Chapter 15

It pains me to say this, but in my time as a Christian I have seen many disagreements between people who are supposed to be brothers and sisters. In my experience it has often not ended well. One result that I especially hate is when one or both people involved in a disagreement end up leaving the Church (either the local Church or the Church as a whole) because of it.

I think the thing that makes it so upsetting is that often you are dealing with two really well-intentioned people; even worse, sometimes the disagreement is a matter of different positions on something that is important, and there is the implicit concept that “either they go or I go” – that is, an assumption that one of us has to be right, and we can’t both be members of this church unless one of us changes their ideas.

I think that’s why I find this chapter oddly encouraging. Here in chapter 15 we have all the ingredients for a good old set-to of the church-smashing kind. Let’s see, we have . .

• Initial extreme remarks made from the Pulpit of a Church (vs 1-2)[1]
• A pair of returned missionaries and an important church leader with exciting stories which seem to invalidate said remarks (vs 4-5)
• Older believers with entrenched views (vs 4-5)[2]
• Deeply held convictions argued with passion (vs 6-9)

It looks like we’re going to see the Church disintegrate. A disaster is looming. Then, out of nowhere, we see something amazing happen.

People start listening to one another. Specifically, they listen to what Peter has to say.

Then when James backs up what Peter is saying with Scripture, they listen to him too.

I don’t for a moment think that the Pharisees immediately agreed with the statements being made here. In fact, I think that everything they’d ever been taught would be rising up in the back of their minds and screaming “This is WRONG!”.

I know this because I’m a Pharisee at heart. Some of my friends joke that I’ve never actually been young, I was just born old. Sadly, they’re kind of right. I am old and stodgy, even though I’m still not out of my thirties. And I find change HARD. When my church took a new direction – even though it was a direction which was absolutely unavoidable – it nearly broke my heart. When I read this passage, my heart goes out to these guys, who were seeing God do something that their every instinct taught them not to accept. I just want to say to them “Guys, I know what it feels like!”

But these guys are champions. They’re better than me, in fact, because not only do they listen – against everything their training is telling them, they agree to go with what God is obviously doing in the Gentile church.

Presumably, they have been rather involved in the letter sent out by the council, which clearly gives a little bit of a compromise (probably in an effort to avoid offending the serious Jews as much as for the Christians to avoid sin), but they agree. The account in Acts shows that people actually made this agreement in LOVE.

I wish I saw more of this in my own Church experience. Sadly, it’s only been in the last 10 years that it’s become the default that I expect. And the scars are still there from countless previous disagreements. Every time I am called upon to be involved in a meeting or to make a major decision as a Church leader, hidden memories rise up of friendships that disappeared in a meeting room, of families who went from being part of my family to not-at-my-church overnight.

It’s because of this that I make this heartfelt plea – remember that the Church (again, whether we’re talking local Church or Christians worldwide) are your FAMILY. You will disagree, of course. There are important decisions to be made. Sometimes you’ll agree with the way forward; sometimes you won’t. Sometimes you’ll disagree with the decision taken passionately. But even so, they’re FAMILY. If there is ANY way to do so, don’t be part of another family breakup! Listen to what your brothers and sisters are saying, even if you think they’re wrong. Remember that in the long run they are on your side! You are fighting alongside them in the cause of the Gospel, and THAT’S MORE IMPORTANT THAN ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE!

I think there’s an irony that at the end of this passage we see the breakup of the Paul and Barnabas team. These two big guns ended up doing precisely the thing that I expected to find the Church doing at the beginning of the passage.

Maybe that’s so that we know these heroes had feet of clay – they weren’t superheroes who never made a mistake. They were people with similar passions to our own. The fact that they chose the right way was a triumph of wisdom over raw passion, and perhaps also the Grace of God.

Maybe the next disagreement for you will be this week, or maybe years away. Whatever it is, please read Acts 15 before you decide what to do – and determine to be like the Council, and not like Paul and Barnabas.

(Who actually end up doing some really cool stuff on separate teams, so God makes stuff alright in the end).



[1] Since I’m reading from The Message, I can’t tell exactly where it’s from. Eugene Peterson writes with complete disregard for the random verse markings that have been sanctified by the years. I’d applaud him – I think the verse markings are very often wrong – but it still often makes it really hard to locate something exactly!

[2] You can in some respects say that the church is too young to have old opinions. But Christ’s message is very attractive to Pharisees, and many of the old-school Pharisees had joined the Church – instant entrenched views in a young church!