Podcasts about Jerusalem Council

Matt's Links:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/post_post_modern_theology/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@postpost-moderntheologyWas the Apostle Paul a false prophet who corrupted the original teachings of Jesus?In this episode, I'm joined by Matt from Post Postmodern Theology to take on one of the oldest—and increasingly popular—attacks on the New Testament: the claim that Paul created a different Christianity than Jesus, James, Peter and the original apostles.We examine the supposed contradictions between Paul and James on faith and works, Paul's teaching on meat sacrificed to idols, the Jerusalem Council, the early Church's acceptance of Paul's writings, and Peter's remarkable comments about Paul's letters.We also go deeper into the identity of Jesus, James calling Christ the “Lord of Glory,” Hebrews 1, the Shema, Jesus' declaration before the high priest, and what the earliest Christians actually believed about Christ.Was Paul preaching “Paulianity”—or was he faithfully carrying the Gospel entrusted to the apostles?This one gets deep.Subscribe to JT Follows JC for more conversations on Scripture, early Christianity, biblical history and the questions most churches won't touch.The episode specifically argues that early Christians and figures associated with the apostolic generation accepted and quoted Paul's writings rather than treating him as an enemy of the apostles.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jt-s-mix-tape--6579902/support.Please support our sponsor Modern Roots Life: https://modernrootslife.com/?bg_ref=rVWsBoOfcFPatreon: https://patreon.com/JT_Follows_JC?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLinkJESUS SAID THERE WOULD BE HATERS: https://jtfollowsjc.com/product-category/mens-shirts/JT's Hats: https://jtfollowsjc.com/product-category/hats/Coaching Program: https://www.echoesoftruthnetwork.com/joinTelegram Group: https://t.me/jtsmixtapeNew Trucker Hat: https://www.shopmmca.com/shop/p/jt-follows-jc-hat

Is Grace Really EnoughActs 15:1-35Teacher: Pastor Jim ThomasDate: August 16, 2026We live in a world that runs on performance. Your value is your output. Your worth is your record. Your acceptance depends on what you've achieved, what you've avoided, and whether your résumé — moral, professional, spiritual — is good enough to get you through the door. Most of us have absorbed this logic so deeply that we've brought it straight into our relationship with God without even noticing. We believe in grace. We just don't quite trust that it's enough.The Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 was called to settle exactly that question. And what the apostles declared in that room is the verdict the church has spent two thousand years preaching and defending, but occasionally almost giving away. Is grace really enough? Not enough to get you started, with your effort taking over from there. Not enough for most people, with exceptions for the especially bad. Enough. Completely. Finally. Full stop enough.Support the showTo find more resources like these, follow us:Website: https://thevillagechapel.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQVTzDbaiXVUAm_mUBDCTJAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/tvcnashville/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tvcnashvilleX: https://twitter.com/tvcnashvilleTo support the ongoing mission of The Village Chapel go to https://thevillagechapel.com/give/. If you are a regular giver, thank you for your continued faithfulness and generosity!

Season 2, Episode 134In this episode, Michael and Zach begin a new series through Paul's letter to the Galatians by examining its opening verses and the controversy that prompted the letter. After introducing Paul, the Galatian churches, the possible date of the letter, and its relationship to the Jerusalem Council, they turn to Galatians 1:1–10, where Paul wastes no time confronting a distorted gospel. The discussion explores Paul's apostolic authority, the theological significance of his greeting of “grace and peace,” the absence of his usual thanksgiving, and the seriousness of his warning that even an angel preaching a different gospel should be rejected. Along the way, Michael and Zach distinguish between voluntary religious practices and requirements for salvation, consider why not every theological error constitutes “another gospel,” and address common objections concerning Paul, the Law, and the exclusivity of Christianity. The episode centers on a basic but essential question: What actually makes the gospel the gospel?Find our videocast here: https://youtu.be/lyxg4zRVqsUMerch here: https://take-2-podcast.printify.me/Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):⁠https://uppbeat.io/t/reakt-music/deep-stone⁠License code: 2QZOZ2YHZ5UTE7C8Find more Take 2 Theology content at http://www.take2theology.com

Reading Acts 15:13-21 where after Peter speaks, and Paul and Barnabas gave their testimonies, James stands up to give his counsel as to what should be said to the Gentile Christians. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

Reading Acts 15:6-12 where Peter stands up at the Jerusalem Council and testifies to the gospel of Christ going out to the Gentiles, a gospel that is to be received by faith. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

Reader: Bek Hudson Preacher: Jonathan Smith The Jerusalem Council was the first big test of the early church's beliefs. There were some Jewish Christians who believed that to be saved you also had to be circumcised and to follow the law of Moses. After much debate, the decision was reached that salvation only comes through faith in Jesus Christ and nothing else. This fundamental truth is one of the pillars that the Christian faith is built upon. Red Door is an Anglican Church in Melbourne, Australia.
We exist to be a community of people helping people make all
of life all about Jesus.

Reading Acts 15:1-5 where a bunch of Judaizers told the Gentiles they must be circumcized in order to be saved, and how this problem was brought to the apostles in Jerusalem. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

Send us Fan MailDr. R. L. Solberg and David Wilber debated Acts 15 and one of the most important questions in Christian theology: Did the apostle's decision at the Jerusalem Council require Gentile believers to keep the Law of Moses? Wilber argues in the affirmative, Solberg in the negative. Both participants present their cases in a semi-formal and civil debate format. The goal isn't to "score points" but to help believers understand Acts 15 by hearing both sides presented fairly.#livestream#debate#apologeticsWhat if Christmas felt sacred again? Full of Grace and Truth, the new book from award-winning author R. L. Solberg, invites you to rediscover the biblical story at the heart of the season. Available now in paperback and Kindle, with all proceeds supporting The Biblical Roots Ministries. Get your copy today on Amazon.com.

Jens Anderson walks through Acts 15 and the pivotal Jerusalem Council, where early church leaders decided that salvation comes by grace alone through faith in Christ—not through religious requirements like circumcision. He challenges us not to let our religious traditions get in the way of God's grace, to pursue unity with fellow believers even when we have freedom, and to remember that God will use anyone willing to go, regardless of their past mistakes or failures.

