Acts 15:22-35

Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we get into God's Word, we have a little bit of coffee, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2022, we will make it all the way from the book of Acts to fight Lehman. Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into the Lord's Word.
Let's pray. Oh Father, we thank you so much for this day and we thank you for your word. We pray that as we read your word that you would care for us, teach us, watch over us. Lord, we pray that we would be encouraged and rejoice in who you are and what you have taught us. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, here we go. Acts chapter 15, verses 22 through 35. Then it pleased the apostles and elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, who is named Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren. All right, so what's going on?
Remember, Peter's given his statement about what the Gentiles should be doing, whether they should be keeping the law of Moses or not, whether they should be circumcised or not. And Peter had his opinions about that, his preaching on that. And then James also stood up and, hey, look, the nations, this was prophesied, they were going to come. And so they've made a decision to tell them to abstain from all these temple-type activities.
And so they're going to send not just Paul and Barnabas back up to Antioch and Syria with this message, but they're going to also send Silas and Judas. Now Judas Barsabbas, if you remember in Acts chapter 2, he was one of the two that they had initially put up as a possibility for another apostle. The lot didn't fall on Judas Barsabbas, it fell on Matthias instead. But it is the same Judas that they're sending. Also Silas, this is the same Silas that Paul would mention often in his letters, who would later join him on his missionary travels.
And we'll get to that in a little bit. But these are prominent men in the church, and so the church in Jerusalem is sending these men with them with this letter. So let's go ahead and listen to the letter. This letter they wrote by them. The apostles, the elders, and the brethren To the Brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, Greetings. Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words unsettling your souls, saying, You must be circumcised and keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment, it seems good to us. being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you, with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth, for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no great burden no greater burden than these necessary things, that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from strangled things, and from sexual immorality, if you keep yourself from these you will do well farewell so what is this letter that they send by the hand of judas bar sabbath as well as by silas well it's saying hey we've heard about your faith but we also heard that there's people who came to you who we didn't sin, and they're trying to put the yoke of Moses back on you.
They're trying to put you back under the law. This isn't what we're teaching. And so just make sure we understand that this is what they're saying. Some people will read what they're saying later in verse 29, and they'll imagine that somehow the kosher laws and the laws of Moses are back on their shoulders, but that's not what they're saying. because they would be contradicting themselves here. So what's going on in verse 29 somehow has to be different.
But they're sending it, this is not just to the church in Antioch, it's to the church in Antioch, that specific city, to the church in Syria, that whole nation, as well as to the church in the region of Cilicia. Now that region is where Paul is actually from, from Tarsus. And so we're going to see as we work through that this message is a broad message, it's a general teaching for the church. And notice also that there's no James versus Paul here, but that how does the church in Jerusalem feel about Paul and about Barnabas? Verse 25 and 26. with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You hear the commendation there. They love these men and they want to encourage that their teaching has been right, that what they've been doing is true. And so they send them with this message and they send them by the hands of Judas and by Silas, showing that there's unity amongst the brethren. And so what is it that it seemed right for the Holy Spirit and them to teach them?
Well, to abstain from things offered to idols. From, as verse 29 continues, my pages are stuck together here, from blood, from strangled things, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. These things are all connected together. We live in a different context where we don't see these types of things connected together.
But if you were to walk into one of the two extremely prominent pagan temples in Antioch, what would you find there? Well, you would find an altar, an altar to one of the pagan gods. And on that altar, they would kill animals, sacrifice them, burn them. But when we think of offerings, some people think of offerings and they think of an offering that's completely consumed by fire and becomes charcoal. While that was a type of sacrifice, most sacrifices were more like a grilled meat barbecue type thing, where people would actually eat that meat. And so this meat was sacrificed to idols and even in the ancient writings that have existed, some of the papyri today, there's evidences of things like the priests tasting the blood and writings about how these priests were to make these sacrifices by strangling different animals.
And that part of all of this as well in the temple was there were temple prostitutes. That's actually where the word for sexual immorality first came from. It wasn't this general word, but it was temple prostitution. Now, it broadened over the ages, and by the time we get to the New Testament, it's not limited to temple prostitution, but that's what's going on. That's the culture in what they're saying.
And so this is part of what they're telling them to turn away from false gods and turn to serve the living and true God. And this is exactly what the people in Antioch have done. And so as we get into the next portion, notice how they respond. So when they were sent off, they came to Antioch, and when they had gathered together the multitude, they delivered the letter. When they had read it, they rejoiced over its encouragement. Now Judas and Silas, themselves being prophets also, exhorted and strengthened the brethren with many words. And after they had stayed there for a time, they went back with greetings from the brethren to the apostles." Notice they gather together the church, they get the multitude together, And how did they see this?
They don't see it as onerous. They don't see this as, oh man, we can't eat this meat anymore, we can't do this sexual immorality anymore. No, they're encouraged. They hadn't started following a false gospel. They hadn't come back into the yoke of Moses.
But they were able to rejoice. that they could turn away from dead idols, turn away from all the pagan trappings of the temple and go and turn and serve the one true living God. And so they were encouraged by this. And it tells us that Judas, Barsabbas, as well as Silas, they're prophets also. And so what did they do? Well, they do what prophets do. They encourage, they teach. They strengthened and exhorted the brethren with many words. And they stayed there for a time. And then they go back to Jerusalem. And so verse 34 and 35 conclude this part of the story for us. However, it seemed good to Silas to remain there. Paul and Barnabas also remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of God with many others also. So they stay around. and they teach.
And the word here for preach, there's a few different words for preaching in the original language in the Greek, but the word here is evangelizomai, which is specifically preaching good news, declaring the good news of the word of the Lord. And so what would be the content of their preaching? Well, the good news is that Jesus Christ has come and is the Messiah. And all the ethical implications that flow from that, All the life-transforming truths that happen, all the spirit-filled living that comes with it, and so they stay and they preach and they teach.
This is exactly what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2 too, that the foundation of the church was laid by the teaching of the apostles and of the prophets. This is what they're doing. They're teaching. This is a hallmark of the church. This is why I do what I'm doing with you. Teaching, declaring the good news. We want to be built up in our faith. We want to follow the Lord. We want to love Him.
What's the best verse in all of this? Oh, I have a whole bunch of verses underlined. I think I have double underlined here verse 28, for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things. I have that underlined and then I also have underlined in my Bible verse 31, 31 and 32. When they read it, they rejoiced over its encouragement. Now Judas and Silas themselves being prophets also exhorted and strengthened the brethren with many words. What are you called to do in response to this?
Turn away. Turn away from the paganism of our day. Turn away from the ways in which our world, even today, with all of its trappings, with all of its consumerism, with all of its obsession over sexuality, with all of its identity politics, with all of its stuff, turn away from the idolatry of this world and go and serve the one true living God. We must fight the rulers and principalities of this world, not with weapons of war, but against the philosophies and the vain deceits that they would give us.
And we must remember Christ. Fix your eyes on Him, brother and sister. Love Jesus Christ, follow in His ways. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you have given us freedom in Christ, that you have given us your Holy Spirit, that you have given us such great love. We pray that we would follow after you all the days of our lives. Lives, please, Lord, let us love you, for you have loved us. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, may the Lord bless you today. May you rest in Jesus Christ. May your soul be encouraged, and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.