Acts 15 – A Paradigm Shift (Part 3)

0:02 My update concerning Israel will be a little bit, um, abbreviated today. I do just want to say it has been 539 days, uh, since the hostages were taken. And there are 59 hostages, 24 of which are thought to be living still. So I just ask that you would continue to, uh, pray for those who are being held in captivity against their will and, uh, and continue to, uh, come before the Lord on their behalf. We are continuing, in fact, we are wrapping up

0:48 where I get the, the moving chair today. We'll be wrapping up, uh, at least a portion of our discussion on Acts 15, uh, with my dad and me. We will be continuing, pardon me as I'm getting my computer. Thank you, Roland.

1:41 It's quite busy making a stage changeover mid thought. Um, but we'll be continuing and, and finishing. At least we're not finishing the chapter, uh, just in case you're getting your hopes up. But we will be, uh, thank you, Marcus. Feel a little bit more, uh, safe and secure in this one, but we will be finishing up through the letter that is here in Acts 15. Oh, it still creaks. Okay. I think I need to lose a little bit of weight, but, uh, It is striking to me. I just was thinking during our service this morning,

2:30 the power of unity and how our witness really, it's not even, it's not even greater. It's exponentially greater when, when we stand in unity with one another, which means that when we don't, it's actually detracting to our ability, uh, to influence the world on behalf of the Lord. And I I have a thought. What's that? I, I don't know if, if you wanna start with this, but I think I will.

3:16 I had a thought, perhaps it's a little bit missed in the congregation as to how consequential this, this question really is, because I, I don't know, I I'm not gonna take a poll, but I don't think if I, if I took a poll, I don't think there'd be very many hands that would go up if I said, how many of you believe you have to be circumcised to be saved? Like, I, I think it's, it's a, it's a question that is, is um, is actually no longer relevant in, in the body of Messiah today. I think it's the opposite. And we've talked about that. I think If I, if I can like, so the, so the opposite if it was physically possible,

4:03 is you must be uncircumcised to be saved. That is the opposite. But I, I thought of one that, that I could step on some toes. Oh, go for it. And, and that would be if you, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm stepping on toes and I, and I know it, uh, that would be if I walked into a charismatic church today and said, do you have to speak in tongues to be saved? I, I think that would be a comparable question. Probably. It depends on the church. Well, no, that's why I qualified with a charismatic church. Yeah. Uh, I think that's a comparable question. Maybe it doesn't have the magnitude because charismatic Christianity isn't as big. And we're talking here about all

4:51 of the followers of Yeshua at this point, and charismatic Christianity doesn't represent that much. But, but I think it's a similar situation that there are some who place their limitation for being sa saved or salvation in, in terms of are, do you speak in tongues even today? I don't know. I, I, I just thought I would, I open it up with a bomb. If I respond to that, then we're not gonna get on target here. Okay. So we better get on target. So here, just as a, as a reminder for all of us, we are in Acts 15. So what are we gonna talk about today?

5:41 We are, last week we finished, or we, we attempted to, to draw to a close, but we really only finished part of, of Jacob or James's response. So I'd like to start with, I'm just gonna reread his whole response. Yeah. We interrupted him last week. We did. So here, the, the, the question at hand, which goes back multiple weeks, is, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved, which is in, uh, verse one and 15. But we'll go back to Peter responds then, then Barnabas and Paul share, and then Jacob stands up and says, brothers, listen to me.

6:26 Simon. This is also, also known as Peter. Simon has described how God first showed his concern by taking from the gentiles of people for his name, the words of the prophets agree as it is written. After this, I will return and rebuild the fallen tabernacle of David. I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it so the rest of humanity may seek the Lord. Namely, all the gentiles who were called by my name says Otai, who made these things known from of old. This is where we stopped him. But, but Jacob continues and says, therefore, I judge you, or I judge not to trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God,

7:12 but to write to them, to abstain from the contamination of idols and from sexual immorality and from what is strangled and from blood for Moses, from ancient generations has had in every city those who proclaim him since he has read in all the synagogues, every Shabbat. So really we're just, we're catching up with, we're, we're finishing with these three verses, but that just that way you could hear James, James or Jacob's whole response, um, as he was, as he was, uh, writing it or speaking it. Yeah. So I think it'd be good to review a little bit after you're reading those verses that the, um,

8:03 We gave, we gave a title to the series. So the series right now is only three weeks long, and we ti entitled it, uh, a Paradigm Shift, or The Paradigm Shift. And so I, I would probably assign a similar title for this week, and I would say the paradigm shift in a letter. And because at this point, the, the counsel that has gathered has listened to all the evidence. And by the way, it almost fakes you out because you know, all the evidence here in Acts 15 comes in just a few verses. But this was a quite a, a drawn out process.