In this episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal delivers a rich expository sermon on James 5:1–6, one of the most striking prophetic passages in the New Testament epistles. Drawing on the Jewish literary and cultural context of James's original audience — Jewish Christians scattered from Jerusalem by persecution — Tony unpacks why this text is not a blanket condemnation of wealth, but a devastating judgment oracle against those who hoard riches and oppress the vulnerable. Along the way, he explores the eschatological weight of accumulated wealth, the theology of God's omniscient justice, and the stunning comfort available to the suffering believer. The episode closes by returning to James's thesis: that trials of every kind, including economic oppression, can be counted as joy because of who God is and what He has done in Christ. Key Takeaways James is a deeply Jewish book written to a specific audience — Jewish Christians dispersed from Jerusalem by Saul's persecution, not a general audience of wealthy or Gentile believers. The prophetic "Come now" signals a judgment oracle, not a direct address — James is not rebuking wealthy members of his congregation, but pronouncing eschatological judgment on oppressive landowners using a technique common in Amos, Malachi, and Micah. Hoarding wealth is not morally neutral — it is self-condemning — The corroded gold and moth-eaten garments are not just symbols of decay; they serve as legal evidence against those who refused to use their wealth for God's glory and the good of others. Withholding wages from laborers constitutes a form of murder — In the ancient world, depriving workers of their wages could literally cost them their lives. James draws on Old Testament law to frame predatory economic exploitation as a capital sin. God sees and hears the cries of the oppressed — The wages of defrauded workers "cry out" to the Lord of Hosts, echoing the blood of Abel in Genesis 4. God's justice is not passive or delayed out of ignorance — it is certain and coming. Matthew 25 reframes Christian mercy as care for the body of Christ — The sheep-and-goats judgment is not a general humanitarian mandate, but a specific call to care for persecuted brothers and sisters — and to recognize that mistreating them is mistreating Christ Himself. Trials are counted as joy through the doctrine of imputation — Suffering is not stripped of its pain, but it can be moved from the loss ledger to the profit column because God uses adversity as the instrument of sanctification and glorification. Key Concepts The Prophetic Address: Who Is James Actually Talking To? One of the most common misreadings of James 5:1–6 is assuming James is directly rebuking wealthy Christians in his own congregation. Tony Arsenal corrects this by grounding the passage in its literary and historical context. James employs a well-established prophetic technique — seen in Amos, Malachi, and Micah — of addressing an absent party in order to pronounce judgment on them, while simultaneously comforting those who overhear the oracle. His audience is the dispersed, impoverished Jewish Christians who fled Jerusalem under Saul's persecution. There were almost certainly no wealthy landowners in the room. The "Come now, you rich" is a judgment declaration directed outward, designed to assure the suffering poor that God has seen their oppressor and will act. Far from being a proof-text for radical poverty, the passage is a pastoral comfort wrapped in prophetic fire. Corroded Gold as Legal Evidence Against the Soul James's claim that gold and silver have "corroded" is deliberately shocking — and theologically precise. Gold, uniquely among metals in the ancient world, does not corrode. By saying it has already corroded, James is not making a metallurgical claim but a moral and eschatological one. The accumulated, hoarded wealth of the oppressor has lost its purpose. It sits idle while workers starve, and in doing so it becomes evidence — a legal witness — against its owner in the court of divine justice. Tony draws a direct line between this image and Jesus's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount about treasures stored on earth being subject to moth and rust. Both brothers — Jesus and James — appear to be drawing on the same shared wisdom, likely rooted in the same household and the same mother's instruction. Unused wealth does not just fail to help others; it actively indicts its holder. Counting It All Joy: The Accounting Logic of Sanctification Tony closes the sermon by returning to James 1:2 — the thesis statement of the entire letter — and unpacking the word "count" as an accounting term, directly related to the doctrine of imputation. Just as righteousness is reckoned to the believer in justification, so suffering can be reckoned as joy in sanctification. This is not a call to pretend pain isn't real, or to perform contentment. It is a theological reframing: what belongs in the loss column of the ledger can, by faith, be moved to the profit side — not because the trial was pleasant, but because God is sovereign, good, and working all things toward the believer's conformity to the image of Christ. The oppressor means their wickedness for evil. God means it for glory. The supreme example is the cross itself — the only truly innocent man, suffering the worst evil ever committed, for the redemption of His people. Memorable Quotes The corrosion of that gold serves as evidence for the condemnation of those who are harming you — and the corrosion of this wealth is an indication of the corrosion of their very souls. He sees your pain. He sees your suffering. He sees your victories even when no one else is celebrating them. He sees you — and that should be a great source of comfort. Imputation is an accounting term. And when we count it all joy, we're taking what should be a red line in the loss ledger — what should be an expense — and we're able to move it to the profit. Not because it didn't hurt, and not because we wanted it to happen, but because our God is good enough to not rob us of the chance to be sanctified. Full Transcript Tony Arsenal: Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you." It's always a little, uh, strange to sort of jump into the middle of a series, and, um, you know, Wes is one of the most competent preachers that I know personally, so I trust that he has given you a good and satisfying overview. Uh, but I don't feel like I would be doing my responsibility if I didn't at least touch on a few things, uh, related to the, the intro to James that I think is relevant for this particular passage in a way that maybe is not relevant for the rest of the book. So some of this I hope is review, I, I anticipate is review, but I think it's worth, uh, touching on. James, as you know, is the, the half brother of Jesus. He was the leader of the Jerusalem church, and specifically he was sort of the figurehead of the Jewish church as a whole. Um, the Jewish church was the only church for the very early part of the church's growth. There were always, uh, Gentile believers. Even in the Old Testament, there were Gentiles who trusted in the Lord of Israel and the God of Israel. They were often called God-fearers. They rarely converted all the way to Judaism, but they were sort of seen as an attachment to the Jewish people. They didn't participate in all of the blessings of the Jewish people, but they did participate in most. They often had the same kind of protection. They were in a form of covenant with God. Um, they were able to worship and offer sacrifices. The temple itself had a whole portion of the temple dedicated called the Court of Gentiles, specifically for these Jewish worshipers. And as the church spread, primarily through persecution, which we'll touch base on here in a minute, as the church spread out from Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria, and ultimately to the ends of the earth, it took on a, an increasingly Gentile Greek flavor. As more and more primarily initially Greek converts came into the church, and then of course, as it spread to other sort of non-Hellenistic lands, other, other types of people, other nations, other people groups joined the church, the scriptures which-- the New Testament we receive primarily from Paul, at least in terms of the epistles, um, also began to take on a more Gentile flavor. Not because Paul was a Gentile, but because Paul was ministering primarily to Gentiles What we'll see here is that James is a very Jewish book. I'm sure that along the way there's been several kinds of things pointed out to you to show that, but I wanna show a couple things that not only establish James as the author, James the brother of, of Jesus, but also root the, not only the author, but the audience in a distinctly Jewish Christian, uh, context. So you don't have to turn there, I'll read this, but in Acts, uh, 15, which is the, the great Jerusalem Council, uh, we read this. It says, "With the following letter..." So the, the council meets, they make a decision about what k- what parts of the Jewish law were going to be commended to and recommended, uh, and required for the Christian believers, the Gentile Christian believers, and when they're done, they send this letter to all of, all of the churches. And it says, "With the following letter, the brothers, both apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are at, of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings." Now, I don't know about you, but I always sign my emails the same way, right? I've got, like, my work signature that I have to use, that the, the hospital makes me use with all the proper formatting and colors and fonts, but I always have the same signature. Mine is very simple. I just say, "Thanks," right? I just sign it as, "Thanks," above my signature, and I'm sure you all have that sort of characteristic way you sign a s- sign an email, or maybe it's the way you say goodbye at the end of a phone call. My father-in-law always says, "So long," which is a phrase you don't hear very often, so it's very distinct to him. We all have these little tells in our communication that sort of tip off who they're from. If you turn quickly back over to James 1, so just flip the page, uh, to the left here, he starts his letter by saying, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, greetings." It's the only two letters in the New Testament that we have where the author identifies himself, sends to a sort of generalized audience, and then signs it, "Greetings." Now, James, the brother of Jesus, was the leader of the Jerusalem Church. He was the leader of the Jewish ch- the Jewish Church in general, and he signed the letter coming from the Acts Council as sort of the presiding minister. If, if we were, y- you might call them, like, the moderator of your business meeting, or we would call them the moderator of our presbytery or our session in the Presbyterian context I come from. He was the one who sort of, like, presided over there, and so the letter that went out to the churches was signed in his name and written, drafted by him. So we see this characteristic way that the letter is addressed with this final word, "Greetings," which is not used frequently in the New Testament We also see when we look at the language carefully that the audience of this, uh, of this letter, it's debated and there are good arguments, but i- in my opinion, it's very clear that the audience of this letter is not Jewish Christians in general or, uh, Jews who have not yet converted. There are some people who would say that 'cause they're called the 12 tribes. But instead it is the Jewish Christians who originally dwelled in Jerusalem and were sent out into the countryside after the persecution that was started primarily by Saul. If you look at Acts, Acts 1 which is, uh, the passage where Saul begins to persecute the church or where Saul kinda comes on the scene as the persecutor of the church, there's a couple distinct, um, distinct linguistic markers we should touch base on. Starting in verse one it says, "And p- Saul approved of his execution. And there arose a day-- that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. They were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made a great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church and entered the house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison." When we look at this and we compare it to that, uh, again, that first verse of James where he says to the ones who are scattered, we see that there's a pretty strong linguistic parallel that tells us that the people he has in mind for this letter, the people he's addressing, are the same people who were dispersed or scattered out of Jerusalem in the persecution. When he says to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, that word dispersion is not really a translation. It's what we call a transliteration. So it's not like we've taken a word and sort of given it an English word. We've just changed the word, the letters over to English letters. In Greek, the word is diaspora, dispersion, and in, uh, Acts 1, the verb used to, to sort of describe this scattering of them is diaspero. And it is a picture of scattering seed. This is what a farmer would do. So it's not even the normal word we would use when someone is fleeing persecution. It's this idea that God has scattered Christians out into the world, in this case by persecution. He scattered them out into the world to be planted. A lot of this is where we get phrases from Tertullian about the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Now, why does this matter? As I mentioned, we often think in Gentile categories when we're reading the New Testament, and for good reason. One, we're all, all Gentiles, I'm presuming. I, I don't, I don't think-- I think I mentioned this last time, and no one came up and corrected me. I don't think anyone here is ethnically Jewish with ancestry that they're directly aware of, you know, where they trace their lineage directly back. Europe is a, a big amalgamation of just about everything, so most of us probably have a smattering of different ethnicities. But none of us are ethnically Jewish to the idea that we would, uh, identify as such in the same way. And even if we were, we've been raised and grown up in a Gentile context. We live in the West. We have-- We think in different categories. And what's more is most of the New Testament is written primarily to Gentiles by someone who is ministering to Gentiles. So Paul uses a fair amount of, of Hebraisms or things that are related to the Old Testament. Of course, he's explaining the Old Testament, and he makes ample reference to the Old Testament because that is the word of God, and it is profitable for our teaching, our correction, our reproof, and ultimately for our, our sanctification. But he uses metaphors and language in a way that is not common to the Israel context that Jesus and James and Peter and the other apostles were raised in. We don't have time to go there, but there's even some metaphors that Paul uses that are actually used the opposite way in, uh, in the more Hebraic Jewish, uh, epistles we have. One example that comes to mind is, um, Paul looks at the concept of milk, and that's not necessarily a good thing, right? It's not a bad thing, but it's what immature believers use, right? They can't handle the meat of the Bible. They have to be given the milk of the gospel before they can progress to the meat. In the Book of Hebrews, which I don't think was written by Paul, and in other places, Peter uses milk as a way to talk about nourishment, right? We think of the land flowing with milk and honey. Milk was not seen as some sort of substandard food that was only for babies. It was seen as, like, the richest, best thing that you could eat. We all have a linguistic environment that we grow up in. We all have a shared vernacular. You know, if I say something like, "You can't get there from here," everyone knows what that means. Obviously, you can get there from here, but you have to take this circuitous route. We know what that means. I think if we went around the room, we probably would find that there is this shared language. And then if we took individual families, we'd find that even within those families, there's further narrowing down of sort of like inside jokes and words that are used in ways that are not necessarily the same as others So when we read James, or when we read the letters of Peter or the letters of John, we should default to thinking more along the lines of comparing them to the words of Christ in the Gospel, first and foremost, and then to the Old Testament before we start to think about them necessarily comparing them to Ja-- or to Paul or to other kind of first century Hellenistic literature. That's not, of course, to say that Paul and James contradict. I'm sure that we went through a long explanation with much detail when you got to James chapter two, which is, of course, the most famous example. Paul uses the word justification or justify in a legal sense to make or to declare someone to be righteous. It's the verdict that the judge delivers, and it communicates the status. It actually performs what it says. When the judge says, "I find you not guilty," it changes your status from being potentially guilty to being cleared of all charges. Paul uses it slightly differently. He's not using it in the sense of to make someone righteous or to declare them righteous. He's using it to say they've been shown to be righteous. They've been validated. They've been vindicated. And if we get that mixed up, that's the source of all sorts of confusion. So when we come to this passage, and we'll get there, I promise, when we come to this passage, we have to understand some of the metaphors and the language that's being used draws from an existing body of shared cultural language that is foreign to us and is in some ways foreign to the rest of the New Testament, apart from what we see in the Gospels And it's important to remember, and this is why it's so key to land, that the audience of this letter is the persecuted, poor Jewish Christians who probably had a fairly comfortable life, relatively speaking, living in Jerusalem. These are city folks. These are people that live in Jerusalem or farm into the fields immediately around Jerusalem. They were established. They owned land. They probably had family that they had to leave, and now they're scattered out into the country with nothing. They're sent out into the world with no jobs, no family connections, no social welfare. Because they've left the Jewish faith, at least from the perspective of the Jews, they can't even go to their Jewish brothers and sisters and rely on the hospitality that's required in the law of Moses This is so important when we think about how James opens the letter and delivers what I think is his thesis statement. "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of every kind." Trials like not knowing where the next meal is gonna come from, not knowing where the next roof over your head is, not being sure you can feed your children. We all face real trials and tribulations in our life. Some of them are related to our faith, and some is just the fallen human condition in the fallen world we live in. But we're talking here about a totally different category of, uh, trial and persecution than most of us hopefully will ever experience That brings us to our actual passage now. James opens up this section with a linguistic marker that signifies this is a change in topic. He says, "Come now," or another way to translate it might be, "Now listen. Listen up." When my son is doing something that, uh, I need him to stop or I need to give him instructions, I hold him by his shoulders and I say, "Look at my eyes. I want your eyes right here. Look at my eyes." That's what Paul is doing. He's stopping and he's interrupting the flow of language. This shows us this is a new topic and a new audience. James is not speaking to rich Christians in his audience. First, 'cause there likely weren't any rich Christians directly in his audience. Remember, these are the, the poor Christians scattered out into the Judean countryside, into Samaria He's using a technique that's really common in the prophets. It's common in Jesus, where he's addressing the people who are not really listening as a way to establish that they will be judged, to hold them accountable, but also to comfort those who are hearing the message. This is a form of prophetic address. We see this in Amos, where he's chastising the Jewish leaders. Uh, in Malachi and Micah, this happens. Malachi is primarily, at least initially, is primarily, uh, a book that is railing against the rich leaders in Jerusalem who had oppressed their own brothers and sisters. The chances that those Jewish cr- uh, Jewish leaders were reading his prophecy or hearing his prophecy is pretty slim. So he was addressing a different group to establish the judgment that he was proclaiming on another party. Jesus does this when he says like, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees." There were probably scribes and Pharisees in the audience there, but he wasn't just talking to the people in front of them. He was pronouncing a judgment oracle, a judgment prophecy on all people who fit that category, and James is doing the same thing here James is not opposing wealth generally. Sometimes James is used as kind of a New Testament example to justify the idea that we should all be poor and wear shabby clothing and walk around barefoot and dirty all the time. Right? This is a key passage that's used, uh, in parts of the church that really emphasize sort of a poverty-based lifestyle. Think of like the wandering monks of the Middle Ages or the, the, um, sort of more radical exclusionists that exist even in our day. I remember when I was in college, I was really enamored with this figure named Shane Claiborne. Some of you have probably heard of him, and I remember I was so impressed because he, he didn't buy new shoes. He just cut new shoes out of duct tape and put them back together. Now, there's some, you know, there's some rugged, uh, rugged get-it-done-ness that, uh, I think us, uh, New Englanders can appreciate, but God does not call us to wear duct tape shoes, at least not universally. I'm not gonna comment on whether he calls Shane Claiborne to do that. I also don't think Shane Claiborne does that anymore. Um, some of us he may call to a lifestyle of poverty in association with a mission field or in association with a specific calling. He does not call us generally to be poor or to not gain wealth What he is opposing here is the refusal to use wealth appropriately for God's glory and the accumulation of wealth just for wealth's sake We'll see that as we unpack the language here a little bit. He establishes that he's not just talking about the earthly hoarding of wealth, as though somehow the very act of accumulating wealth was itself the problem. What he's doing is he's pronouncing an eschatological judgment on those who hoard wealth and use it to oppress others. We see here he says, "Come now, you rich, and weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you." Th- that word weep and howl, those are li-- those are words that are most commonly used in prophetic literature to describe the final cry of anguish. Think about the weeping and gnashing of teeth that Jesus talks about. This is the language he's using. He's talking about the final estate of those who refuse to submit their wealth to God He says, "Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be the evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasures in the last days." Now, remember what we said. We, we should read this not in light of some general wisdom, although it is general wisdom that if we accumulate wealth, it tends to not actually go well for us if we're not utilizing it in God-honoring ways. But we should read this in light of the most obvious connection, his big brother, Jesus, who taught his people, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be." To maybe land this linguistic, uh, this linguistic connection a little more, I don't know, vibrantly, I'm gonna speculate a little bit. So if you don't like it, then you can disregard it. This is not God's Word. This is a speculation. I can just imagine little Jesus, little nine-year-old Jesus, and probably little six or seven-year-old James and the rest of their siblings, and there's quite a few of them. And we have Joseph, uh, who maybe at this time was still living, although probably not. We know he was living until Jesus was later, you know, 12, he was still around, but we don't know exactly when he left the picture. But he was a carpenter, and he was not, probably not overly wealthy. Uh, they had had to pick up and move, you know, cross-country anyways. They-- We don't know exactly where they were from initially, but they went to Bethlehem, and then they returned to Nazareth. They probably didn't have a lot. There were a lot of mouths to feed and only one business. They didn't have a farm. They didn't own livestock that we know of. I can just imagine a time when little J- little James or one of his sisters was frustrated about the fact that they didn't have anything. And I could picture Mary getting down and going, "Do not store up treasures in, in, uh, in heaven or on Earth. It's all gonna waste away." The same way we might tell our children kind of a, a moral kind of story. Sometimes we have this picture, last time I was here I, I spoke on Philippians 2, we have this idea that Jesus was somehow like Superman, that he, he was just pretending to be a normal human most of the time. As it touches his humanity, as, as we think about Jesus as a human, he had a, his own human set of thinking faculties, his own human knowledge. He grew in wisdom and stature is what Luke teaches us. Well, where did he get some of this wisdom? There's a good reasonable argument to be made that some of the pr- more proverbial type sayings that we see in Christ, that they actually come from the wisdom of his mother and father. And a really good reason to believe that is James relies on the same exact, uh, sort of proverbial wisdom to l- land his point. He doesn't create his own metaphor, he goes back to, at the very least we can say he goes back to the words of Christ. That's a very safe position to take. But this is the shared linguistic context that they both grew up in And he says, "You've done this in the last days." Now, the, the phrase last days in the Bible, uh, in the New Testament generally refers to the time period from Christ's resurrection to his return. We, for a lot of reasons, think about it as kind of like that climactic end period in time. Depending on your, your persuasion, maybe this is when the Antichrist comes, or maybe this is before or after, or maybe during the time when the church is raptured. But in either case, we think of that sort of last period in time before Christ finally comes back. But the New Testament writers are really talking about the entire duration, from Christ's resurrection to his return is what they're referring to. But it does have in view this idea that we are in the last times. The, the final judgment is not necessarily strictly something that's out there in the future. We are living in the last days now, and so what we do and what we say and, and how we worship and if we worship is eschatology. It is the theology of the last times He also positions this as though this is a universal thing going on with those who hoard wealth. This is a very shocking image. Um, we have very good ways to preserve things in our modern world, right? We have ways to m- to make, uh, stainless steel that won't rust, or at least won't rust quickly. But most things in the ancient world, even most precious metals, corroded. Um, I remember when I was growing up, there was this project in my hometown. I lived in a, a little town called White Bear Lake in, in, um, Minnesota, although little is relative. It's pretty big compared to most of what we have out here. And I remember when I was maybe 12 or 13 years old, they had this big building project to build this brand-new, beautiful lakeside pavilion in the center of town, and it w- just gleamed in the sun. It was so