Ep 440 – Acts 21:17-26

Wherever there are people, there will be conflicts. And that reality was true of the body of Christ in the 1st-Century. As the church continued to grow, so did the potential for disagreement and disunity, because the church was being formed out of a disparate mix of people from all walks of life and every conceivable religious and racial background. There were Jews who had come to faith in Christ who were natives of Israel and Jews who had been converted to Judaism out of paganism and then had become Christians. There were Gentiles of every imaginable stripe, from Greece and Rome to Asia and Galatia. They spoke a variety of languages and brought a diverse blend of social, ecclesiological, and political baggage along with them. And one of the major point of conflict the church would face in the first centuries of its existence was the one that loomed large between the Jewish believers and their Gentile counterparts. God-fearing, law-keeping Jews who had come to faith in Christ were adamant that Christianity was a Jewish religion, requiring adherence to Jewish laws and customs. But Paul, as a Jew, would stand stubbornly opposed to this way of thinking, demanding that the gospel was based on grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. It was Jesus plus nothing. And the leaders in the church in Jerusalem had agreed with him. But maintaining unity while protecting the gospel's integrity was going to take diplomacy. And a willingness to sacrifice personal rights for the cause of Christ.