I love Bible translations. I love exploring the nuances of language, the color of words, and the attempt to convey meaning, especially when that meaning comes from a long time ago and a place, far, far away. One of my favorite translations only exists on the internet. That’s because if it appeared as a book it would probably be too heavy to lift. The translation is the New English translation which has footnotes for every translation decision by the translators. I really appreciate that and, even when I disagree, am thankful for their own transparency in making us aware of their many decisions about how they came about translating what they did. Today, I would like to do the same with our story from Acts 11:1-18 and seek to clue you in on the many nuances of our story so that we might better understand how the early church read the Bible and attended to one another’s story as a way to follow God well and "think Christian." Let’s jump in.
1“received the word of God”
The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.
“received the word of God” – one of the more challenging aspects of the Bible is what it is, and what we should call it. In Christianity, the phrase “word of God” primarily – above all – does not refer to the Scriptures but to Jesus, the Word who was in the beginning – with God and was God (John 1:1). The theologian Brad Jersak loves to cleverly poke people into truth. He says, “The Word of God is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. And when he was about eighteen years old, he grew a beard.” The second meaning of the “word of God,” in Christianity, we find in this passage. It’s once again not referring to a book but the Gospel message – the story about the Word of God for us, Jesus, which everything in the Bible points to and must bow to. Friends, the Bible isn’t simply one thing nor is it a flat text in which everything is read the same. For Christians, the purpose of the Bible is to bear witness to Jesus and the Gospel. That’s it.
We’re going to see that Peter and the early church’s way of reading the Bible was simple: Read it carefully. When anything in it disagrees with Jesus and what he is doing, listen to Jesus, who recalibrated the reading of Scripture all the time. The Law and the Prophets point to what God is ultimately doing in Jesus Christ. Never use them to correct him because the “word of God” is first and foremost a person on the move in the world through the Spirit who is declaring a message of good news.
And we will see, that that Spirit is still on the move ruffling feathers, ticking people off, by refusing to maintain the borders and boundaries that one might point to in a book.
2‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’: using the Bible to resist God
Vss. 2-10 So Peter returns to Jerusalem and to a group criticizing him for what he has done by eating with uncircumcised Gentiles. Peter responds by telling them the “whole story” of a vision in which he is instructed to eat unclean animals, forbidden by Scripture, and when he refuses on those very grounds – “Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth,” - is told “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
One of the interesting ironies of the passage is that both Peter and those Christians who are part of the circumcision party, in an effort to be faithful readers of the Bible and followers of God, use Scripture to actually resist what God is doing.
The circumcision party will condemn Peter for eating with uncircumcised men.
While the Torah includes specific laws about who can partake in the Passover sacrifice (Exodus 12:43-49) and about ritual purity, there's no general prohibition against eating with uncircumcised individuals. The issue of eating with Gentiles became a point of contention due to Jewish dietary laws and a subsequent identity as a religious minority.
Peter likewise will rebuke God for being asked to eat unclean things which were forbidden in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.
Inevitably, the circumcision party will move away from table fellowship and food being the boundary of who’s in and who’s out to focus on a much more clear Scriptural mandate - the necessity of circumcision to define who is part of God’s covenantal people. It’s important to reenergize the Biblical significance and clarity of circumcision as a direct and necessary command of God.
In the first biblical mention of circumcision, God made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants. God said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.” God explained his part of the covenant — he would be the God of Abraham’s descendants and give them the land of Canaan (Genesis 17:1-8).
God then explained Abraham’s part of the covenant (verses 10-14). “This is…the covenant you are to keep.” Every male was to be circumcised as a “sign” of the covenant with God, which was “an everlasting covenant.”
So every male in Abraham’s household was to be circumcised immediately, and from then on every baby boy was to be circumcised on the eighth day of his life. Whether they were Hebrews or whether they were slaves, the men had to be circumcised. If they were not, they would be cut off; they had broken the covenant.
Later circumcision was enshrined in the Covenant laws given to Moses (Leviticus 12:2-3). People had to be circumcised to participate in the Passover (Exodus 12:44, 48). And even Gentiles had to be circumcised if they wanted to worship God.
Prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel will subsequently maintain these boundaries. Ezekiel condemned those who let uncircumcised people into the temple (Ezekiel 44:7) and predicted that only people who were circumcised in both the heart AND flesh could worship properly (verse 9). Physical circumcision was required. So Scripture was clear, demanding, and unwavering – circumcision was Biblically required for covenantal faithfulness. And yet – we discover that to follow its logic in this instance meant that one would be resisting God.
