September 7th

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Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

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Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is the 365 Bible Reading Plan. Today is September the 7th, and our chapter for today is the book of Acts, chapter 15. Well, it has been fifteen to eighteen years since the substitutionary, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. And the gospel has now been spreading around the earth, and questions have arisen. Remember, this is a book of transition. The book of Acts is the beginning of the Church of Jesus, made up of Jew and Gentile. And there was no paradigm to follow. Certainly, many elements of temple, especially synagogue worship, came in to be the founding elements of the church. Why? Because for the first eight years everyone in the church was Jewish. And it was only with the conversion of Cornelius in Acts chapter ten that we have Gentiles becoming a part of the church. And as Peter had said in Acts chapter ten and eleven, as he recounted the story of the conversion of Cornelius, he said that they received the same gift as we and they were Gentiles, yes, God fearers, yes, good to the Jewish people, but they were not proselytes, they were not people who had come into Judaism, they were full blown non Jews, Gentiles that were saved by the grace of Almighty God without becoming a Jew. And so because of this experience, and the Judaizers who were people who believed in Jesus, but they also believed that you had to become a Jew. You had to be circumcised as a male in order to come into the Christian faith. They wanted to make Christianity just a sect of Judaism, but it was never meant to be just a sect of Judaism, because it was totally different and a new entity altogether. Yes, it was based upon the principles of the Tanakh. Yes, it was based upon the promises given by the prophets, but it was a new entity compared to the old Judaism that was a part of the Judaizers. So let's begin at verse one and just go through the verses. And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren. Now remember you always come down from Jerusalem. This is where they had come from. And here's what they taught these certain people. Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Now again, they were followers of Yeshua, but they continued to want to follow the customs of Moses in the sense of if you were not a Jew, you could not have the gateway of salvation. Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem and to the apostles and elders about this question. Now at Antioch this question was raging, at other places this question was raging. But it was in Jerusalem that the question was settled once and for all. So let's look at how they gathered together and what came about. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles. Who did? Paul and Barnabas. Why? Because they had seen many Gentiles saved without becoming Jews. And they caused great joy to all the brethren, as it should have been. We ought to rejoice when people come to know the Lord. It's not about us, it's not about our denomination, it's not about our sect. It's not even about the Jewish people. It's about Jesus. It's about who He is and what He's done. Because He opened up the gateway for the Gentiles, and the Jews should be rejoicing. And this is what the Apostle Paul and Barnabas, who were Jews, and Peter, who was a Jew, John and James, who were Jews, they were all rejoicing. And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all things that God had done with them, but some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying, It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. Well, the keeping the law of Moses had nothing to do with being saved. And this was Paul and Barnabas and Peter and all of the other apostles' arguments, because you see, the law was never given to save. It was given to show the holy, transcendent nature of God, and to give instruction on rituals that would lead to righteousness because anyone would see they can never keep the law, and not even the letter of the law, not all of the laws and rituals. There are six hundred and thirteen in Torah. Every man is going to break the law, and to the one who knows to do good and does it not, to him it's sin, said one of the most religious of all the early Jews, James, the half brother of Jesus. And so they were gathered together, and the Pharisees, which by the way, only a Pharisee could be saved as far as the sex of the New Testament. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sadducees could never be saved unless they changed their minds. You say, wait just a minute, that seems odd. No, if you know what the Sadducees was their cardinal doctrine, it would not seem odd at all, because you see, the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They didn't believe in angels, they did not believe in many of the supernatural elements of the Word of God, of the Tanakh. Remember, the New Testament hadn't been written yet. They were not able to be saved because unless a man believes that Jesus died for their sins, rose again from the dead, bodily he cannot be saved. This is what the Apostle Paul said in the book of Romans, chapter ten, verses nine and ten, quoting from the Old Testament prophets on how a man could be saved. The word is not in heaven, the word is not in the lower parts of the earth, the word is near even in our