gorgeous, and it was made of copper, and everybody loved it, and two years later, it was bright green. I think it's still bright green. I think they figured out it wasn't worth repairing, so they, they just, they just make sure it doesn't keep getting worse, and at some point, I'm sure they either have or will tear it down. But the one metal in the ancient world that didn't do this was gold. It's part of why gold is such a durable measurement of wealth is because it doesn't wear out. It doesn't corrode. It's very soft. It's very easy to damage it, which is why we don't build statues out of it, or we don't build, uh, buildings out of it usually, but it didn't corrode. So when James says here, "Not only your silver, which tarnishes and corrodes, but your silver and gold have corroded." Not are corroding, but have corroded. The rich hearer of this is probably, you know, sitting around like Scrooge McDuck with a pile of gold coins thinking, "Ah, it looks pretty good to me." And what James is saying is, "No, no, no. No, it's corroded. It's eating away at your heart. It's lost its value because you refuse to use it, and so it sits in a pile doing nothing for no one, except serving to further your own condemnation." This is such a crazy, shocking situation that the insanity of not using your wealth, period, the insanity of sitting on your wealth in the ancient world is going to serve as a form of evidence justifying the condemnation of these wicked fools And further, the corrosion of this wealth is an indication of the corrosion of their very souls. There's something about money. I was-- When I was here a couple times before, I preached one of the wealth passages out of Ecclesiastes, and there's something about money that has a unique way of really, really wrecking us. Either we don't have it and we want it, or we have it and we don't wanna lose it, or we have it and we don't spend it wisely. It seems like there's an infinite number of ways to screw it up. And we landed last time that the gospel is good news because with the nearly infinite ways of screwing it up, we're going to screw it up. But the one way that he talks about screwing it up here is hoarding it and sitting on it and not using it Moving on into verses four and five, James moves us now to a more sort of temporal register. He starts out by talking about what wealth is and what it's doing and how it will ultimately affect the entire life and eternity of those in his targeted audience, those he's proclaiming this prophetic, uh, judgment against. But in verse four, he moves back to the behaviors that are being, uh, being engaged in to show the state of these people's souls. He says, "Behold, the wages of the laborers you, who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter." James here points at the, at the behaviors that show this hoarding behavior, and he does it for a number of reasons. One, he needs to call out sin. That's part of the role of a Christian, and especially a leader or a minister in the church, is, um, to not only call out sin in the body of, of Christ, but in a, I think a very particular way, and there's all sorts of, uh, all sorts of theological controversies flying on around about Christian nationalism and other associated things. Some of it is just the spirit of the age. Um, post-COVID, there's a, a real strong sense that our government has failed us and we need to replace it with something else. But there is a, a true way, and I, I think some of those things are a little misguided, but there's a true way that the church, particularly her leaders, should be speaking to the culture around us, and yes, even to the government, to proclaim the truth of God into a wicked and godless culture. This might take the form o- of a m- minister who goes to a town hall meeting to speak out against a gambling association that's going to be forming, or a, an elder in the church or a deacon in the church who goes to speak to, uh, to the city hall or to the state legislature about the wickedness of abortion and about what we see it does to women's lives when they are fooled into thinking that this is the right thing for them. Again, the church is not the state, and the state is not the church, and we should be very careful not to cross those lines for all sorts of reasons. But we as a culture, as a Christian culture, in the United States particularly, have lost sight of our responsibility to speak truth in all circumstances to those in power So James is doing that, of course. But even more so, this is a way that he establishes for his direct audience, for the Jewish poor Christians who have been scattered in this diaspora, in this dispersion. He looks at them in a sense and says, "I see you. I see what's happening to you." And as God's representative, as his chosen voice for this message, as his inspired author, God sees you too This goes back again, the first two chapters of James serve as kind of a thesis statement and table of contents for the whole book. We get an idea of what may have been happening, the actual, uh, acts that were being engaged in, in, in chapter two verse six, he says, "You have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?" James has in mind here a form of predatory land purchasing, where the rich were sort of sweeping up property. They were sweeping it up, and then they were charging probably exorbitant prices to those who would lease the land to try to eke out a living. Does that sound at all like any of our current context, right? When's the last time any of us have tried to buy a house and found anything reasonable? Well, a large part of that is that there are big companies that are scooping up all the land and buying all the, the developments. Now, I'm not commenting on those particular situations. I don't know those people. I don't know their hearts, and some of those things actually are doing good things for the community. But we're familiar with this idea of someone who will purchase a resource, who will then jack the price up in order to turn a profit on it. I'm not opposed to turning a profit. Y- y- yeah, it takes money to run a business, and you have to, you have to recuperate those funds if your business is going to survive. But there's a, there's a way that that can be done that is a predatory act These rich landowners were getting fat on those that they were victimizing In our, in our modern world, we tend to think of someone who is overweight as unhealthy, for good reason, right? Too much weight, and I say that with someone with a little too much padding around the middle, so no, no judgment on this, but too much weight is not healthy, right? We hear that from our doctors, that there's a healthy weight range and there's an unhealthy weight range. In the ancient world, obesity was not the concern, right? Malnutrition was the concern. And so when you see, uh, a king in the Old Testament who's, who's noted to be fat, that's not always negative. Sometimes it is, but he's noted to be fat or he's noted to be large. Even the word for glory, I'm sure you've heard this before, the word for glory in the Old Testament has to do with being heavy. So this idea of weightiness or, um, being able to eat enough to actually gain weight instead of being thin was seen as a good thing, but not when you use it as a way to victimize other people. A person who gathers wealth honestly and enjoys it, that's, that's Proverbs right there. That's the Book of Ecclesiastes in its sort of positive sense, is that we, when we accumulate wealth and we use it for God's glory, it's perfectly okay for us to also use it for our enjoyment. God wants us to enjoy the fruit of our labor. But when we accumulate wealth and use it as a way to gain power over someone and to abuse them, that is what James is railing against here And ultimately, with the audience that James is writing to, this is a form of murder. This is why he says, "You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter." Because a person who can't feed their family in the Old Testament or in the New Testament era was likely to see them die. There are not a ton of people in modern America that are starving to death on the streets. It's not to say it doesn't happen. It's not to say that there's not things like food insecurity or malnutrition, but there are, there are plenty of places people can go to get their basic food needs met. It was not like that-- It's not like that in most of the world now, and it certainly was not like that in the ancient world. And so a, a landowner who again refuses, we're talking about the Jewish landowners, refuses to obey the Jewish law to leave some leftovers for the poor, and instead gleans all the way to the corner so that they can turn a little bit of extra pro-profit, is not only sinning against the Old Testament law, but is committing murder in the strictest sense by refusing to preserve the life of these poor, uh, Christians who are destitute And again, James is encouraging his readers here that the Lord has not ignored their plight. We can think back to the Book of Habakkuk, where Habakkuk basically lodges a lawsuit against God, saying, "You are not paying attention. You're not doing your thing. You're not being faithful to your covenant." And God says, "Let me show you how faithful to my covenant I am. The Chaldeans are on the way." And Habakkuk is like, "Whoa, wait a second here. That's not what I had in mind." God sees the oppression of the poor. He knows when His people are targeted. He knows when children are abused or when widows are ignored. He knows when the government does something to shut down a church, or when the medical institution refuses to acknowledge your personal rights. He sees those things, and He's not ignorant, and He's not static. He's not sleeping on those things. The purpose here is to comfort the oppressed by showing that God is not ignorant of what has happened to them. Just two quick Old Testament examples that use similar language. In Genesis 4, we read of Cain and his murder of Abel, and in verse eight it says, "Cain spoke to Abel his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is Abel your brother?' He said, 'I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?' And the Lord said, 'What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.'" Numbers, uh, 35 verses 30 says, "If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death. And you shall accept no ransom from him who has fled to the city of refuge, that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the high priest. You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land except for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it." There's a rich history in the Old Testament of language of inanimate things, land, blood, wealth, other kinds of things that give testimony to God in some way, and specifically of these inanimate, uh, impersonal things testifying to the sin of the people that dwell around them. Even Christ says, "If these people do not worship me, the rocks will cry out." Now, the rocks are not literally crying out, although it certainly would be within God's power to make the rocks sing. But Christ is not saying in that passage that the rocks are going to form mouths and begin singing Hosanna or whatever song they might have been doing. What he's saying is that the very rocks themselves give testimony to the glory and goodness of God. So even if the people around here fail to do so, the entire rest of creation is doing so, and that is what James is saying here. My dear brothers and sisters scattered in the dispersion who have nothing, and in society's eyes are nothing, some of you are facing persecution. Some of you will be killed for your faith, but God sees because the wealth that is being accumulated on the breaking of your own backs is crying out. The corrosion of that gold serves as evidence for the condemnation of those who are harming you We often want justice in the moment. I think we always want justice in the moment, don't we? I think it's a really hard discipline to say, "That person wronged me, but I'm okay letting God sort it out." That is a hard pill to swallow, but it is often the pill that we have to take. It's the medicine that God uses to further our justification, our j- our, uh, excuse me, our sanctification Paul says, you know, "Do not take vengeance. Let the Lord do that." We can trust, and this is where the comfort of this passage comes for us, brothers and sisters, we can trust that when we are wronged, that when someone has done something to us that is a violation of God's law, that that sin will be punished. Now, when we're dealing with other Christians, that sin has already been punished, and so it is not, it is not appropriate for us to hold onto that and to take vengeance. That's what the parable of the unmerciful servant is all about If I as a Christian refuse to forgive my brother and sister when they've wronged me, it's me saying that I'm a better judge of their sin and I'm a better executioner than the Lord is when he punished that sin on the cross. But that sin was not atoned for when we're talking about unbelievers. When we're talking about those who will ultimately end their earthly life and find themselves waking up in flames, that sin has not been atoned for, and so God will have his justice, and we will have our justice. We won't turn there, but in Revelation, we're familiar with the passage, I think it's chapter six, where the martyred saints are under the throne and they say, "How long, O Lord?" Well, God doesn't answer their question, but he gives them new clothes. When Job cries out and he's, he's saying, "I don't understand why this is happening. Why are you targeting me, God? Why, why are you a hunter with your arrows in my liver?" God doesn't tell him why, but he says, essentially, "I'm God and you're just going to have to trust me that this is right." We see a very similar, uh, kind of situation here when we think about when, uh, when Abraham, uh, when God tells Abraham what he's about to do to Sodom and Gomorrah, and then Abraham negotiates, apparently negotiates with God, uh, trying to secure the salvation of the city for the sake of the righteous. And we read starting in verse 20 of chapter 18, he says, "The Lord said to, to Abraham," he says, " 'Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. If not, I will know.' " God is always seeing and investigating the sin of people We're, we're teaching my son, August, the children's catechism, which is a, a great resource. Um, and one of the questions is, "Can you see God?" And the answer is, "No, but he always sees me." Now that may feel at first to some people like a little bit of a heavy-handed answer, but knowing that God sees us is not just there to correct our sin. It should do that, right? Even the secret sins we commit in the dark when, when we're not being watched by anyone else, even, even those God sees. But do you know what else He sees? He sees your pain. He sees your suffering. He sees your victories even when no one else is celebrating them. He sees your progress. He sees you, and that should be a great source of comfort Now this passage, especially verse six, can be a little bit hard to apply because although we're the targeted audience, we're not the target of the judgment oracle. So I think what we have to do, we have to, we have to think about this in light of the way that God talks about the judgment of unbelievers in other places in the scripture, and how that helps us to understand kind of what our, what our status is. If you'll take your Bibles and open to Matthew chapter 25, I think the, um, the account here of the goat and sheep judgment, uh, is instructive for us Starting in verse 31, it says, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory and the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King answered them, 'Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those on the left, 'Depart from me for you for, uh, depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, I was naked and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also, uh, they also will say, answer saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not minister to you?' Then he will answer them saying, 'Truly I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Now, this passage is sometimes understood as a general command to feed the poor or the sick, or to visit those in prisons, or any of the f- the sort of mercy ministry things that, that, um, are mentioned here. And those are all things that Christians should do, right? We should be engaged in, um, in mercy ministry to the poor, to those who are destitute. We should be mindful and thoughtful of those who have needs around us. What this passage is teaching, though, is not a general command to feed all people, but a specific command to care for your brothers and sisters in Christ when they have a need He doesn't say to the righteous, "You did these to everyone." He says, "Whatever you did to the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me." All of the things that are listed here, the, the six mercy ministries that are listed by Christ here, are things that persecuted Christians were suffering at the time, persecuted Jew- Jewish Christians, and that would be common experiences for, for Jewish Christians and for all persecuted Christians. Right? They're hungry. They don't have food. Our diaspora Jewish Christians don't have land to farm, and even if they're able to scrape together enough funding to lease out a farm, they're being, uh, they're being totally overwhelmed by the cost of that. The sort of homeowners association dues of these pyramid schemes that were going on in the first century, they were so exorbitant that it wasn't even subs- subsistence farming. Christians were being thrown in, uh, in prison. They didn't have enough money to replace their clothes when it wore out. They couldn't have access to clean water. We take clean water as such a, such a basic thing, and it's so easy. You just turn on the tap, or you just go to the store and you buy a bottle of $7 water. It wasn't like this in the first century. If you didn't have a well, you didn't have water, unless you had someone who cared enough to share this precious resource with you. And so what Christ is saying to, to his people, both in the immediate audience on the Sermon on the Mount, uh, and in this, the Olivet Discourse here, what he's saying to his people is when someone in the body of Christ does not have what they need, the body of Christ should step up and make sure that that is the case, that they take care of that person. And likewise, he's saying to those who are not a part of the body of Christ, "Depart from me, I never knew you." Now, the intro to this, why it sometimes is called a parable, is the sheep and the goats. We sometimes go way too far into the arena of comparing the behavior of sheeps with the behavior of the people here, right? Sheep are nice, they're affable, they listen to you. In reality, from what I understand, sheep are pretty dumb and can be very stubborn, right? And then we, we read and we go, "Goats are stubborn, they're rebellious, they're not really good for anything." Well, there's a reason people have goats on farms. They, they can be stubborn, right? They can be destructive, but they also serve a purpose. So the point here is not that sheep are good and goats are bad. The point is that sheep are not goats and goats are not sheep. And, uh, another point that comes with this is sheep don't become goats by behaving like goats, and goats don't become sheep by acting like sheep. I have some friends that will tell you they have very affectionate, friendly, lovable goats, right? I'd, I would... If I could get my kids one of those little pygmy goats that everybody loves, I would do that, 'cause they can be very kind, very sweet, and they're very smart. But they're not sheep. And if you read this passage carefully, this fact that those who are taken to the right are, are in fact taken to the right is not because they fed the poor. It's not because they ministered to Christ by feeding the least of these. They did those things because they were part of the kingdom The King says to those on His right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." The sheep on the right were always going to be the sheep on the right. They were predestined according to the counsel of God's will before all time to live and walk in good works. That's just Ephesians 2 there. That's also just James 2 there. You have faith, I will show you my faith by my works. This is evidence language, loved ones Likewise, the ones who are told to depart into eternal darkness were also predestined not to inherit this kingdom. No kingdom was prepared for them before the foundation of the world. They have no inheritance. They have nothing. They will end up in the state that they are trying to impose on these poor Jewish Christians. They will end up in the state that they may be trying to impose on some of us in this room And for the final verse here in, in chapter five, in verse six here, there's a lot of discussion and debate in the commentaries about who the identity of this righteous one is. It says, "You've condemned and murdered the righteous person, he does not resist you." Now, some commentators will take the fact that this is the singular righteous person, that he has been murdered and h- was condemned, and will take this as a reference to Christ. And that would, would make good sense, right? The Jewish, the wealthy Jewish landowners, the wealthy Jews in Jerusalem who per- who persecuted and cast out, um, the Christians, they were in the same group of people who condemned and murdered Jesus And at least at the time of writing this, and in many ways in our own day, God is not necessarily resisting them. He's allowing them to store up judgment for the coming day of wrath There are others who will take this as sort of the hypothetical singular, right? The righteous one or the righteous person is this, uh, representative hypothetical person that represents all of the persecuted Christians. And so it's more like saying, um, to the, the wealthy landowners who are persecuting Christians, "You have condemned and murdered the Christians, the righteous people, and we do not resist you." Now, at the end of the day, it's, it's always good to have good, sober, well-intentioned, text-based debates about what the Bible means. We can and we should try to convince others, uh, when we think they're wrong about what the scripture means. So that's not what I'm saying here. But in many ways, which of those two perspectives it actually is doesn't change the interpretation of this passage. Like we read in Matthew 25, like we read in Acts 9 when Christ comes and confronts Saul, what you do to God's people, you are doing to Christ himself. What you do to the body, you have done to the head. It's a little bit weird to say that when I stub my toe, I injure my head, but that's true, right? I don't injure my toe as though it's some separate piece. It's not like I'm a Lego man where I can just swap out a hand that gets cracked and put it back on. When I injure my toe, I injure myself. My whole body is injured even though it's specific to a part of my body. When you-- when someone persecutes you, when they, uh, try to extort your wealth, your funds, when they try to harm your body, when they try to take away your children, all things that are happening not just out there in the world, but in our country, even in our own region. When they try to tell you that because you don't wanna play a basketball game, that you can't play sports at all. When a city taxes a portion of a church's property because they don't think it's being used for religious purposes, they are doing that to Jesus Christ himself, and God will not be mocked This should call us both to faithfulness and to encouragement How people treat Christ or how people treat Christ's people, including how we trust, tr- uh, treat Christ's people, shows us what we think about Christ. The people who take care of the church do so because they love God, and they do it out of a regenerated heart that already loves God. And the people who hate the church do it because they hate Christ, and they do it out of their wickedness and out of their wicked heart This brings us back again to the thesis statement of James. "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." And then he says later in that, uh, first chapter in verse nine, "Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like the flower of the grass, he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower fails, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." Now, you're all coming up to the end of James here. Um, we probably have two, two more sermons, I would guess, and the rest of this chapter is reinforcing this. It's unpacking for the immediate audience and therefore for us, it's unpacking that although the rich have their punishment coming to them, that likewise our consolation, our comfort from Christ is also coming to us. He closes the whole letter out, he returns to his thesis statement to say, "I'm not going to pretend that the trials you're going through are joyful, but you can count it all joy." You can reckon it, you can impute it as joy, my brothers and sisters. You can put it in the joy column instead of the t- the pain column, right? We had discussion about the beautiful word imputation in the announcements and scripture reading in the beginning here Imputation is a, is an accounting term. And when we count it all joy, we're taking what should be a red line in the, in the loss ledger, right? We're taking what should be an expense, and we're able to move it to the profit. We're able to move it to the positive side, not because it didn't hurt and not because we wanted it to happen, but because our God is good enough to not rob us of the chance to be sanctified When we are oppressed and opposed, those who are oppressing and oppose us mean it for evil, just like Joseph's brothers, uh, and Pharaoh, and all sorts of wicked men in, in the Old Testament and in our own world. Pilate, Herod, you mean, you name it in the Bible, this applies. They meant their wicked acts for wicked things, but God, rich in mercy, works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. And what is that purpose? That we might be transformed into the image of Christ so that Christ may be glorified and He may be the firstborn among many brothers. When we face trials and suffering of every kind, it leads us to our sanctification and to our ultimate glorification. We do not earn those things. We don't sanctify ourselves any more than we justify ourselves, or that any more than we will glorify ourselves or will raise ourselves from the dead. That is all God's work from start to finish. But God does use these things that He brings us through as a way to bring about that work It's like he bends us over the hammer, over the anvil of trials, and he hammers us until we become a sharp sword in the hand of, in his hand. Or he polishes us with a rough cloth until we become a smooth, beautiful gem, right? Think of any number of refining things that need to be done. It always involves, if the thing was, uh, was a person, it always involves something that would hurt a little bit. It always involves a little bit of damage to wear away the impurities. Our sanctification and our glorification is no different than that. He uses adversity. He uses the wicked actions and intentions of, of evil men and women. He uses those things to glorify us. So although we should never, uh, we should never seek those things, right? You don't have to go and make yourself the soft target to the wicked people. It's okay to keep your head down. There's nothing wrong with that. The Jewish Christians were probably doing their best to keep their heads down most of the time, and that's fine. There's not any words in scripture about being a coward if you don't, if you don't put a target on your back. But your target is gonna get there eventually, and that's not a bad thing. We can welcome that. We can count it as joy because of who God is and what he's done. The supreme act of suffering, the supreme act of, of evil happened to the only innocent person there ever was, and it happened to him for us.  this episode is available below.

