May 03, 2023 | Be On Mission
The Debate Over Circumcision
Scripture: Acts 15:1-4 (NIV)
1 Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. 3 The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
Devotional
The debate about circumcision was a major challenge for the early Christians. We just finished Paul’s letter to the Galatians, in which he refuted the teachings of the Judaizers, a group of Jewish converts to Christianity who taught that non-Jewish Gentiles had to obey all the Jewish law as well as believe in Jesus.
It is important to remember that, in the early years, most Christians were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah of God. They saw themselves as Christians, but they still saw themselves as Jews. The natural conclusion this circumcision group came to was that you had to be a Jew first if you wanted to become a Christian. And since every Jewish baby boy was circumcised as a sign of the covenant with God, then every Gentile male, no matter what the age, would need to get circumcised on his pathway to accepting Jesus as the Messiah.
This controversy was so great that it threatened the very viability of Christianity in its infancy. The episode that begins with today’s reading takes place only two decades after Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Paul and Barnabas had just wrapped up their first missionary journey, in which numerous Gentiles had given their lives to Jesus. Now they were back in Antioch in Syria, which had become their home base of operations, when people came to them from Jerusalem in Judea. Their mission: to convince everyone that Gentiles had to be circumcised in order to become Christians.
So Paul and Barnabas headed south to Jerusalem, a 300 mile journey that would have taken a good fifteen days to walk. On the way they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria. The believers in those areas rejoiced with the news that Gentiles were becoming followers of Jesus. Nobody in those non-Jewish territories hassled Paul and Barnabas for not circumcising the Gentiles.
But the fledgling Christian movement was headquartered in Jerusalem in Judea, not in Phoenicia or Samaria. It was there that a decision would have to be made that would impact the spread of Christianity into the world, the vast majority of which was Gentile. In many ways, this Jerusalem Council would be an existential event.
Does it surprise you that the early church was embroiled in conflict? Do you expect churches to be conflict-free today? What are the issues worth debating? Which ones are not worth the struggle?
Poem
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Conduct approved
Adhering to the standards
You’ve followed most the rules
But there’s one thing that is lacking
Despite all the good you’ve done
Know that “It’s the ‘buts’ that kill you”
There is one thing left undone
It’s the thing you are lacking
It’s one more thing we require
Our tradition is our standard
Admission not approved
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