8:51 There was, there was a great debate, which is, by the way, a great debate is not something that is set up so people can watch on TV or, um, or, or argue with one another and then come away feeling like I won. No, I won. You know, and never be ffr be friends again, or don't see each other. Again, debates in Jewish thinking and in Jewish gatherings are, let me just say, I'm not gonna say a hundred percent, but most of the time they are designed to hear different perspectives. And it can get heated. But to hear different perspectives and come away with some kind of a,

9:39 maybe it's not a conclusion all the time, but some sort of direction. In fact, this is actually one of the, uh, methods that we see if, if we ever read the Talmud, the Talmud has pages and pages of debates, and it debates from different rabbis saying, well, this rabbi said this, and this rabbi said this, and it's not, and it's not necessarily drawing a conclusion, but it's, it's taking Jewish people into in a direction. And so I think this, this debate has drawn to a conclusion in a way. It, it made a, it made a, a statement, it, it, and in the form of a letter. So I think it's important to be reminded that

10:26 this whole debate began in Antioch. Antioch is in the very south part of Turkey. Uh, if you have a map, you can show everybody. Yeah. Standby by, I'll, I'll see if I can't get that. Uh, it's in the very south part of Turkey that almost connects to, uh, the, the land mass that goes down the Mediterranean through Lebanon and into Israel. And so it's the north. And, and the reason that this debate even began was because earlier in the Book of Acts, if you remember, if you recall, uh, Steven was Stephen, who was elected to be one of the, one of the shaheem,

11:13 the one of the first shaheem of, uh, or deacons. Some of you don't understand the Hebrew part, but of the early congregation in Jerusalem. And so he was particularly endowed with a gift of evangelism. So he was standing up and evangelizing, and he was arrested for evangelizing. And then he began to evangelize the court, those who were, you know, the judges who were listening to him. And he, he did it as a defense, but in the end, they took him out and stoned him. And the person that resided over the stoning was none other than the man we call today, the Apostle Paul.

11:59 So the, the Apostle Paul was residing over Stephen's stoning and death. He was really against the believers. This, this is, so I say this every time, but it's so maybe so typical of God, but so uncanny for us. Here is somebody who is completely against Yeshua, completely against his followers and persecutes them, et cetera. And then all of a sudden, bam meets the Lord onto the road, going to persecute the, the Jewish believers in Damascus. And, and God meets him on the road. Yeshua meets him on the road. I have a map if you want to Yeah, it took me a minute. Yeah.

12:45 So what, what we were describing, we were saying, we were describing where Antioch is, you know, the southern part of Turkey Antioch is right here. There you go. And then it goes down from there. Oh, yeah. I actually have that map. So Antioch, it goes, it goes straight down to, into Israel. So there's a road, you know, there's a road that goes north and south. And, um, so after the persecution of, you know, after the death of Stephen, Jewish believers were persecuted. So much so that, you know, by the, by the, by the Jewish community, not all,

13:32 but you know, by some of them, especially the Apostle Paul, that many of them fled. Many of them fled. And I'm not sure they only fled out of fear. But, you know, the Lord squeezes us sometimes like tooth toothpaste out of a tube, if you can get that illustration. And so sometimes persecution squeezes the tube and, and toothpaste comes out. Well, believers come out and they come out with a purpose, and they carry the word of the Lord with them. And they began to go into other countries. They left Israel continuing to go north and then scatter into different countries.