Can the church learn to follow the Spirit into places it hasn't been looking? In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma sit down with Dr. Oscar Garcia-Johnson — Professor of Theology and Decolonial Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Spirit Outside the Gate: Decolonial Pneumatologies of the American Global South — for a conversation that will stretch your theological imagination in the best possible way. Oscar unpacks why the Holy Spirit resists every attempt at domestication, why Pentecost was never about cosmetic diversity, and why genuine Christian maturity looks less like doctrinal confidence and more like humble, attentive discernment. Drawing from scripture, church history, and his own journey as a pastor-scholar moving between the church, the academy, and the city, Oscar challenges the "canonical imagination of the West" — not to reject Christian theology, but to reroute it toward a more faithful, Spirit-led witness in a global, pluralistic world. If you've ever felt the tension between theological certainty and genuine openness to what God is doing in surprising places, this episode is for you. Key Takeaways: Why pneumatology (the study of the Holy Spirit) naturally resists the same gating mechanisms that Christology can fall prey to The difference between relativism and Spirit-led discernment — and why Oscar is firmly not a relativist How the Tower of Babel and Pentecost represent two competing logics still at work in the church today What "terminal knowledge" is and how the Spirit is actively healing it in marginalized communities Why true Christian maturity is relational and active — not self-referential How to ask "Where is God?" instead of only "Where is the devil?" when encountering other cultures and traditions The connection between Acts 7, the Jerusalem Council, and Spirit-led openness to the Gentiles Oscar's new book Decolonial Love in Times of Hatred: 40 Ways to Follow Jesus Today Get early access and a bonus with a Patreon membership. Subscribe to our YouTube channel To read James's article on this topic, check out his author page on Christianity.com.

