BEMA 140: Not to Burden You

Transcription Status

5 Nov 23 — Initial public release

12 Sep 23 — Transcript approved for release

Not to Burden You

Brent Billings: Greetings BEMA Podrishioners. We just want to jump in here real quick before we start the normal episode that’ll be here in just a minute. I want to tell you about the upcoming Israel trip in 2020. [Editor’s note: Ha ha!] Registration has just opened for that this week. If you’re interested, we will have links in the show notes for the—first you want to watch the orientation video and then the details page on the trip, which includes the registration link.

Marty Solomon: I’m going to drive Brent crazy here, because we have two trips right now that are open. One trip that really needs participants, and that’s our low-contact trip. Our low-contact trip. Our low-contact trip, if you want to come on that, is the one without the hiking—a little bit cooler temperatures. If you’re somebody that can’t do the physically strenuous trip, that’s a trip for you. I’d love to throw that information in the show notes. It also has an orientation video—slightly different—and a registration link there.

Then we also have our full-contact trip, which registration went live. We’re over a third, not quite about halfway full within a couple of days of the registration going live. [Editor’s note: Those were the days.] We anticipate that one filling up. If you’re wanting to go on that trip, hurry and grab your seat now. We are looking for some low-contact participants in May of 2020. [Editor’s note: Looking? Can you even imagine?] All that information will be in your show notes, and make sure you find it. Find the links you’re looking for.

Brent: Both trips are in 2020. [Editor’s note: This episode is from October 2019.]

Marty: Both trips. One in May; that’ll be the low-contact.

Brent: Low-contact in May and full-contact in August.

Marty: You got it.

Brent: I would maybe suggest going to the trip details page first just to check the dates and everything. Then before you register, watch the orientation video and then get on board with the trip.

Marty: Just make sure you’re looking at all the right stuff. It can be a little confusing. We got two open trips right now, both of them to Israel. That usually won’t be the case, but just make sure you’re watching the right orientations, looking at the right trips. All that kind of goes—

Brent: Low-contact is kind of an experiment. You haven’t done this kind of trip before, right?

Marty: Not at all. I actually have no idea what I’m doing here. I’ve got a basic idea of what I want to accomplish. We’ll see if it works. They can be guinea pigs.

Brent: Sounds good. On to our episode.

[music]

Brent: This is the BEMA Podcast with Marty Solomon. I’m his co host Brent Billings. Today we examine how the early church community handled applying the Gospel to a major cultural problem. We seek to learn from their methods and see what we might be able to take into our own unique settings.

Marty: I am excited, again, about this episode. I used to not get very excited, Brent, about the Book of Acts, and now it’s all changed. Really Paul in general—boy, have I grown to just think—there was so much I had to deconstruct. A lot of our listeners are probably going on the same journey. I love the Old Testament. I loved learning about Jesus, but we had glorified Paul so much. In the words of Brian McLaren, “We had made Jesus our Savior, but Paul our Lord.” We read everything through the lens of a misreading of Paul, which is what Session 4 is all about.

I had a lot of—I rejected large chunks of the New Testament. Not really rejected in whole, but I stepped away. I had this—well, you remember. You were with me in my early BEMA days.

Brent: It’s true.

Marty: I talked about Paul from a particular perspective. It was a frustrated tone. Then I just kept growing to learn more and more about the context of Paul and what Paul’s doing, and it’s just so beautiful. I get so excited now to teach about Session 4 and the New Testament. I’m glad I went on that growth curve. I went on it before we recorded Session 4.

Brent: It’s perhaps an overcorrection, but now you’re back on the path.

Marty: That is correct. Now, before we even get started, let me just make one general recommendation just about Paul in general. There’s a book that I’m going to recommend just for Paul. Just a great perspective, especially when it comes to archaeology, and the scholarship surrounding the archaeology of the New Testament. We’re going to recommend In Search of Paul, by Crossan and Reed.

Let me qualify that, as I always do. We’ve recommended Crossan before and Reed and Borg and those characters. Now listen, they are members of the Jesus Seminar. They are very, very liberal textual critics. There is a lot of that which makes me uncomfortable. I want to reiterate again the need to think critically, to not accept everything that they say and everything and whatever. We’re big enough people—we can think critically. What frustrated me was we rejected all these people simply because they were liberal scholars. We didn’t even examine their scholarship.

The fact of the matter—I was just in a conversation the other day around lunch. I talked about Crossan, and the person I was talking to rolled their eyes and went, “Oh, we can’t talk about him. We can’t read him. Obviously he’s a member of the Jesus Seminar.” Listen, the scholarship of these guys is fantastic. Their conclusions are circumspect to me. Is that the right word, Brent? Circumspect?