3“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came . . . Then I remembered what the Lord had said”: the interplay of encountering God and remembering Scripture (picture of arrows going everywhere)
vss. 11-18 Peter then further narrates the Holy Spirit instructing him to go with three men from Cornelius, who was a Gentile, Centurion, and taking six brothers with him. He tells Cornelius’ story of an angel instructing him to send for Peter for the salvation of his entire household, of preaching to Cornelius, and seeing the Holy Spirit fall upon Cornelius and his household. He then remembered Jesus’ words, “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (which, incidentally, was only told to the disciples, none of whom were Gentiles) and then offers this assessment: “So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” Leaving the criticizing group, with no further objections in the moment.
The role and function of Scripture remains vital for the vitality of the early church’s witness and discernment. I want to remind us all that the most common question by Jesus in the Gospels was, “Have you not read?” The early church shaped much of its life around reading Scripture, singing Scripture, studying Scripture, and praying Scripture. And Peter will confess in his story that the work of the Spirit helped him remember what the Lord had said, then quoting Jesus. Later, the Apostle James, who was head of the Jerusalem Church, will quote Amos 9 as part of the Church’s move to include Gentiles without mandating circumcision. So in no way should you read Acts or hear me today, in any way, denigrating the importance of Scripture in the life of the church. But, we must never use anything, anything, even Scripture itself, to stand in God’s way. At the risk of repeating myself ad nauseum, let me say it a different way but one more time: You can't follow God well without reading scripture, but you can read scripture and not follow God well.
Some points of application:
We must move from an environment of “debate” to a posture of “discernment”
It’s important to note that even though one group will bring a sharp critique. There doesn’t seem to be much worry or even a negative response by Luke against those who bring it. Perhaps that’s because he understands that disagreement is part of the process. BUT while disagreement and even criticism are important elements of any thoughtful theological discussion. It’s important to remember that the goal is not debate but discernment [which always requires careful listening and judging]. The object of any theological conversation remains people not an issue. The subject of any religious discussion is the God found in the Bible, the God who reveals God’s self in Jesus Christ, and the God at work in the world through the Spirit. I’m not saying that we can’t have hard discussion, strong disagreement, or even fraught conversations where opposition is openly expressed. When the church argues over its actions, it more carefully understands its own beliefs and always recalibrates itself in a new setting where God is present, active and on the move. And that’s the point – to move with God and not necessarily win a debate.
Thomas Aquinas, "We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.”
We must attend to people’s stories of the Spirit at work so that we can read our Bibles well.
There is a certain brand of toxic religion found in many churches who read the Bible like this: place the Bible over your face). It speaks the language of absolute certainty and never is willing to rethink or recalibrate based on people’s lived experiences of God. In fact, it often imagines that all we have left of God is a book. One response to such toxicity has been to cut eye-holes into the Bible so that one can see out. But while that might help one see better it rarely leads to reading the Bible well. So we must avoid both extremes The way of Jesus is like this an open Bible so that you see it as well as others face-to-face, hear their stories, share our own, and “remember” what God has said and what God has done. Let me explain by offering some real examples: one negative example about a woman and a church's position on closed communion (a woman at a church shares that, against the position of the church she had been attending for twenty years, she took communion as an nonbeliever and had a conversion experience. The church refused to even consider changing its position); two positive ones: my divorce (all of you read passages about divorce in the light of your experience of me as a divorced pastor – you know me, you’ve listened to me teach the Bible, pray, care for you. You refuse to read any text on divorce in isolation to the story of my life) and women in ministry (The story of women in ministry begins with women and churches sending gifted, Spirit-led women to seminary for training because they can see a calling on their lives. The church didn’t simply wake up one day and start reading the Bible differently. No, they began to see different passages and interpret things differently after encountering real women in ministry being led by the Spirit: Acts 2:17; Gal. 3:28; Rom. 16; 1 Cor. 11; Check out “Called and Gifted”).
The experience of God’s activity in the present acts as a key for the interpretation of the Scripture. Without these stories, the church cannot always rightly discern what God wants in the present. Peter’s story was the key to understanding Scripture and not the other way around. When James validates that story with Scripture, quoting Amos 9:11-12: He does not say, “This agrees with the prophets.” No, he says, “The words of the prophets agree with this.” The “this” is the work of Jesus by the Spirit in the present.
So to follow Jesus and read the Bible well we must ask ourselves 3 important questions:
1. Am I attending to the stories of others as they encounter God?
2. Am I reading the Bible carefully and often so that I can recognize God at work in the present?
3. Is my purpose to truly discern what God is up to or am I simply trying to win an argument?
Take a moment now to prayerfully discern which question questions you.