Generosity and gratitude aren't just personal virtues – they're signs of the Kingdom of God at work. In this message, we explore how God's abundant provision flows through us, produces generosity, and results in gratitude that overflows back to Him – the very rhythm by which His Kingdom advances. We look at 2 Corinthians 9 and the remarkable story of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, where the Early Church faced a defining Kingdom moment: would the Gospel remain bound to Jewish tradition, or would it be released to the nations? The leaders' decision to embrace the Gentile believers – releasing their own position, control, and comfort – was an act of profound generosity that expanded God's Kingdom beyond anything they could have imagined. That generosity of spirit is what stirred grateful, overflowing response in the Gentile churches, and it's what continues to carry the Gospel forward today. This is the pattern of Kingdom generosity: it isn't transactional, it isn't measured by size, and it isn't about what we get in return. It flows from grace already received, and its harvest is righteousness – the Kingdom taking root in more and more lives. Join us and Pastor Louis as we discover how God's overflow in our lives can become Kingdom overflow through us.

In this message from Redeemer Church in Midland, Texas, the sermon examines Acts 15 and the Jerusalem Council's response to threats against the pure gospel of grace and tensions between Jewish and Gentile believers. It underscores that salvation rests solely on Christ's finished work (“It is finished”), offers practical wisdom for unity across cultural differences by laying down freedoms that needlessly offend, and highlights the council's clear call to abstain from sexual immorality as God's good design for human flourishing. The message ends with a gospel invitation to repentance and the assurance of Christ as our advocate.   Website: redeemermidland.org Instagram: instagram.com/redeemermidland Facebook: facebook.com/RedeemerMidland   At Redeemer, we seek to be a Gospel-Centered, Missional Family. We sing songs to worship our Lord, we preach the Word of God from the Bible, and we love one another.   We would love to see you on a Sunday morning at 9:00 or 11:00 am at 3601 N. Lamesa Rd in Midland, Texas. 