mouth, that if we believe in our hearts that God has raised him from the dead, that is, that there's been a resurrection, and we confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord, then we'll be saved. For with the heart man believes, and it's accounted unto him for righteousness. With the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For it is written, Whoever believes in him should not be ashamed, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now that is to Jew or Gentile either. Verse six says, Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. What matter? Whether you had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses in order to be saved, or was Jesus and his sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection enough to save a person by them trusting God and repenting of their sins. Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter, and when they had had much dispute, in other words, people were arguing back and forth, one would get up and speak, the other one would rise up against him. Peter rose up and said to them, Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And that's uh in the gospel accounts, Matthew 16, at in the region of Caesarea Philippi, on the seashore when the Gospel of John, chapter 21, Peter was given this assignment. So God who knows the heart acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit. Who? God chose the Gentiles as well as the Jews to be saved and experienced the grace of God found in Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one. So God who knows the heart acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, that is God's presence forever in their hearts, just as He did the Jews, just as He did then. He purified their hearts by faith, by trust, not by keeping the law. Now therefore, Peter said, Why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear? Now what's a yoke? He's not just talking about an oxen yoke. An oxen yoke was just a metaphor. It was an illustration, it was an analogy, it was something to help them to understand what everyone knew. Remember, every Bible writer from Moses to John assumed that the people to whom they were writing understood the language. They understood the history, the geography, and the cultural context of the day, which included idioms. And this is what this is. It is a way of speaking that those who are familiar with this speech would find it very illuminating. Now yoke was a teaching. When you were under the yoke of a rabbi, you had enrolled in his yeshiva, in his school. This is why, by the way, Jesus said, Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Now who did he say that to? All ye that are heavy laden, all of you who are burdened. What was he talking about? Those who were crying and weeping? Not necessarily, although that's true. Those who have lost loved ones, of course that's true. But what he's talking about all you that are weary and heavy laden, he was talking about those who were under the yoke of the teaching of the law that said you had to do this and do that in order to be saved. You see, no one can ever keep the law. No one, if you did keep the law, it would be impossible because no one can. But the law was not given to save man. The law was given to show man his sin and his sinfulness. And that's exactly what it does. It names sin and makes it particular in your life and mine. And this is why Jesus came not to destroy that instruction. That's what the word Torah means is instruction, not law. He didn't come to destroy it. He came to fulfill it and he intensified it. He said, You've heard it said, you shall not commit murder, but I'm telling you, if you have anger and maliciousness, malice in your heart toward your brother, you've already committed murder in your heart. In other words, the very seed that brings about murder, which has to do with anger and intention, is already there. He said, You've heard it said, you should not commit adultery, but I say unto you, it's not a matter of committing it, it's a matter of what's in your heart, because no man commit adultery without it first starting in his heart. He said, If you look upon a woman to lust after her, you've already committed adultery in your heart. That's where it all starts. This is why the the writers of the book of Proverbs and the Psalms say to guard your heart with everything that's within you, for out of it come the issues of life. You need to protect your heart. This is where it all begins. And so Peter said, You put a yoke upon us. And that's what Jesus said. All you that are heavy and laden down with this burden of trying to keep the law, you're just weary because you can never do it. He said, Take my yoke upon you, take my teaching upon you, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. Then he said, For my burden is easy, my burden is light, my burden is not hard to bear. My yoke is easy. What Jesus was saying is come and learn the teaching that I am teaching you. I'm not doing away with the instruction. I'm bringing it to its ultimate fulfillment. And that is to bring you. It's like a schoolmaster, it's like a child conductor. It's a patigogas according to the book of Galatians, chapter three, to bring us to Christ. It shows us that we cannot do it on our own. We have to come to Him because He fulfilled the law, living a perfect life without sin. And so He would have never had to die. The wages of sin is death, but He chose to die, not to pay for His own sin, but to pay for your