Meditations from Zion

Acts 15:19-20
It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.

Well, this threw a little wrench in my understanding today. By only looking at small pieces of Bible text at a time, at one moment there seems to be complete freedom and then the next chunk adds the strings. This shows how important it is to have the ability to see the forest and trees.

But I am not a bible scholar. Each day I’m just trying to find what God might be saying to me through the Word and how to apply what I read to my heart walk.

The verses of Acts 15:19-23 put unexpected boundaries around the freedom I had felt in earlier verses. I would need to do much more reading, but from the little I did read this morning (Here a Little, There a Little website), I realize that it’s important to understand more about that time period and culture.

The believing Jews did not expect or want the incorporation of Jesus into their world and faith to separate them from their Judaic heritage. Jesus was/is the Messiah and therefore the completion of many prophecies. He was a Jewish phenomenon and, from their perspective, Jesus was providing a way for the gentiles to be adopted into the faith.

As mentioned in the “Here a Little, There a Little” article, James released the gentiles who were coming to Jesus from circumcision but they would enter the faith with the same restrictions as “strangers” who wanted to live among the Jews (as written in Leviticus 18). And then, they would learn about the law of Moses (verse 21) in their local synagogues. In other words, the disciples expected everyone who came to Jesus to ultimately become a Jew with faith in the Messiah.

This makes sense. But, history shows that things did not work out that way. Instead, over the years, the “Christians” or Christ followers who were gentiles, absorbed their faith in Jesus into their own traditions and faiths.

The strings that James attached to the Christ followers of Asia Minor were not strong enough and Jesus faith morphed and morphed and morphed. Many bible readers say we are following the word of God literally… but if that were true, then we would all be Messianic Jews. That’s not a bad thing at all, but it hasn’t happened that way. And at this point in our world, I doubt it ever will.

So, where does that leave us gentiles today? Hanging onto grace… that’s all we can really do.