Send us Fan MailDid the Jerusalem Council teach that Gentile Christians must keep the Torah? In this video, Dr. R. L. Solberg examines Acts 15 in context and responds to the interpretation presented by 119 Ministries. We carefully compare their claims with the biblical text and ask a simple but important question: Where does the text actually say that?Together we'll examine three major claims about Acts 15, including whether the Jerusalem Council addressed one issue or two, whether the four prohibitions were intended as a "starter pack" for full Torah observance, and whether Gentile believers were expected to learn the Law of Moses through weekly synagogue attendance.If you're interested in the Hebrew Roots Movement, Torah observance, the Jerusalem Council, or how to interpret Acts 15 faithfully and in its historical context, this study is for you.119 Ministries' Video:https://119ministries.com/teachings/video-teachings/detail/acts-15-explained-did-the-apostles-reject-the-torah-for-gentiles/The Biblical Roots MinistriesOur websiteOur YouTube ChannelProf. Solberg's BlogSupport our Ministry (Thank you!)Chapters00:00 Introduction03:09 Overview of the Jerusalem Council04:33 Two Separate Issues13:39 Two Separate Responses 18:21 The Starter Pack Theory27:59 Learning the Law in Synagogues38:59 Wrap it up, Solberg.#bookofacts   #hebrewroots  #119Ministries #biblestudy  #apologetics #torahobservant SUPPORT OUR MINISTRYhttps://TheBiblicalRoots.org/support (Thank you!)OUR LINKShttps://linktr.ee/thebiblicalroots

Pastor Ben Hayter of Imanuel Lutheran Church in Waterloo, IL, joins the show to work through the CTCR's 2025 document, Unity in Doctrine, Uniformity and Variety in Practice. The document came from a 2019 synodical resolution asking the CTCR to define what Article III.7 of the LCMS Constitution actually means by "unity in doctrine and uniformity and variety in practice." The CTCR responds with six historical case studies — the Jerusalem Council, the Quartodeciman controversy, Luther's Invocavit Sermons, the adiaphoristic controversy behind Formula of Concord Article X, and two episodes from LCMS history: the Synod's founding and the debate over lay electors and women's suffrage. Hayter raises three unresolved questions the document leaves on the table. First: the difference between how to use adiaphora and whether something actually is adiaphora in the first place — a hermeneutical question of whether church practice requires an explicit command or whether necessary inference is sufficient warrant. Second: definitional looseness around key terms like "responsible," "required," "insist," and "retain" — words that carry very different weight depending on who's doing the requiring, God by His Word or the Synod by human right. Third: even once something is settled as adiaphora, the document doesn't resolve which practices are wise and which are foolish to adopt — that work is left to pastors and congregations, argued from Scripture rather than mere preference. The conversation lands on a practical charge: use this document as a starting point for real conversation among brother pastors — in circuit Winkels, district boards, and eventually Synod conventions — grounded in reasons drawn from Scripture and the Confessions, not personal whim. Topics covered: Background on CTCR study documents and Resolution 5-11 (2019 convention) The six case studies: Jerusalem Council, Quartodeciman controversy, Luther's Invocavit Sermons, the adiaphoristic controversy, the Synod's founding, lay electors/women's suffrage The hermeneutical question: explicit command vs. necessary inference in determining adiaphora Defining loaded terms: "responsible," "required," "retain," "insist" Whether a practice being adiaphora settles whether it's wise to use Next steps: Winkel discussions, district conventions, and synodical bylaws as means of working this out ----more---- Host: Fr. Jason Braaten Guest: Fr. Ben Hayter ----more---- Become a Patron! You can subscribe to the Journal here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/subscribe/ You can read the Gottesblog here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/gottesblog/ You can support Gottesdienst here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/make-a-donation/ As always, we, at The Gottesdienst Crowd, would be honored if you would Subscribe, Rate, and Review. Thanks for listening and thanks for your support. 

In today's Devotionable, Brandon discusses how the Holy Spirit empowered Peter to be a witness before the Jerusalem Council. Believers can share their faith, calling others to trust in Jesus' name for salvation. Devotionables is a ministry of The Ninth & O Baptist Church in Louisville, KY.  naobc.org

Welcome to episode 255 of Grasp the Bible. In this episode, we will examine the courage to confront — why love sometimes demands confrontation, and why silence in the face of public sin is not grace but cowardice.  Key takeaways:   Peter — the apostle who received the vision about Gentile inclusion, who defended Gentile freedom at the Jerusalem Council — fell into public hypocrisy at Antioch out of fear of man. Spiritual maturity and apostolic authority did not protect him from condemnable sin. Peter's sin was not merely personal. His withdrawal sent a public message that Gentiles were second-class Christians, and it was influential enough to sweep even Barnabas along with it. When public sin influences others, the stakes are no longer private. Paul opposed Peter to his face, in front of everyone. He did not handle it quietly. Public sin that is influencing others requires public confrontation to protect the body — private rebuke is insufficient when the damage is already corporate. The issue was not table manners. The issue was the truth of the gospel. Peter's behavior implied that faith in Christ plus Jewish custom equals full acceptance — a direct contradiction of justification by faith alone. When the gospel itself is at stake, silence is not charity; it is betrayal. We confuse loyalty with enablement, niceness with love, and cowardice with grace. Paul loved Peter — and that love compelled confrontation, not cover-up. Silence in the face of significant sin is not kindness; it is complicity. Some hills are worth dying on. Paul identified the gospel as one of them. Not every disagreement requires confrontation, but gospel-level compromise is non-negotiable. Better to stand alone for truth than unite around error. Receiving confrontation with humility is as important as offering it with courage. Peter did not respond to Paul's rebuke with retaliation. He received correction and remained in fellowship. True friends speak truth to us even when it is uncomfortable.  Quotable:   Silence is not always the loving thing. When error is public, when people are being led astray, when the gospel itself is at stake — your silence does not keep the peace. It makes you complicit. The church's health and the gospel's integrity depend on believers who love truth more than comfort.  Application:   Examine where loyalty has become enablement. Is there sin in a friend's or family member's life that you are aware of and silent about? Name the real reason you haven't spoken — fear of conflict, desire for approval, reluctance to risk the relationship. Paul loved Peter, and that love required confrontation. Protecting someone in their sin is not loyalty; it is a failure of love.  Identify the theological compromises you are tolerating for unity's sake. Prosperity gospel. Denial of Christ's exclusivity. Sin reframed as identity. False teaching spreading in your church or small group. Silence in these moments is not neutrality — it is a vote for error. Discern the difference between peripheral disagreements worth overlooking and gospel-level issues that must be addressed.  When confrontation is necessary, do not shrink from it. If you know you need to have a difficult conversation — with a friend drifting into sin, a leader who is compromising, a false teacher influencing your community — pray for courage and then have it. Strip away the fear of man. Remove the desire for comfort and approval. Love the person enough to risk the relationship for the sake of their soul.  Receive confrontation with humility. This passage cuts both ways. When you are the one being confronted, receive it as an act of love rather than an attack. Do not be defensive. Do not retaliate. Ask whether the rebuke is warranted before deciding it is not. The same courage Paul praised in himself he modeled in how he treated Peter afterward — they remained in fellowship. Truth-telling and relationship are not opposites.  Connect with us:   Website:  https://springbaptist.org Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/SBCKleinCampus (Klein Campus) https://www.facebook.com/SpringBaptist (Spring Campus) Need us to pray for you? Submit your prayer request to https://springbaptist.org/prayer/  If you haven't already done so, please leave us a rating and review in your podcast provider. 

Drop us a note about the podcast. “Jesus plus anything” sounds spiritual, but Acts 15 calls it a burden God never asked us to carry. We walk through the Jerusalem Council and the core claim at the center of Christian faith: God saves Jews and Gentiles the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus. No special badge, no extra mediator, no denomination requirement. Just Christ, and hearts cleansed through faith.Then the conversation turns outward to the real world with a sobering story from London: the murder of Banaz Mahamad in an honor killing after she left an abusive arranged marriage. We use that tragedy to ask uncomfortable questions about what happens when certain belief systems gain power, how communities treat women, and what justice and protection should look like when threats are reported and ignored.We also slow down for prayer, naming anxiety, depression, fear, and persecution, and asking God to guard and strengthen those listening. From there we read Song of Solomon 3:1–4 as a “marriage verse,” noticing the woman's pursuit of her beloved and what that suggests about biblical marriage, desire, and commitment. We close with Psalm 141, a proverb on bribery and justice, a Medal of Honor spotlight, and a striking American Christian heritage quote from Robert Winthrop: a nation will be ruled from within by moral restraint or from without by force, “either the Bible or the bayonet.”Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What part challenged you most today?#Bible#ChristianNation#RobertWinthrop Support the showThe American Soul Podcasthttps://www.buzzsprout.com/1791934/subscribeCountryside Book Serieshttps://www.amazon.com/Countryside-Book-J-T-Cope-IV-ebook/dp/B00MPIXOB2 America's Christian Heritage Podcasthttps://www.buzzsprout.com/2622483

Acts 15:22-41Bible study.What if I told you that two of the greatest missionaries in church history got into such a sharp disagreement that they refused to minister together? Paul and Barnabas weren't false teachers. They weren't living in sin. They simply disagreed. So what do we do when godly Christians can't agree?Today we continue our study of Acts  15 (verses 22-41). We will start with the Jerusalem Council, but stay until the end for the surprising story and important application from the Paul and Barnabas split.Acts 15:22-41 Bible study guide with companion discussion questions on our https://studyandobey.com/inductive-bible-study/acts/acts-15-22-41/Study and Obey's Bible study guides on Amazon -https://amzn.to/48SgPEN(As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)Study and Obey Free Weekly Podcast on Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/study-and-obey/id1571266150Our website of 800+ practical and free Bible studies - https://studyandobey.comSupport this ministry -https://studyandobey.com/support/25+ Bible study guides for individual or group study on many different books of the Bible - https://studyandobey.com/shop/Sign up for a weekly Bible study to your inbox. 20+ studies to choose from - https://studyandobey.com/weekly-bible-study/Support the show

In this sermon, Pastor Jason discusses the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, which is a pivotal moment in the early church when leaders had to answer an essential question: Is salvation received by God's grace through faith, or must people earn it through religious works? As the Gentiles were coming to faith in Jesus, some Jewish believers insisted they first obey the Law of Moses—including circumcision—to truly be saved. Paul, Barnabas, Peter, and James firmly rejected this teaching, declaring that salvation has always been by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ. The council concluded that believers should never place unnecessary burdens on those coming to Christ because Jesus has already accomplished everything necessary for salvation. The pastor challenges the church to see that this struggle still exists today.    Website: redeemermidland.org Instagram: instagram.com/redeemermidland Facebook: facebook.com/RedeemerMidland   At Redeemer, we seek to be a Gospel-Centered, Missional Family. We sing songs to worship our Lord, we preach the Word of God from the Bible, and we love one another.   We would love to see you on a Sunday morning at 9:00 or 11:00 am at 3601 N. Lamesa Rd in Midland, Texas. 