sins and mine. So Peter said, You have put a yoke on us, a teaching on us, a burden on us, and the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we are able to bear. But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, grace caras in Greek, is that which you do not deserve, that's which you do not earn. It's something that is given to you freely as a gift. It's not deserved. It is only one facet of a much larger word in the Hebrew language which is chesed, which has grace and eleven other elements in it to round the beautiful diamond of chesed. Grace is only one of them. Love, mercy, kindness, all of that is all wrapped up in the word chesed, and Jesus totally fulfilled that. But this is what Peter's saying. He's saying, look, it's not about keeping something or doing this or doing that. It's about what Jesus has done. He said, but we believe, verse 11, that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, God giving us something in Jesus, we do not deserve. That's why the anointed one came, the Messiah came to save us. He said, We shall be saved in the same manner as they. In other words, the Jew and Gentiles say the same way. There's not a covenant for one and another covenant for another. The book of Acts and chapter four says there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. It's the name of Jesus. You say, Well, that is so exclusive. Yes, it is, but it's inclusive. The Bible says whosoever wants to, whosoever will may come. Don't you let somebody say, Well, you know, the Bible says that these are elected and selected, of course it does. But nobody is going to want to will to be saved unless they are part of that election. What I'm telling you is if you want to be saved, you can be. Don't worry about going around and trying to like you would pick up novelties in a store of like Target or Walmart where you're looking under the bottom of something to see where it's made or whether it's chosen or not chosen. The Bible says you and I are to speak the good news of Jesus, and you let God decide who's chosen, who's not. But anybody who wants to be saved is chosen. Anybody who wants to be saved can be. Anybody that calls upon the name of the Lord is chosen, or they wouldn't be calling on the name of the Lord. Don't make this harder than what it is. Don't try to figure it out, or you'll be end up in an insane silum somewhere because our peanut brains cannot figure out the great transcendent mind of God. He is infinite, we are finite. Then it says, Then all the multitude kept silent, listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles, and after they had become silent, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, listen to me. Simon has declared how God at first visited the Gentiles to take out a people for his name, that was Cornelius, Acts ten. And with these words the prophets agree, and he began to quote, that is James, the Lord's half brother, began to quote the scriptures. That's always a great source to go to when there's controversy. Just go to the Word of God because it will have the answers. And so it says, After this I will return, this is the Lord written about the Lord, and he says, I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen. I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up. This is God speaking, so that the rest of mankind will seek Hashem, the Lord, the personal name of the God of the Jews, even all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord who does all these things. Known to God from eternity are all his works. Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled and from blood. For Moses has throughout many generations those who preach him in every city being read in the synagogues every Sabbath. And so what James says is we're going to let the Gentiles be let them alone, and we're not going to bother them with rules and restrictions that we Jews follow, but instead we're going to commit them to the grace of God. All we're going to ask them to do is to be mindful that there are Jews there that are offended by certain things, and that we don't need to put a stumbling block before them as Gentiles, nor to Jews in front of Gentiles. So he made a ruling. Now it's interesting that when everybody had spoken, that one man made the decision. That was James, the half brother of Jesus, who was the lead elder, the ruling elder of the church in Jerusalem. Well, that's for another day, that is as far as teaching elders and ruling elders, but it is obvious that the council made the decision that Gentiles did not have to become Jews in order to be saved. They could be saved as Gentiles. And so you can read the letter that was written in verses 23 and 24, all the way down through verse 29. And then the ministry of Jesus went on. And at the end of the chapter, you have a division between Barnabas and Saul of Tarsus, the Apostle Paul, about John Mark and him wanting to go with them on a missionary journey. He had turned back on the first, and Paul said, No way, no way is he going with me. Barnabas said, Well, if he doesn't go, I don't go. And they had a real red-faced fuss over it. So Barnabas took John Mark under his wing, gave him a second chance, and Paul took Silas. We'll meet them again when we come to the book of 2 Timothy. But for now, this is Tony Chris, and we're on the way.

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Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's Questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.