Brent: Maybe there’s a better word.

Marty: I am wary. Let’s use the word wary. How about that? I am wary of their conclusions. I can think critically about that. That is a part of the process. However, the scholarship of Crossan and his partners—he is just one the best first-century Roman contextual scholars that are out there. Think critically, examine his stuff, learn from it, reject what you need to, and move on. Excellent book. Excellent book. It’s on my favorite shelf. I’m not sure if it’s in my top 10, but it’s really close if it’s not. A great book. We’ll talk about some more books before we’re done today. Let me just get that one on the table—off the shelf and on the table for you—and then we’ll move on. Brent, how about you start us off. Read us—we’re going to dive into Acts 15 here.

Brent: 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.” This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. Paul and Barnabas were appointed along with some other believers to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. The church sent them on their way. As they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. 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.

Then some of the believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the Law of Moses.” The apostles and elders met to consider this question.

Marty: Now notice, by the way, how Jewish of a conversation there. There is the party of the who, Brent? That stands up and says this. We’re to call it? There was a party at the end there.

Brent: Oh, the party of the Pharisees.

Marty: This is a very Jewish conversation. We have this mentality that we’ve taught people that when Christianity started after Jesus was resurrected, everybody jetted away from Judaism and started their own thing. All of this is still happening in the context of Judaism. It’s very Jewish. Paul and Barnabas continue on their way through the region, they head to places like Iconium, Lystra, Derbe. They have similar experiences in all those places that they had in the city and Antioch, which is where our last episode was.

If you read through Acts 14, which we did not, but you’re going to find that they are initially received quite well in these areas, same as usual. As they go throughout Asia Minor, they proclaim a Gospel of inclusion for the Gentiles. We are told that they’re quite persuasive in Iconium, and a great number of Jews and Gentiles believe. They also have quite a successful beginning in Lystra. It’s going to get kind of dicey a little bit later, but it’s a great beginning in Lystra, and a wonderful time in Derbe. At every location, they have a group of Judeans, as would be translated, we already talked about more literally. Not simply Jews, but Judeans that follow them.

Some Judeans follow them and some don’t. Some of those Judeans follow them causing controversy. They literally follow them around through the land, causing controversy, division, and over time, their rejection at all those locations. They eventually returned to Antioch, after causing quite a Jewish ruckus in Asia Minor. The church is forced to deal with the mounting tension within this very Jewish church. They head to Jerusalem to have a meeting that we call the Jerusalem Council, to discuss what they’re going to do about all these Gentiles.

What is the Church’s position going to be this Jesus movement? What is their position going to be regarding this huge influx of Gentile believers? Will they have to become Torah-observant like everyone else? As we’ve mentioned before, this conversation is not new, nor is it even a conversation unique to the Jesus movement. These Jesus followers have taken the same conversation to new levels, but it’s far from a new dialogue. I’m going to stray from my notes here, and it probably shouldn’t, Brent. I feel like this conversation, and I’m going to work really hard right now to not plant a political flag here.

However, I think the world and the culture that we find ourselves in today is very similar to this in America. I think we have a world that is changing. I think we used to be able to look at the world around us and know that our world was. Well, like so many of us, it was whether it was a racial identification, whether it was a political identification, whether it was a socioeconomic identification—there was a norm in our country. This country has been getting more and more and more diverse. The norm is becoming less and less and less normal. What do you do?

I feel like there is a sense of panic and fear that’s driving so much of this division because there’s a group of people that can feel the comfort and the privilege of their norm slipping away, and so they’re reacting against this product. This is not a new conversation. When you think back to this movement and you realize you’re having a Jewish conversation in a very Jewish context, and the Gentiles are flooding in, this is making a very Jewish church, a very Jewish movement, a very Jewish whatever you want to call it—synagogue, whatever. It’s making Judaism very uncomfortable in the region of Palestine. It’s making them very, very uncomfortable. Their norm is changing. That’s what I’m going to say about that. Did I do a good job with that, Brent? Did I do okay?

Brent: That’s pretty good.

Marty: All right. Good. Good. Okay. We spoke about how Shammai and Hillel—we’ve already spoken about that right, Brent? How they kept their typical form of disagreeing about how to handle things?

Brent: Right.

Marty: Shammai thought that a Gentile would only be justified through obedience to Torah. If this is true, then while a Gentile is welcome to worship God, Shammai would have said, “I’m glad you’re here at synagogue, this is wonderful.” They will never experience true justification without conversion to Judaism. Hillel argued that everyone is justified by what, Brent?

