply distressed with the serious fractures in our Presbyterian denomination today, as well as in other mainline denominations- divisions which may well split us apart.  I saw an article in the Washington Post just yesterday about the deepening divide in the Anglican Church over the issue of homosexuality.  Those who believe the church should be peaceful have good theological reasons to feel that way!  After all, one of the fruits of God’s Spirit is peace!  And Jesus himself prayed that his followers would be one, as a witness to the world.  But the history of the church doesn’t support the idea that the church is a conflict-free zone.  Conflicts in the church have led to thousands of divisions, which is why we have thousands of Christian denominations today!  We even find serious conflicts in the earliest days of the church!  We’re going to look at one such conflict from the book of Acts this morning and see what we can learn from it that might help us with church conflicts today, and perhaps with conflicts in other areas of our lives- at work, in our families, and in the community.
          The story begins in Acts 15.  We’ll start with the first five verses.
                    1 Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved."
                    2 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 discuss this question with the apostles and the elders.
                    3 So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the believers.
                    4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.
                    5 But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, "It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses."
          This story comes at a watershed moment in the history of the church.  Gentiles were becoming followers of Jesus in Antioch, Syria.  The church there was welcoming them into their fellowship with open arms and with no preconditions and no requirement that they follow Jewish laws.  When Jewish believers from Jerusalem came to visit, they were scandalized by this.  They had two primary problems with this practice. 
          First of all, God’s covenant with his people had always been governed by the Jewish law, which was seen as God’s great gift to show people how they were created to live.  The sign of being part of God’s covenant was the mark of circumcision, a requirement which went all the way back to Abraham.  Had the requirements of the law now been repealed?  Was the Hebrew Scripture no longer binding?  You can almost hear the Jewish Christians saying, “But we love the law and the beauty of temple worship and our wonderful traditions.  Are we supposed to just throw all of that away?” 
          The second problem was a very practical one.  Jews had always regarded Gentiles as religiously unclean, based in part on the teachings of the Scripture.  Scrupulous Jews avoided contact with Gentiles whenever possible and would certainly never eat with them.  But, as you’ll recall from Acts 2, Christian believers regularly ate together and celebrated the Lord’s Supper as part of those common meals.  How could Jewish Christians eat with Gentile Christians unless the Gentiles abided by the Hebrew laws governing eating and fellowship?  How could they even celebrate the Lord’s Supper together?  The existence of true Christian community was at stake here.
          And these issues struck at the core issue of the identity of the church.  Was the church merely a Jewish movement which embraced Jesus as Messiah?  Gentiles, of course, were welcome to become Jews and then join, but was the church was simply an extension of Judaism?  Or, was the church something completely new that was no longer bound by the former Jewish ways?  As we see today in places like Iraq, Iran, and India, anything that threatens people’s religion can cause great conflict.  I think you can see how volatile this debate would have been in the early church.
          So the church in Antioch decided to send Paul and Barnabas, along with several others, to hash out the matter with the apostles in Jerusalem.  The idea that the church would simply divide over this issue never occurred to them.  Here’s what happened next.
                    6 The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter.
                    7 After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers.
                    8 And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us;
                    9 and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us.
                    10 Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?
                    11 On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will."
                    12 The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles.
                    13 After they finished speaking, James replied, "My brothers, listen to me.
                    14 Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name.
                    15 This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written,
                    16 "After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will rebuild it, and I will set it up,
                    17 so that all other peoples may seek the Lord— even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called. Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things
                    18 known from long ago.'
          Conflict may be common in the church, but it must be dealt with in a constructive manner, which is what happens here.  The leaders gather to consider the matter.  Two kinds of arguments are made.  First, Peter recalls the time when God gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to a Gentile named Cornelius, who had not been circumcised.  Peter then draws the conclusion that since God didn’t require Gentiles to become Jews before including them in his blessings, then the church shouldn’t either.  He states that God has made no distinction between Gentile and Jew, and refers to the law as a “yoke” which the Jews have never been able to bear!  Peter isn’t pulling any punches here.  It would have been very hard for Jewish Christians to hear the law referred to as a burden.  He then argues that everyone is saved by God’s grace alone, not by keeping the law.  Peter ties his own experience and Christian beliefs together, which we could call “theological reflection.”
          Barnabas and Paul then jump into the discussion, sharing their more recent experience of seeing God do signs and wonders among the Gentiles without precondition.  James concurs, tying their experience to a Scripture passage in Amos, which speaks of a time in which the Gentiles will become part of God’s people.
          So, experience, theological reflection, and biblical interpretation are all woven together as the early Christian church deals with the conflict before them. 
          And something else takes place that is also critically important.   In verse 12 we’re told, “The whole assembly kept silence and listened…”  Strong arguments were made (from experience, theology, and scripture) but that was not enough.  The people needed to be open to hear what God was saying through the conversation.  They needed to listen.  In a Peanuts comic strip, Snoopy is pounding away on his typewriter.  Charlie Brown says, “I hear you’re writing a book on theology.  I hope you have a good title.”  “I have the perfect title,” responds Snoopy.  “Has It Ever Occurred to You That You Might Be Wrong?”  That kind of open-minded attitude is what we need if conflict is not to split our churches apart.  Each of us needs to acknowledge the possibility that we could be wrong in a given debate!  That’s just biblical.  We are fallen, limited creatures living in a confusing world.  None of us can see everything clearly.  As Paul writes in I Cor. 13, “…now we see in a mirror dimly.”  Those early followers of Jesus understood that they needed to be open to what God might be saying through others, so they listened.
          As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, the one “who can no longer listen to his brother will soon no longer be listening to God, either.”  Careful listening was an important part of resolving this conflict in Acts 15, and it’s just as important today.
          Well, let’s see how it all worked out.  James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, is speaking.
                    19 Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God,
                    20 but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood.”
          Let’s try and make sense of these somewhat confusing verses.  James has listened carefully to what has been said.  It is clear to him that God is doing a new thing in which the old rules no longer apply.  So he says that the church should not “trouble the Gentiles,” meaning that they should not require them to be circumcised and obey the whole law.  He understands that they are justified by faith in Jesus, just as the Jews are.  However, he renders something of a compromise verdict.  While acknowledging that it is not necessary for their salvation, he instructs the Gentile believers to follow four rules, three of which affect the problem of how Jewish and Gentile believers can have table fellowship together.
          They are to abstain from eating things “polluted by idols,” meaning meat which had been offered to idols in pagan rituals.  Eating such meat would have been highly offensive to Jewish Christians and would have made eating together impossible.  The Gentile Christians were also to observe the kosher laws about eating meat with blood still in it, for in Jewish understanding, life was in the blood, which belonged to God alone.  So Gentiles were accepted without condition, but were asked to make certain concessions in order that all could participate together in church fellowship.
          In the verses which follow, a letter was drafted summing up the findings of the council, which was carried back to the believers in Antioch by Paul and Barnabas and a few Jerusalem elders.  )
          Conflict is probably inevitable in the church.  But this model may give us the best chance to resolve our conflicts well.  Let us debate the issues openly, appealing to our experience, theological understanding, and the Scripture.  Let us listen carefully to one another with open hearts.  Let’s be willing to compromise so that our decisions will promote the greater good of the whole Body of Christ.  Let’s have a few good arguments in a way that honors God, keeps us true to God’s will for us, minimizes the destructiveness that conflict can bring, and (hopefully) leads us to make wise decisions.

Return to the Sermons Menu