Agreeing When We Disagree

Acts 15:1-21

Introduction

When you think of the different events put on by the church, what is your favourite? Is it the worship service? Bible studies and prayer meetings? Potlucks and other meals? Where do business meetings fit into the ranking?

When I was just starting in ministry, I was warned about how bad church business meetings could be. The problem was not that they might be boring, the problem was that they could get quite contentious. People had strong opinions and conflicts could break out. Despite these warnings, I never have been to one of these very bad meetings. Almost every time, there has been laughter and joy and a sense that we were working toward the same goal.

I was given the same warning about the annual assemblies of the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec. One of the reasons I was warned is that just before I joined the CBOQ, there had been intense debates about women in ministry and it was not pretty. But that was all settled by the time I became a Baptist. I found the assemblies to be very enjoyable, filled with vibrant worship and inspirational teaching. The business could get boring, but that was a good thing.

In the last couple of years, I have begun to get a sense of what those older pastors had warned be about. Once more conflict is arising among the Baptists.

It is the same conflict that is affecting many other denominations in North America: involvement of LGBTQ people. There are those who strongly feel there should be greater involvement of LGBTQ people and those who strongly feel that there should be limited involvement of LGBTQ people. I will tell you that the purpose of this message is not to look at what the Bible says about homosexuality or whether a congregation or a denomination should be welcoming and affirming. The purpose of this message is simply to look at what happens when a church seems split over a certain issue and how they can move forward.

In many ways, how modern Christians feel about the LGBTQ issue parallels an issue that faced the early church. That is what we are going to be focusing on.

We have been seeing this issue brew in Acts for some time. The church was initially all from a Jewish background. There were shared values and customs that helped reinforce unity. Then God sent Peter to Cornelius and brought the Gentiles into the church. The problem was not that people of Gentile birth were following Jesus, the problem was that they were doing this without becoming a Jew first. What was the point of following the Jewish Messiah if you were not a Jew? As we have seen, Paul ended up being called to minister to the Gentiles. He was opposed not just by non-Christian Jews but by Christian Jews. For these Jewish followers of Jesus, Paul was doing it all wrong. People must become Jews first and then follow Jesus. This had the potential to rip the church apart.

The response was a church meeting, more precisely a council. The Jerusalem church had special authority and that church was led by James, the half-bother of Jesus. I have always been drawn to James because he seems to be bridge builder who is guided more by reason than emotion. It is James that has to lead the church through these difficult waters. I think we can learn a lot from what he did.

Debate

The first thing we see that happens at the council is that there is some debate. That might sound like a bad thing. When we think of a debate, we might think of a political debate, where the person is not trying to reach the other person but is only trying to win points in the campaign. What took place here was a discussion between two groups that felt very strongly about their positions. This conversation was not going to solve the problem but it was an important first step. Each side needed to be heard before they could move forward.

Testimony

Although Paul was at the forefront of the Gentile ministry, it was through Peter that the Gentiles were first brought in. Peter testified to his experience. People today are often suspicious about experience, seeing it as too subjective. But notice that Peter is not sharing what he feels, Peter is sharing what he actually experienced. Whatever the church decides, they are going to have to take into account the fact that God poured out his Spirit on Gentiles who had not become Jews. Barnabas and Paul added their testimonies of what they had seen God doing in the lives of Gentile believers.

Theology

What is it that Christians believe? Well, we believe a lot of things—some of them more essential than others. I have shifted beliefs on many side issues, but not on any of the essentials of the faith. It is through the lens of our essential beliefs that we need to interpret everything else. This is what James offers as the key. Speaking to Jewish believers he says: “we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” We are saved by grace and not by what we do. There may be strong feelings about what people should or should not do, but that cannot take away from the cornerstone of salvation by grace.

The Bible

In any theological controversy, there are always those who will say that all we need is to read the Bible. But notice that in this council, James only brings up the Bible near the end. Instead of starting with does the Bible tell us whether Gentiles can be saved, he allows all the other things to play out and then tests it with Scripture. Why do this? Because you can find a Bible passage to defend or attack almost anything that you want. Even Satan was able to quote Scripture for his purposes during the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Proof-texting is one of the easiest things for us to do. That doesn’t negate the importance of Scripture. James does text the discussion with Scripture and we can be assured that he would not have moved forward if he didn’t find some biblical support.

Compromise

James and the council come to the conclusion that Gentiles can be saved without becoming Jews. But notice, he doesn’t say that the pro-Gentile party wins and leave it at that. James’ goal is not just to determine a winner of the debate, he wants to maintain the unity of the church. The views of the pro-Jewish party still mattered. So James finds a compromise. We think of a compromise as a bad thing, but it does not have to be. We can compromise in bad ways but often a compromise is the loving thing to do. A compromise is when each party is willing to give up a little for the sake of unity. In this case, they came up with some guidelines as to how the Gentiles were to live. They did not need to get circumcised or follow the Law, but there were certain expectations. This was all done for the sake of the unity of the church.

Conclusion

What does all of this mean for us? I purposely did not make this a discussion about our posture toward the LGBTQ community. The reason is that there have been many different debates in the past and we will have many in the future. Without dismissing your strong feelings in this moment, there is a bigger picture. God calls together a church of many different kinds of people with a variety of backgrounds and personalities. How can we possibly operate this way? We can with the proper posture. The goal is not to find out how to make people share my convictions. The point is to discern what God is doing and how he cane work through disagreements to maintain unity. We see some important steps in this passage. We see people actually talking and sharing their views. We testimonies about what God is actually doing in the real world. We see a building on the foundation of our essential beliefs. We see a testing with Scripture to make sure we are on the right track. Finally, we see a willingness to compromise, not in a bad way, but as a sacrificial step to maintain the unity of the church so we can focus on our primary mission: building the kingdom of God on earth.