Brent: By faith.

Marty: Faith. If this is true, it would mean that Gentiles do not have to become Jewish in order to experience justification. While they still aren’t full children and heirs of God’s chosen household, they are fully accepted cousins and welcome to worship the God of Israel. However, more context is going to help us understand this. Remember, I told us, I think it was in the last episode or the one prior, I said we’re just dipping our toes into this, like so many big ideas that we have in the podcast. We were just introducing the idea. I want to go a little bit further in the introduction today.

We still have a lot to talk about in the book of Galatians. We’re going to do that. We’re not going to wrap up this conversation, but I want to push in just a little bit further. Okay? The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has done much to help the understanding of the context of the New Testament in some incredible ways.

Brent: That was when?

Marty: That was the 1950s. Well, is that when they were discovered? Discovered or when we finally—I’d have to go back and review my Dead Sea Scrolls history. A good Wikipedia search could do some good.

Brent: We’ve got a few decades under our belt with Dead Sea Scrolls.

Marty: Yes, we do. Middle of the last century. Let’s see. It’s done some incredible things that we know about the New Testament. One of the things it’s helped us discover is how much we have misread about Paul, and what Paul’s writing about in the New Testament. One of the scrolls we found is titled, Miqsat Ma’asay Ha-Torah. Miqsat Ma’asay Ha-Torah. I’ll spell that as I spell it. M-I-Q-S-A-T M-A’-A-S-A-Y H-A-T-O-R-A-H, Miqsat Ma’asay Ha-Torah . This phrase means the works of the law.

Through our study of Second Temple Judaism, in the world of archaeology, we understand a lot of things about what first century Judaism understood about Torah. Much of this was prompted by the very arguments that we’ve been talking about with Shammai and Hillel, and the arguments surrounding the Gentiles. The Jews had broken down the law into three sections. Now don’t check out here. Christians have often talked about the three sections of the law, and they haven’t gotten those divisions correct. It’s jacked up the conversation, so pay attention. These are not the typical sections that we think of and talk about. Usually, we’ll talk about things like moral law, civil law, and liturgical law, but those are not the correct distinctions.

By the way, let’s recommend some books while we’re sitting here, if you want to read up on this, if you’re like, “Whoa, Marty, what are you talking about?” Well, I’m talking about something called “New Perspective on Paul,” which is the larger school of theological thought, New Perspective on Paul. There’s going to be some authors that you can look at to read. We’re not going to recommend books because there’s so many of them. Here’s some names you can look at: N. T. Wright. Obviously, N. T. Wright is going to write about a lot of things, what a theological giant in the world of theology and contextual study today.

Excuse me, if you look up N. T. Wright’s writings on Paul, just look up literally Google, N. T. Wright books on Paul. You’re going to get a whole list of books. Some of them are very easy and accessible to read, and some of them are very deep and academic. N. T. Wright does both. You usually can tell the difference because of the price of the book. [chuckles] If the book is $20, $30, you’re looking at that more easily digestible book. If the book is $80, $100, you’re looking at a very academic piece there. It’s going to be much harder to digest for most of us, even myself. I find at times hard to read that stuff. That’s N. T. Wright.

Another name would be E.P. Sanders, would be another big name that we’re going to plug here as one of those New Perspective on Paul scholars. Two other names that I’m familiar with, James Dunn. James Dunn does a lot of work on this. Another name that I’ve personally enjoyed, I just like the way he communicates is Mark D. Nanos, Mark D. Nanos. These are all scholars that have led the way, and are on the cutting edge of what’s called New Perspective on Paul. Why “new” perspective? Because it’s the new perspective we have since studying things like the Dead Sea Scrolls and other pieces of archaeology. It’s really being driven by the things we’re discovering about Second Temple Judaism through the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Brent: I’ll have links for all those guys in the show notes.

Marty: In the show notes, they’re all there. Those recommended reading, and you’ll be reading that for the next decade or two if you wanted to read all those books, so there’s plenty of stuff there to dig into. These scholars have identified in Second Temple Judaism, they talked about three different portions of the law. The first portion is cultic law. I’ll say that one more time, cultic law. Don’t be thrown off by the word “cult,” just hear cultic law. Cult is a reference to the practice. It’s the part of the law that has to do with liturgical worship at the temple. If you need a temple to do it, it’s a part of the cultic law. This is a Levitical system, the priesthood, the sacrifice, temple worship. In short, you need a temple to engage in cultic law.

Brent: Originally, this would have been the tabernacle, right?

