"The Decision" (Acts 15:22-29)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/2/2018 10:32 AM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  PT-3 “The Decision”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Acts 15:22-29

            Message of the verses: 

“22 Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas-Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren, 23 and they sent this letter by them, "The apostles and the brethren who are elders, to the brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia who are from the Gentiles, greetings. 24 “Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction have disturbed you with their words, unsettling your souls, 25 it seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 “Therefore we have sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will also report the same things by word of mouth. 28 "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: 29 that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell." 30 So when they were sent away, they went down to Antioch; and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. 31 When they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. 32 Judas and Silas, also being prophets themselves, encouraged and strengthened the brethren with a lengthy message. 33 After they had spent time there, they were sent away from the brethren in peace to those who had sent them out. 34 [[But it seemed good to Silas to remain there.]] 35 But Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch, teaching and preaching with many others also, the word of the Lord.”

            In Today’s SD we will begin to look at the actual letter that the Apostles were sending to the church at Antioch, and that is why I indented it in this SD to show that it was a letter.  We ended yesterday’s SD by stating that verses 15-21 were what the Apostle’s had decided to do as they had their church meeting with the congregation and now we will begin to look at this letter, a very important letter indeed.

            A comment on verse twenty-two is that the council’s decision needed to be communicated to the church at Antioch, which was the center of Gentile Christianity.  We can see that the Apostles, and the elders, along with the whole church agreed upon was yet another manifestation of the unity that marked the early church.  (“The statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch Acts 6:5.”)

            We continue to look at verse twenty-two stating on “with the whole church, to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas-Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren.”  The question may arise as to why it became necessary to send other men from the Jerusalem church to go with Paul and Barnabas to go to the church at Antioch?  If the Jerusalem church had only sent back Paul and Barnabas then the Judaizers would surely have accused the two missionaries of giving a biased account of the proceedings.  So to take care of a problem like this before it began Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, whom Luke describes as “leading men among the brethren.”  Now as far as Judas called Barsabbas there is nothing else know about him.  However we do know a lot about Silas and will find this out as we continue to study the book of Acts.  One more thing I should mention is that in some places in the New Testament Silas can be called Silvanus, and I am not really sure as to why except by guessing that his name could be seen different in different languages.  Now as we look at this letter we can be sure that the Jerusalem church understood the seriousness of this situation that Paul and Barnabas had brought to their attention as I have mentioned in an earlier SD that if this was not resolved correctly then it could have ended the church altogether, however we know that Jesus stated that He would build His church and the gates of hell would not stop it.

As we now move to verse 23 I want to quote from  John MacArthur who writes “The salutation chairein (greetings) appears only here, in Acts 23:26 (where it is used by a Roman, Claudius Lysias), and in James 1:1.  That may imply that James wrote the letter on behalf of others.  Syria and Cilicia were administered at this time as a single Roman district, of which Antioch was the capital.  Many of the churches in Cilicia had no doubt been founded by Paul during his stay there after his flight from Jerusalem (Acts 9:30).  The Gentile churches of Cyprus and in Galatia were not mentioned.  They may have been viewed as extensions of the Antioch church, or the letter may have been addressed only to Antioch because that church had sent the delegation to Jerusalem” (Homer A. Kent, Jr. is where the last part of this quote came from.)

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I can see our Lord Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit giving direction to the men from Jerusalem to solve this great problem, and I believe that His Spirit solves things in my life too as I yield to Him.

My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that the Spirit of God will guide me as I continue to work on my lessons for our Sunday school class.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Hezekiah” (2 Kings 18:1-11).

Today’s Bible question:  “Which Bible book tells about a runaway slave?”

Answer in our next SD.

4/2/2018 11:13 AM