Mark shows how the Jerusalem Council and Paul's second missionary journey teach us to embrace community, even though it's messy.

Acts 15 Bible study.The early church faced a crucial question that would define the future of Christianity: Is faith in Jesus enough, or do Christians need to follow a set of rules to be saved? This debate nearly divided the church. The answer is still crucial for us today.Acts 15 Bible study guide with companion discussion questions on our https://studyandobey.com/inductive-bible-study/acts/acts-15/Study and Obey's Bible study guides on Amazon -https://amzn.to/48SgPEN(As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)Study and Obey Free Weekly Podcast on Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/study-and-obey/id1571266150Our website of 800+ practical and free Bible studies - https://studyandobey.comSupport this ministry -https://studyandobey.com/support/25+ Bible study guides for individual or group study on many different books of the Bible - https://studyandobey.com/shop/Sign up for a weekly Bible study to your inbox. 20+ studies to choose from - https://studyandobey.com/weekly-bible-study/Support the show

Join Pastor Michael Eastman as he continues his series, Acts of the Apostles. This week's message: Instruction from the Jerusalem Council Acts 15:19-35 vs.28-29 - "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from sexual immorality, from which if you keep yourselves, you will do well. Farewell.”

Acts 15:1-21

This week in Church on Fire, we're in Acts 15 with Pastor Brian McCormack.The gospel is Jesus plus nothing equals everything. The second you take out the "nothing" and add anything to it, you ruin the whole thing. That's what was at stake in the Jerusalem Council. Some believers were trying to load new converts with extra requirements to prove they really belonged. Peter, James, and the wider church pushed back and kept the gospel clear. When gospel clarity goes down, the song of the church shifts from "look at what he's done" to "what have you been up to?"Then something else surfaces. Acts 15 opens with the word "But," which means it's responding to what came just before, Paul and Barnabas returning to celebrate that God had opened a door of faith. Read that way, this whole chapter is about an enemy trying to close a door God has opened. When attacking the messengers didn't work, he moved to attack the message. Keep your Jesus, just add a few things.Four things kept the door open in the early church, and still do now: guard the gate, protect the treasury, empty the armory, hold the line.

After the Jerusalem Council, the church in Antioch rejoiced to hear that salvation came by grace alone, not by adding human effort to the work of Christ. In Acts 15, the gospel is protected from legalism and the church is strengthened in unity. This episode reminds us that grace brings freedom, builds up believers, and keeps the church centered on the Word.

All the Episodes of the Heidelcast Subscribe to the Heidelcast! Browse the Heidelshop! On X @Heidelcast On Insta & Facebook @Heidelcast Subscribe in Apple Podcast Subscribe directly via RSS Call The Heidelphone via Voice Memo On Your Phone The Heidelcast is available wherever podcasts are found including Spotify. Call or text the Heidelphone anytime at (760) 618-1563. Leave a message or email us a voice memo from your phone and we may use it in a future podcast. Record it and email it to heidelcast@heidelblog.net. If you benefit from the Heidelcast please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts so that others can find it. Please do not forget to make the coffer clink (see the donate button below). SHOW NOTES How To Subscribe To Heidelmedia The Heidelblog Resource Page Heidelmedia Resources The Ecumenical Creeds The Reformed Confessions The Heidelberg Catechism The Heidelberg Catechism: A Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Commentary (Lexham Academic) Recovering the Reformed Confession (P&R Publishing, 2008) Why I Am A Christian What Must A Christian Believe? Heidelblog Contributors Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button or send a check to: Heidelberg Reformation Association 1637 E. Valley Parkway #391 Escondido CA 92027 USA The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization  

Why is the Jerusalem Council so significant? What is required for salvation? In this episode, Emma Dotter discusses Acts 15:1-35 and the influence of the Jerusalem Council. She unpacks how the Jerusalem Council protected the true gospel, opened the door for global Christianity, and modeled how the Church handled theological conflict.   // ADDITIONAL VERSES MENTIONED: Mark 7; Luke 18; John 3: 16; John 6: 29; Matthew 28: 19; Acts 1: 8; Acts 10; Acts 13-14 // RELATED JOIN THE JOURNEY EPISODES:  “S4:263 – Introduction to the book of Acts” (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...)   “S4:269 – Acts 15-17” (https://open.spotify.com/episode/3NShJvbx2EPozwMwxJq2Hm?si=98ac89d64476429c)   “Episode 204: Acts 15” (https://open.spotify.com/episode/1C4nPaR3RZjQlAN7nYyAX6?si=2d16480ac3b34d66)    // WHAT IS JOIN THE JOURNEY? Join The Journey is a realistic daily Bible reading plan that helps followers of Jesus at Watermark Community Church and beyond enjoy abiding in Jesus together. Join The Journey Jr. is designed to help parents guide their kids in Bible reading through interactive and age-specific lessons. In 2026, we're studying the book of Acts—one passage per week. For another year, teaching on Sunday will align with each week's passage. Then, for the next six days, we'll return to the same passage with fresh focus, exploring insights about who God is and how we can enjoy him more deeply. Monday through Saturday, we'll approach the same passage from a different perspective each day—whether observation, interpretation, prayer, or another spiritual practice—to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for God's Word. Then, watch or listen to the video podcast to tackle the week's toughest verses and discover key historical, theological, and practical insights. Daily Bible lessons for adults: https://jointhejourney.com Daily Bible lessons for parents and families: https://jointhejourney.com/jr Weekly Bible podcast for kids: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...  // MORE RESOURCES FROM JOIN THE JOURNEY:  Digital Bible study resources: https://jointhejourney.com/resources Previous years' print curriculum: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Waterma... Contact the Join The Journey team: jointhejourney@watermark.org 

What actually saves a person? It sounds like a simple question, but the answer changes everything about how we live, how we relate to God, and whether we ever find true peace. Acts 15 takes us into one of the earliest and most important theological conflicts in church history, and the answer it gives is just as relevant today as it was then. Salvation comes through grace alone, through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Not grace plus effort. Not grace plus religion. Just Jesus.In Acts 15, certain teachers were telling new believers that circumcision was required for salvation. Paul and Barnabas pushed back hard, because adding anything to Jesus actually diminishes Him. When Jesus said it is finished from the cross, that was a declaration of complete payment. God did not put us in a spiritual mortgage requiring monthly installments of good behavior. He paid it all and credited His own righteousness to our account.But this same struggle shows up in our lives today in different forms. We tell ourselves that if we pray enough, read enough, serve enough, or finally get our sin under control, then God will accept us. That kind of thinking is legalism, and as Peter pointed out in Acts 15, it is a yoke that no one has ever been able to bear. The law was designed to show us our need for a Savior, not to be the Savior itself.God's approach is radically different. He starts with the heart. He does not clean up the outside and leave the inside unchanged. He transforms us from the inside out. And grace is not a license to live however we want. Grace is the very power that teaches us to say no to ungodliness and live holy lives, not by our own strength but by His.The message of Acts 15 closes with one of the most leveling truths in all of Scripture. Everyone is saved the same way. The religious and the rebellious. The lifelong believer and the person who has walked away. The successful and the broken. All of us stand at the foot of the cross on equal ground, receiving salvation through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.Topics covered include grace alone, faith alone, salvation, legalism, the Jerusalem Council, Acts 15, the gospel, spiritual transformation, the finished work of Christ, and how to stop trying to earn God's love.Keywords: grace alone, salvation by faith, Acts 15, what saves a person, legalism vs grace, finished work of Christ, gospel of grace, Jesus is enough, how to be saved, Christian faith, spiritual transformation, grace and holiness, Jerusalem Council, Paul and Barnabas, Galatians 3, Titus 2, earning God's love, performance-based Christianity, biblical grace, New Testament salvation

Worship Service

We're in Acts chapter 15 today, and learning the truth that a Christian is no longer under the Law!

    Have you ever been interrogated by someone really pressing you to explain something you did or said or even something you strongly believe? That can be a deeply troubling experience, especially if your interrogator is relentless in their pressure and arousing doubt in the minds of all who hear you.  Let’s rejoin what is sometimes called “the Jerusalem Council” as recorded by Dr. Luke in Acts 15. Paul and Barnabas had come from Syrian Antioch, accompanied by some Gentiles from the Antioch church who were followers of Jesus in that great, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural city. You’ll recall it was there, in Syrian Antioch, not Jerusalem that the followers of Jesus were first called “Christians”, (Acts 11:27) In this historic meeting it didn’t take long for the gauntlet to be laid down by those disputing the Gospel as presented by the apostle Paul and Barnabas: “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.” They said. (Acts 15:5) (Click here to see full text, images and links)    Pastor Doug Anderson    “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)Have a comment or question about today's chapter? I'm ready to hear from you, contact me here. Interested in helping "Walking with Jesus" financially? Click here

Acts 15 is the hinge point of the entire book of Acts. In this talk, Thomas Barr explains the Jerusalem Council and the one question that changes everything: How can I be saved? Through the debate between early church leaders, we discover that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and why that matters more than we realize. Whether you're carrying shame, striving for approval, or wondering if you're “good enough” for God, this message is for you. Key Verses // Acts 15 (The Jerusalem Council)  — Give towards what God is doing through Passion City Church: passiondc.link/give  — Subscribe to our Youtube channel to see more messages: www.youtube.com/passioncitychurchdc — Follow along with Passion City Church DC: www.instagram.com/passioncitydc — Follow along with Pastor Ben Stuart: www.instagram.com/ben_stuart_ — Passion City Church is a Jesus church with locations in Atlanta and Washington D.C. For more info on Passion, visit https://passioncitychurch.com     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In Acts 15, the Jerusalem Council makes a fateful decision: Gentile Christians do not have to become Jewish before they can be saved. Rather, the Council realizes that all along God's plan was to save the nations through Jesus.The reason this matters is because it means that the church will be made up of lots of different cultures, each bringing their best to God.In other words, heaven will be a lot like the World Cup….