Marty: Sure. Absolutely. It’s the altar. It’s the holy items. It’s the priesthood. As believers in Jesus, we would say that Jesus has become the cultic law for us. Stay tuned later in Session 4 for the book of Hebrews. One of my favorite trick questions I love to ask Christians, do you need the daily sin offering? We all go, “No, we don’t need the sin offering?” I say, “Yes, you do, but Jesus is your sin offering every single day.” We’re told in Hebrews that Jesus says the offering once and for all time, so at 9:00 AM and at 3:00 PM, when that offering should be offered, Jesus is your sin offering according to our theology.

Ethical law would be the second part. The first one, we have cultic law; that’s when we need the temple. Ethical law. Ethical law is just simply true. No matter who you are or where you are, these laws are universally true for all people. Ethical law isn’t true just because God said so arbitrarily. Ethical law is true, because it’s the way God made the universe to function. A great example of ethical law is the 10 commandments, Brent. We’ve all sat in those Bible studies and talked about as Christians how we’re not bound by the law. Then somebody asks the question, “Are we bound by the 10 commandments?” We all sit there and we go, “It feels wrong to say no, but theologically, I’m supposed to say yes. I don’t really know what to do. Apparently, I’m not bound by the law, do not murder.”

No, this is ethical law. This is just true. It’s just ethical law. It’s just true no matter who you are—“don’t kill anybody” is a good law no matter where you’re at. Little PS brainteaser, what about the Sabbath? It’s one of the 10. I argue, Sabbath is ethical law and has nothing to do with Judaism. Observing a Sabbath, and if we go back to Session 1, you’re going to know that that’s a passion of mine. That’s going to be an ethical law.

Brent: Established all the way back in Genesis 1, at the creation of the world.

Marty: That’s right. Before there were Jews, before there was Sinai, before there was circumcision. Before there was anything, we had a Sabbath. Sabbath is ethical. It’s about how the world is made. We have cultic law. We have ethical law. Then we have miqsat ma’asay haTorah. I’ll say it again, miqsat ma’asay haTorah, the works of the law. This is the part of the law that makes you Jewish. After presenting the ketubah of the 10 commandments at Sinai, after God’s people said yes to his wedding vows, they voluntarily agreed to carry the law that would make them a- what do we call them, Brent?

Brent: Kingdom of priests.

Marty: The kingdom of priests. God wanted them to be different than the world around them, and he wanted them to put their God on display for the nations. He did this by giving them the works of the law, that would do the work of making them different. This includes circumcision, which happens to be the mark of carrying miqsat ma’asay haTorah, showing up in Genesis 17. If you’re carrying circumcision, it’s also a sign that you are carrying the Sinai covenant after Sinai. Kosher eating, wearing tassels, not wearing blended fabrics, cleanliness laws, all of this lies in the realm of miqsat ma’asay haTorah.

It’s the part of the law that makes you Jewish. Shammai had decided that you were justified, and the word justified means declared righteous. That’s what justification means. To be declared righteous. Not to be righteous. To be declared righteous. My favorite word is exonerated. If you’re exonerated, does that mean that you didn’t do it?

Brent: No.

Marty: Not necessarily. It could mean that, but it just means you’ve been declared righteous. In the Jewish world, this idea of exoneration and justification was not tied to salvation. We’ll talk about that more in Galatians. If you’re going, “What? Wait, how does that—?” Yes, because Christianity has tied the two together in our theological systems, but that wasn’t a Jewish idea. It’s not what Paul believed when he wrote all the stuff that he wrote.

When God saw you being obedient, according to Shammai, when God saw you being obedient to the miqsat ma’asay haTorah, when he saw you eating kosher, when God saw you wearing tassels, when God saw you getting circumcised, this would mean that’s when God looked at you and said, “Because you’re doing the things I asked you to do, I declare you righteous.” That’s why, for him, a Gentile has to become what, Brent, in order to be justified?

Brent: To be Jewish.

Marty: He has to carry the whole Law, because you’re only going to find justification if you’re carrying the whole law, but Hillel said, God declared you righteous because you believed just as he did with Abraham in Genesis 15. This would mean that carrying the miqsat ma’asay haTorah, was not a function of justification, but a mission of being Jewish. It’s not an expectation from God in order to be justified but it’s the mission that he called you to be a part of.

Now let’s go back to the story that you’re reading here, Brent, back in Acts 15. The early Christians are battling through this same argument. Only they have more at stake in the new Kingdom order Jesus brought—remember this new King and the new Kingdom—what do we call that, Brent?

Brent: The Gospel.

Marty: The Gospel.

Brent: The euangelion.

