Making it difficult

I had the chance to listen to a very good sermon on Sunday concerning relevancy in our ministries. I am not sold on the application of the particular passage (Acts 15) to the topic, but I could not argue with the rest of the content. One verse was called out for special attention: "Therefore it is my judgment that we should not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles." (15:19) The context of this verse is the placement of undue burden on the Gentile believers to be circumcised and instruction to keep the law of Moses in order to attain salvation. Is this applicable to making the Word accessible to people in different cultures and different generations? I think it may be a bit of a stretch, but I can see a principle operating here.

I used to gather with a church that had a meeting place that was at least 40 minutes from my house. It is a great body of believers, but it made it impossible for us to invite people and have any reasonable expectation of them actually continuing to gather with us. Only crazy people drove that far to gather with a "local" church body. Gradually, I got the sense that God was calling my wife and I to find a church body that gathered closer to our home. We did and it has been great.

Certainly someone looking for a local body of believers would be "troubled" if this was their only alternative. Is this was Acts 15:19 is talking about or is the trouble an addition to the criterion for salvation? I usually go with the narrower interpretation to be on the safe side, but I need to meditate on this more.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

tightvnc keyboard mapping problem in Ubuntu 9.04

Image
I have been, off and on, having an issue with the keys on my keyboard mapping to the correct values when using the tightvnc client when paired with the vncserver vino in Ubuntu 9.04. I am not exactly sure what keyboard layout the client and server was expecting, but it seemed like every time I restarted the OS the keyboard mapping problem would come back and I would be at square one again. Well, I think I have found the workaround I was looking for . Hopefully this will help anyone else that is having this issue.
Read more

The manifestation of the "I" and the gift of self - Part 1

I am continuing my journey through Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body and I had never realized how body-focused the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Genesis truly are.  But then it all makes so much more sense when it was brought to my attention that the body we have been given in a manifestation of me, or to put it another way, the "I". And it goes beyond that still. Not only does it reveal me, but my body also reveals, in no small measure, the image of God. That is not to say that God is made of flesh like me as is depicted in so many Renaissance paintings. The old man in the sky is nothing like the God as revealed in the Bible. However, the love that God is, the holiness that he is, the justice he is, the righteousness that he is...all of it is shown to the world through my body. In a very real way, my body allows for others, and for me, to participate in the mystery (the hiddenness) of the image of God. That is by design; from the beginning.  If God is revealed in nature...
Read more

Let me learn what I need to learn

In the “I don’t know what God is trying to produce in me…” portion of the blog: I work across (not with) an incredibly loud person. We are in cubes and he refuses to use a handset when he is in a conference call…or headphones. Everything is done via speaker phone. Maybe his handset is broken? I don’t know and am too timid (read “interested in keeping the peace”) to ask him. Of course he shouts into his speaker phone as well when he talks. Now he even refuses to use a keyboard. He has a speech recognition program that allows him to speak to the computer rather than type. Good for him! Now we can all hear “Comma…open parenthesis…close parenthesis…tab…tab...tab…” Was it my sin or my parents sin that relegated me to this placement in the office. We all know the answer to that but man…it sure feels like I am getting punished for something.
Read more