In this bonus episode of the Sunday Extra podcast, Pastor Matt fills in some important context before the church moves into the second missionary journey in Acts 15. Specifically, he walks through the Jerusalem Council found in Acts 15:1-35, where a dispute arose after Jewish believers from Judea began teaching that circumcision according to the law of Moses was required for salvation. Paul and Barnabas strongly opposed this view, and the council — including Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and James — gathered to settle the matter. The council's conclusion was decisive: salvation is by grace alone, through faith in Jesus Christ — Jesus plus nothing. As Peter put it in Acts 15:11, "We believe that we will be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus, just as they will." While Gentile believers were encouraged to avoid certain practices like food sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality, these were not requirements for salvation but practical steps meant to promote unity and fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers.

Topics: Faith without Works, James Explained, Paul vs. James, Law and Grace, Rightly Dividing Scripture, New Covenant Context, Judaism vs. Grace, Acts 15 Jerusalem Council, Acts 21 Nazarite Vow, Gospel of Grace, Works of the Law, Justification by Faith, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 3:28, Romans 4:2-5, Titus 3:5, Genesis 15:6, Abraham and Isaac Altar, Royal Law, Law of Liberty, Torah Commandments, Circumcision Party, Galatians Law Curse, Judaizers and Zealots, James Gang, Weak Conscience of James, Finished Work of Christ, Mosaic Covenant, John 19:30, James Taught Second Greatest Commandment, James 2:8, Early Church Conflict, First Century Epistles, Principles vs. Person, Sufficiency of Grace, Galatians 2:12, Acts 16 Circumcision of Timothy, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Galatians 2:16, 1 Corinthians 8, Acts 23 Plot Against Paul's Life Support the showSign up for Matt's free daily devotional!  https://mattmcmillen.com/newsletter

In this message, we explore the story of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, examining how early believers navigated deep conflict and cultural shifts within the church.1Key topics include:The Nature of Conflict: Why "certain people problems" are a normal, albeit challenging, part of community growth.Navigating Change: Understanding what to keep from the past and what to leave behind as the mission evolves.The Power of Conversation: How the Jerusalem Council demonstrates that holy, transformative dialogue is central to the life of the church.Grace and Inclusion: A look at the paradigm shift that expanded the circle of belonging, prioritizing grace over legalism.Bobbi also shares updates on the upcoming Marda Loop Commons launch and current community life at Commons Church. For more details on upcoming events and team-building opportunities, visit commons.church. ★ Support this podcast ★

Last week, we learned that the Jerusalem Council protected the message of the gospel and gave the Gentile Christians instructions for the Christian life. This week, we see how they responded when they heard this news. They rejoiced! The gospel saves the rule breaker, humbles the rule followers, and creates a new people that are changed to lived for Jesus! Last week, we learned that the Jerusalem Council protected the message of the gospel and gave the Gentile Christians instructions for the Christian life. This week, we see how they responded when they heard this news. They rejoiced! The gospel saves the rule breaker, humbles the rule followers, and creates a new people that are changed to live for Jesus! 

Can church conflict actually be a good thing? In this week's Midweek Move, we dig into Acts 15 — one of the most defining moments in the early church — where a fight over salvation itself forced the apostles to clarify what the Gospel really is. Carlos Renfroe and Dallas Mora sit down to unpack the Jerusalem Council, explain why Jewish believers were adding circumcision to the requirements for salvation, and explore why cultural identity and spiritual identity are not the same thing. Plus — the moment Paul and Barnabas went separate ways over John Mark, and why that "split" may have been exactly what God intended to double the mission. Timestamps: 0:00 — Intro: Can you add things to salvation? 0:28 — Welcome to the Midweek Move 0:49 — Pastor Scott on sabbath — a word to leaders: take a break 1:21 — Series update: finishing Acts with Carlos Renfroe 1:55 — The early church wasn't conflict-free either 2:49 — What is actually happening in Acts 15? 3:22 — Jews, Gentiles, and a clash of cultural identity 4:10 — Acts 15:1–2 (ESV) — "Unless you are circumcised, you cannot be saved" 4:28 — Why did Jewish believers feel they needed to add the Law to salvation? 6:19 — Faith, comfort, or control? The three reasons we add to the Gospel 7:43 — Circumcision as a marker of covenant identity — going back to Abraham 8:29 — When controlling the gates of heaven means controlling people 9:27 — Is this your faith being challenged, or just your comfort? 10:00 — The youth room story: discomfort vs. spiritual resistance 11:00 — Spiritual complacency is the enemy of growth 12:05 — Acts 15:19–20 — What the Jerusalem Council actually decided 13:09 — What the four restrictions were (and what they weren't) 14:05 — Acts 15:36–38 — Paul and Barnabas plan to revisit the churches 15:01 — The John Mark problem: why Paul said no 15:59 — Is this a church split? What actually happened 16:36 — God used their disagreement to cover more ground, faster 17:40 — Personal example: conflict with a spiritual father doesn't mean it's over 18:29 — Stay on mission — what matters is where your eyes are fixed 19:31 — Closing: Romans 10:9 — what salvation actually requires 20:05 — Connect with The Healing Place | thpshreveport.com | 8957 Kingston Rd, Shreveport, LA

In Week 8 of our Welcomed. series, we examine one of the most pivotal moments in the early church as believers wrestle with a foundational question: Is the grace of Jesus truly enough?In Acts 15:1–35, the apostles confront attempts to add requirements to the gospel and affirm the life-changing truth that salvation comes through grace alone. The welcome of Jesus is not earned through religious performance, cultural conformity, or personal achievement—it is received through faith in Christ. Yet the gospel doesn't stop there. The same grace that welcomes us into God's family also transforms the way we live with and love one another.Join us as we discover how the welcome of Jesus calls us to live securely under God's grace and faithfully from God's grace, finding freedom in Christ while learning to love others with humility, sacrifice, and unity.For more information about Integrity Church, visit our website, http://liveintegritychurch.orgConnect with us on social media throughout the week to stay up to date on events and things happening at Integrity!Instagram: @integrity_churchFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/liveintegrity/

When some believers insisted that circumcision must accompany faith for salvation, the Jerusalem Council answered with clarity: we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. What makes unified worship and genuine table-fellowship possible in the church is being In Christ. Has anything has quietly been added alongside Christ as a condition for belonging—a tradition, a preference, a cultural expectation? Is the same grace that saved you freely extended to those around you? 

This week on the Connect Podcast, Pastor Cole continues the conversation from our Holy ER message on Healing from Church Hurt by looking at Acts 15 and the Jerusalem Council. Church conflict is not new, but Acts 15 shows us how God's people can handle hard conversations without losing sight of the gospel. In this episode, Pastor Cole talks about legalism, unnecessary barriers, healthy confrontation, unity, and how churches can protect people from deeper wounds by dealing with problems in a biblical way.This episode explores how churches can handle conflict biblically to prevent and heal church hurt. It emphasizes the importance of unity, truth, grace, and addressing issues directly to foster a healthy church environment.Keywordschurch conflict, church hurt, biblical conflict resolution, unity in church, gospel, Acts 15, church leadership, grace and truth, church community, healing in churchKey topicsChurch conflict managementBiblical conflict resolution in Acts 15The importance of unity and truth in churchHow legalism and traditions hinder the gospelAddressing church problems before they growChapters00:00 Introduction to Church Hurt and Community Engagement02:18 Understanding Church Conflict and Its Necessity05:13 The Simplicity of the Gospel and Legalism08:25 Removing Barriers to Faith11:19 The Balance of Grace and Truth14:13 Addressing Conflict in the Church17:04 The Importance of Healthy Confrontation20:20 Unity in Diversity and Moving Forward23:12 Conclusion: Healing and Focus on the Mission

Is the Torah an unbearable yoke? In this episode, we examine Acts 15:10 and the Jerusalem Council to discover what Peter was really addressing. Was the issue Torah obedience—or salvation by works? Scriptures referenced include Acts 15:1–21, Acts 13:38–39, Deuteronomy 30:11, Psalm 19:7–10, Psalm 119:97, Luke 1:5–6, and James 1:25. Salvation comes through the grace of the Lord Yeshua, while obedience remains an important part of discipleship and faithful living.#UnbearableYoke #119Ministries

Acts 15 records the Jerusalem Council's ruling on Gentile believers, circumcision, and the Torah. This episode walks through the dispute, James's use of Amos, the four prohibitions, and why “Moses is read every Sabbath” matters for discipleship today. Show Notes:We explore how the apostles affirmed salvation by grace while providing a practical on-ramp to fellowship for Gentiles. Topics: the party of the Pharisees (15:5), Peter's testimony, the Apostolic Decree's four prohibitions, and Acts 15:21 as the roadmap for ongoing instruction and growth. Scripture Highlights (4–6):Acts 15:1–21; Amos 9:11–12 (cited in Acts 15); Genesis 17:10–14; Leviticus 17–18; Matthew 5:17–19; 1 Corinthians 5:8 Takeaway (one sentence):Acts 15 upholds salvation by grace and a Torah-shaped path of discipleship for all believers.

In this powerful message from Acts 15, Pastor Jeremy Schell explores one of the most important questions in Christianity: What actually saves us? Through the story of the Jerusalem Council, the early church wrestles with whether salvation comes through religious works or through the grace of Jesus Christ alone. Using the remarkable story of John Newton, the former slave ship captain who wrote Amazing Grace, Pastor Jeremy reveals how God's grace transforms lives, removes shame, and unites people under the gospel.

Paul publicly rebuked Peter to his face in one of the most shocking confrontations in the New Testament — but what really happened at Antioch? In this livestream, we examine Galatians 2:11–14, the dispute between Peter and Paul, the role of Barnabas, the Jerusalem Council, and the growing Jew-Gentile controversy in the early church. Did Peter compromise the gospel, or have Christians misunderstood this passage for centuries? That You May Know Him, Episode 300. Galatians, Part 5.