Marty: The euangelion. This new King and new Kingdom. This won’t be just about justification. This will be about sonship and daughtership. This will be about God’s household. This is going to be about these pagan, rough around the edges, former idolaters becoming full-fledged heirs of God’s promises. There are some Jesus’s followers who are adamant that this is too much and the Gospel is going too far.

There are some who say that this is what God has always been up to, and they don’t agree, Brent Billings. They don’t agree. They argue, and when they’re done having their conversation, they decide that Hillel is right and Shammai is wrong. Just like their rabbi, Jesus, they decide that Hillel hasn’t gone far enough, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. How about you go ahead and read the next little section there. We’ll read about this encounter in Acts 15.

Brent: After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them. “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips, the message of the gospel and believe. God who knows the heart showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them before he purified their hearts by faith. Now then why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles, a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No, we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus, that we are saved just as they are.”

Marty: All right. I want to stop you here for just a moment. We’re at this big meeting because everybody doesn’t agree. There’s one group that says one thing and one group that says another. One group that says we’re being too inclusive, we’re going too far and another group that says, “No, this is what the Gospel is all about.” Imagine a world where Jesus’s followers didn’t agree on these things. Imagine. It’s hard, but try to imagine. Notice by the way, how much Paul is going to stand up and talk at this big meeting. How much is he going to talk, Brent?

Brent: Well, he hasn’t talked yet.

Marty: He hasn’t talked yet. Guess what? Spoiler alert, he’s not going to. I love that because we get this picture of Paul, like this conceited, arrogant student of Gamaliel, and he’s here because we’re told that he went there, him and Barnabas. He’s here. He’s in the room, but he doesn’t say anything. He keeps quiet and lets the leaders of this movement, the people that walked with Jesus because Paul didn’t walk with Jesus every day. He lets, who just spoke in your story, Brent?

Brent: That was Peter.

Marty: Peter got up, and Peter’s had an experience. He’s had his own experience with this. What was his experience, Brent?

Brent: He had Cornelius.

Marty: Cornelius. He gets up and speaks first. Okay, go ahead and keep reading.

Brent: The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. When they finished, James spoke up. “Brothers,” he said, “listen to me.”

Marty: All right. I guess I should point out Paul does speak with Barnabas when they go to tell testimonies.

Brent: He shares stories, yes.

Marty: He shares stories. Doesn’t have this big monologue like Peter or some other character we’re going to see here in a moment.

Brent: So James, “Brothers,” he said, “Listen to me. Simon has described to us—”

Marty: I’m going to interrupt you again. Who speaks up now?

Brent: This is James.

Marty: This is James. We have Peter and who are the three? We haven’t really talked about three yet, but we have three that followed Jesus. They were everywhere. They were on the Mount of Transfiguration. They had the inside scoop. Who were they, Brent?

Brent: Peter, James, and John.

Marty: Peter, James, and John. The great triumvirate. Peter’s in charge. He’s the ringleader. He’s the guy that’s going to be in charge of the movement, because he is “El Capitan Disciple,” talmid—mixing my languages up there. Then we have James who’s going to be the leader of the church where, Brent?

Brent: In Jerusalem.

Marty: In Jerusalem. James represents the very what church?

Brent: The very Judean church.

Marty: The very Jewish, the very Judean church, and a good term there. Very southern—Judean, a very Jewish church. Gentiles at all?

Brent: Maybe a few.

Marty: Maybe a few, but not many at all. They’re not experiencing the influx. James represents and is the pastor of one of these perspectives. Peter’s in charge of it all. While we’re not going to see him here in Acts 15, who’s going to end up being the representative for the church in Asia and Asia minor?

Brent: John will be.

Marty: John. We’re going to know John as the “pastor to Asia” in church history. James will be in Jerusalem. John will be in Ephesus. Peter will be over all of it. Now James speaks up, and he says what? What was the first word he said?

Brent: Brothers.

Marty: Now, what did we say that was from last episode? Brothers was—we had three groups. We had brothers, we had children of Abraham, and we had God-fearing Gentiles.

Brent: Brothers are the Jews themselves.

Marty: Jews. He’s looking at his group of people. He’s speaking to this group that’s like, “Oh, man, we got to remain Jewish.” Go ahead and read it.

Brent: “Brothers,” he said, “Listen to me. Simon has described to us how God first intervened to choose the people for his name from the Gentiles. The words of the prophets are in agreement with this as it is written. After this, I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins, I will rebuild and I will restore it, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord. Even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things, things known from long ago.”

Marty: I’m betting James, as a good Jewish-trained Jew is probably doing some remez work there. It’s probably a remez. I’ll let you check that out. Go ahead and keep reading it, Brent.

Brent: The direct reference was from Amos, but there probably some more context within that passage.

Marty: I like it.

Brent: “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. For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

Marty: One of the questions I have at the end of this, is why does James—James, he speaks up and starts speaking to his people in that Jewish perspective saying, “Listen, Peter’s right. This is what the scriptures taught us. This is the right way to go.” I see James at the end here pushing as far as he can, for this perspective that he represents. I see him being a beautiful leader saying “Peter is right. They aren’t supposed to be Jewish. Hillel’s correct—they aren’t justified by the miqsat ma’asay haTorah. They need to remain Gentiles.” But you still see James going, “What laws can I hold them to? Because I’m not willing to just throw this all willy-nilly to the wind.”

He picks these three laws and, Brent, you know the answer to this, why does he pick these three laws? Does he just randomly, arbitrarily pick three random rules to lay on the Gentiles because of the world they live in?

Brent: Not exactly.

Marty: Not exactly. Tell me more.

Brent: This leads us back to just a little bit later in Genesis in the story of the Flood.

Marty: This is the Noahic covenant. One of the things that we know from the Mishnah is—the Mishnah had basically taken the Noahic covenant, and for its current cultural context had redefined—which, Mishnah was written mid-second century. It’s oral tradition at this point. It’s not written, it’s oral tradition at the writing of the book of Acts. They had identified three, some say four, but three to four parts of the Noahic covenant. They said the Noahic covenant can really be summed up in three rules. The three rules are idolatry. When you go back to the no to Noah’s covenant, there’s a lot of talk about me and you and me and you. It needs to be about Noah and God and not any other gods. There’s an idolatry component, which they said was relevant for their day in the Roman culture—no idolatry.

The Jews said the Noahic covenant is about sexual immorality, because the whole story of Noah, there’s a whole lot of respecting sexuality. If you remember the story of the vineyard, the things that God commands and be fruitful and multiply. What’s the appropriate way to be fruitful and multiply. They said idolatry. They said sexual immorality, and they said sanctity of life because the other big theme in Noah’s covenant is the whole earth. Me and the whole earth. Me and every single creature on earth. All the things on the earth. Me and every- it’s the earth, it’s the earth, it’s the earth. It’s the sanctity of life. That’s what the Mishnah had said. That’s what Jews already thought about the Noahic covenant.

In the Talmud, they’re going to take it from three, and they’re going to actually make it seven laws, but that’s going to be later. That’s gonna be a century or two centuries after the book of Acts. Why is James saying this about the Gentiles? Why does he say, we’re going to hold you to the what covenant, Brent?

Brent: The Noahic covenant.

Marty: Why the Noahic covenant?

Brent: Because that’s the covenant God made with the whole earth at that point.

Marty: Does that include the Gentiles?

Brent: Absolutely.

Marty: Absolutely. James is saying, “I can’t hold them to the Sinai covenant, because they’re not Sinai covenant people, and they don’t have to become Sinai covenant people, but I can hold them to the Noahic covenant.” I see James going, “I’m going to find what few rules I can, and I’m going to make sure that we call those out and hold them to it.” You can call it ethical law if you want to. He’s gonna go back to the Noahic covenant and say, “You’re under a covenant agreement with God as well. No idolatry, no sexual morality, and no meat- sanctity of life. No meat with the blood still in it.”

All right, let’s see here. I got all wound up there. Go back to my notes here. All right. That last conversation about the miqsat ma’asay haTorah, isn’t the only thing that I think is important here in this larger conversation. I think we’re still going to learn something super important and relevant here for our world today. After the meeting, after they make the decision, after Peter gets up and does his thing, after they hear the testimonies of Barnabas and Paul, after they hear from James, they make a decision together. James said they ought to do what? Brent, do you remember? He said, they ought to…?

Brent: They ought to write to the Gentiles.

Marty: They need to write a letter. They do. They get together and they write a letter. The letter is going to read as follows. You’ve got some verses and then the letter. Go ahead and keep reading through Acts 15 here.

Brent: Just to point out in that last section, when they were having the meeting, that was the one time that it’s Barnabas and Paul that you mentioned earlier after the name change, right?

Marty: Oh. There would probably be a couple more times and it’s going to happen in Lystra as well. Did it say Barnabas and Paul?

Brent: It did, yes.

Marty: Interesting. I’ll have to check the Greek on both of those, but if so, I need to quit teaching that because it happens twice then.

Brent: All right.

Marty: It happens twice. Ray always taught me once, and I took his word for it. I need to go back and double-check. You’ve caught me. You’ve caught me in a foolish assumption. All right.

Brent: I just wanted to point that out, because as soon as I start reading here, it’s going to be back to Paul and Barnabas. All right. Verse 22, Then the apostles and elders with the whole church decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. With them, they sent the following letter, “The apostles and elders, your brothers, to the Gentile believers in Antioch—”

Marty: Notice that statement, the apostles and elders. This letter’s going to who, Brent?

Brent: The Gentiles.

Marty: What do they say?

Brent: “Your brothers.”

Marty: Oh, man, that is spicy. Oh, I like that. Okay. Go ahead.

Brent: “The apostles and elders, your brothers, to the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia, greetings. We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. We all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends, Barnabas and Paul.” Interesting. “Men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements. You are to abstain from food sacrifice to idols, from blood from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.”

Marty: What always struck me as one of the most bizarre statements in scripture, shows up in the middle of that letter, Brent. The apostles and elders declare to the theosabes. What does that mean by the way, theosabes?

Brent: The Gentile believers.

Marty: Yes. The God-fearers, right? God-fearer. They say this phrase, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit.” It seemed good to the Holy Spirit? In the faith that I was raised in, I was told all about absolute truth. I was taught that truth exists in its abstract form and could not be moved or negotiated. Truth is truth, period. God is truth, and God decides what truth is. Now I certainly don’t want to sit here and dismantle the notion that absolute truth exists, nor do I want to engage in the work of deeper philosophy here. That’s not what I’m trying here, but at the very least, the notion that an idea and a decision would “seem good to the Holy Spirit.” As if the Holy Spirit was in some sort of engaging dialogue. Almost like the Holy Spirit was like a party in the discussion.

Brent: “Oh yeah. huh? That seems pretty good.”

Marty: Yes. That kind of tone.

Brent: Send that letter out. Let’s see what happens.

Marty: Yes. This idea was beyond my understanding. How I understood the story, it would’ve said that the apostles needed to get together and pray and hear from the Holy Spirit. The spirit would tell them, what Brent? The spirit would tell them what?

Brent: The absolute truth.

Marty: The absolute truth. It would be their job to hear it and respond in obedience, but make no mistake about it, the spirit would be the one calling the shots. After all, the Holy Spirit is God. To paint a picture that the spirit is hanging out and being a part of a conversation was too much. The idea that the spirit seemed to be persuaded even in the Greek language. All of this changed, by the way, when I was taught about the concept of binding and loosing for the world of the apostles and first-century Judaism. The understanding of the people who wrote the scriptures and the people that heard them by the way, was that there are absolute truths in the world. Although they wouldn’t talk about it in that Western way, they did understand there was absolute truth. Many of those truths have been recorded in the scriptures.

In short, there are things in the Text that God has said. What God says is final. There is no changing, adjusting, or ignoring the statements and statutes of God. However, there are a lot of things that God does not say. In other words, some things are black and white. Many other things are very gray. God, very rarely engaged in the art of interpretation. God left that up to us. God gave us the truth, but how we interpret and apply that truth has always been up to the community of God’s people. Ever since the law was given at Mount Sinai, God’s people have had to gather together and decide, led by the elders of their community, what God’s intent was or would be in each and every context, generation, and circumstance.

The black and white issues were never up for discussion, but on those other issues that were difficult to interpret and/ or apply, the community had to do the work of binding and loosing. If the community gathered together and decided in their context, a certain command would be applied one way, then that is how the command would be applied.

An example of this would be the question, Brent, can we drive on Shabbat? A Jewish question. Not for you Gentiles, but for us Jews, we would ask the question, “Can I get in a car and drive on Shabbat?” The community would get together and discuss all the issues at stake with what we know to be true. God told us not to work. Is driving work? God told us not to light a fire on Shabbat. Does the internal combustion engine constitute a fire? What is the spirit and the rule of Sabbath, and what’s being violated if anything? They would wrestle with question after question until the community could come to a decision together. If they decided to say, “No. You cannot drive.”

That would be the binding up of the issue. If they decided to permit driving on Shabbat, that would be called loosing. To be sure, the community very rarely unanimously agreed on these issues. That would be almost impossible. We’re humans. There would always be groups of people who disagreed, but the process of binding and loosing was understood.

They respected and submitted to the larger opinion of the community. They didn’t leave and go find another church. They didn’t write nasty letters to the editor or send damning emails to the church office. Imagine. They respected the decision of the community and continued to love their neighbor. Whatever the ruling of the community, the understanding was that God in those issues of gray would hold them to their decision. If they decided to bind it up, God would hold them to the decision as if it were his. If they decided to loose it, then God would join them in their decision. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit.

It’s as if God says, “I don’t know, I’ll let you decide. Please make your decisions for good reasons. Whatever you decide, I’m ready to go with it.” Sounds crazy right? Listen to Jesus in Matthew 16. He said this to Peter, “I give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Jesus told his followers that he expected them to engage in this process. Jesus told his followers he wanted them to engage in this process. That would be you and me, Brent in our world today. I wish we engaged in this more, particularly here in the Western world. That’s such a foreign concept to us. In a sense, we bind and loose all the time. It’s how we created denominations, only we did it out of ignorance, like we didn’t bind and loose intentionally.

I wish we knew how to respect the dialogue and opinions of others more. I wish we knew how to honor our elders and equip them with the positions and respect that would allow them to teach and lead more. I wish we respected the communities’ decisions more than our own personal opinions. Gosh dang it. It seems like we might be able to do more for the Kingdom, and in an ironic twist, we’d actually preserve the space to disagree in a healthy way. There are things, Brent, about the church that we belong to, that I don’t agree with. Can you imagine that?

Brent: Oh, sure. I could imagine.

Marty: I’m a part of the community. I’m a part of the fellowship, and no, I’m not going to hang around for things that I deem immoral or unethical. For things that I just have a difference of opinion on, and the whole community has gathered together and they decided that they don’t agree with me, I’m going to respect that. I’m going to go with it. I’m going to still talk about it and learn and push and challenge and wrestle because that’s a part of the process together. When the community makes a decision, we’re going to respect the decision of the community. I don’t know why we have such a hard time doing this today.

I find there’s so much more that I want to unpack with this teaching. I know that when I introduce this idea to my students, it changes everything. I know there’s so much more to be said, but it’s pretty interesting to watch an ancient community of people who came together with a really big problem and some really good arguments. They hashed it out. They weighed the options. They decided to side with grace, and they loosed the gentiles from the miqsat ma’asay haTorah. May we find the courage to follow in their steps. Brent, how about you finish off the Acts 15 here because I like where it heads. We’re going to see some imperfection before we’re done.

Brent: The men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. After spending some time there, they were sent off by the believers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them, but Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord. Sometime later, Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preach the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work.

Marty: If we remember earlier, a few chapters before John Mark, we actually had talked about this. You were asking about John, you were asking about Mark and all that kind of stuff. He had gone with them. He had gone with them on a mission, and apparently, he had deserted them. Whoever the rabbi is, whether the rabbi is Barnabas or the rabbi is Paul, Mark had deserted them. Now, we don’t know what the issue is for sure. The Text doesn’t say, but I wonder if it’s this issue here. I wonder if Mark was not okay with this inclusive Gospel that Paul was preaching. These Gentiles are in without becoming Jewish, and he leaves.

Now when it’s time to go and Barnabas was like, “Listen, we’ve had a meeting, Jerusalem Council. We’re all of one mind. We’ve bounded up and loosed. We got to take Mark.” Paul was like, “We’re not taking Mark. Mark’s not on board. Mark’s not aligned with the mission. Mark’s not of one mind.” And so Paul refuses and this becomes so—go ahead and finish this.

Brent: They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cypress, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Marty: The great and wonderful Apostle Paul. It’s wonderful like, “Oh, Marty, I love this episode so much. The binding and the loosing, how we could all have a wonderful dialogue and still figure out how to agree.” Apparently even the great Apostle Paul—this doesn’t work for him in a moment, at least in one moment here. We can argue about whether or not he’s right or wrong. I see Paul as a fallible, sinful human being. I’m not sure this is his best day here, where he forces—and Barnabas too—they force such a sharp disagreement that they can’t work together. They can’t fellowship together, and they break their way.

Now, spoiler alert, by the time Paul is done, he’s going to bring Mark back into the fold and everything’s going to be okay. He’s going to have gone about the work of reconciliation and restoration and that’s going to be beautiful. In this moment, right here in Acts 15, even after the meeting, even after the discussion, they still have a hard time working together. Why? Because they’re just like you and me. Not Brent and Marty, because of course we’re awesome. We are like two peas in a pod.

Brent: We do tend to get along pretty well.

Marty: Other people, there are other people. Those other people. Those people.

Brent: Those people.

Marty: Yes. That’s enough for today, Brent.

Brent: If you have any questions, thoughts, comments, concerns, just go to bemadiscipleship.com, there’s all sorts of ways to get a hold of us there. Thanks for joining us on the BEMA Podcast. We’ll talk to you again soon.