14:17 We talked about this already. And they spoke only to Jews, but they spoke the good news of Yeshua, and many Jews came to believe. And then finally they ended up, a number of them ended up in this place called Antioch. Today in Southern Turkey, it's called Anus. Uh, it's called, uh, no, what is it called? I'll find it. What is it? Thank you. Thank you. That's right. So our ministry of, uh, outside of of t of Burham is TJ TJC two. And a group of us went there to pray because of what the history that is held there. And, um, anyway, so

15:03 in Antioch, they continued to speak only to Jewish people. But then there were a couple of Jewish believers who decided, Hey, let's give this a shot. Let's see what happens if we share the good news of Yeshua with Gentiles. Well, lo and behold, gentiles began to respond positively. And they began to turn to the Lord, to the only living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and turn away from idols and idol worship. And they began to come to faith. And there were so many Jewish believers and so many Gentile believers now in Antioch, they formed a congregation. And at, in this congregation, the scripture tells us,

15:50 this is the first time that those believers were called Christians. So if you ever wonder where Christianity was formed, I would say it started in Antioch, not in Jerusalem, not in, you know, Damascus, not in other places. I would say it started in Antioch. You know, a lot of Theo, a lot of Christian theologians say, oh no, it started in Pentecost on Jerusalem. Well, then you have to acknowledge if those people became Christians. You have to acknowledge the fact that there was no Christianity yet nobody called themselves Christians until later, until Antioch.

16:35 And they were all Jewish believers. They were all Jewish. So Paul didn't persecute the church. He persecuted his fellow Messianic Jews, persecuted his own Jewish people because they were followers of Yeshua. Anyway, that's kind of a reiteration of where we've come to now. Now that in the congregation of Antioch, uh, Paul and Barnabas, I, I'm skipping a little bit of, because we've already gone over this, but Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time in Antioch teaching these, these young believers, these new believers, especially the, the Gentile believers who really had to, had to start from scratch. 'cause they hadn't, they didn't know Moses,

17:22 they didn't grow up with studying the Torah or the prophets. They, they were idolaters. So they really came out of a world and knew nothing about, um, the coming of the Messiah or the Messiah himself, or even that a messiah was supposed to come. Yeah. Or even that the Messiah, that there is a Messiah or who he was supposed to come. That's right. So, so here they are running along pretty smoothly in Antioch, in this congregation. And, and then all of a sudden, one day, some men from Jerusalem come to Antioch. And if you want to, if, if you'd like to translate it

18:08 to modern days, I'm gonna guess and say, these guys, they probably didn't look like this, but, but if you looked at 'em today, if they came today, they would probably look like they, you know, they wore black hat, black coat, black pants, and, and had, you know, see, you know, pay us down, you know, from their corners of their hair and wart seed, seed on the outside, because these are the more observant or religious Jews, I think. And I believe the, the scripture bears me out here, who, who came and said, no, wait a minute. You guys are wrong. You're, you're gathering all these gentiles. But they, they, in order for them to be saved, they have

18:57 to be circumcised. What do you think? Well, I think we talked about this. Yeah, we did. So that's the original question, right? So That's the question. So then Peter Stands out. So I, I was, that's what I was getting to. 'cause you said you have to address the original question. Okay. So there's a Talmudic story, and you've heard me say, some of you have heard me say this before. There's a Talmudic story about a Jewish yeshiva, a student in, in Yeshiva. And he's studying, he's by himself, usually they study together, but he's by himself. And he is davening. He's reading the Talmud, he's reading the Bible, he's reading the Torah. And, and all of a sudden he says, the light comes on.

19:42 He says, oh, he jumps up and he says, I have the answer. I have the answer. But who has the question? Okay, so can we start? So Peter stands up. Peter is rightfully, he's the first one to stand up and, and exercise input, I think partially because that's was his position as the lead Apostle. Yeah. He was, he was the leader. Yeah. So he stands up, he gives his position. Barnabas and Paul, we're not, we don't, we're not giving words as to what they say, but they share what happens, what does Jacob have

20:27 to do if they think, or James some, by the way, I'll switch back and forth between Jacob and James. It's the same person. Uh, well, this is the interesting part, because up Who, who's Jacob? Like what, who cares what he thinks? Yeah. Because here you have Peter who became the first Pope Pope Peter. Didn't you Have Paul who became the first Christian? Yeah. Well, yeah. If you ever wonder who's more important, Peter or Paul, Pope, Pope Peter became the first pope. You know? So that, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. So, so here, here we, here we are. And, and the scripture begins to tell delineate in Acts 15,

21:16 you had the emissaries, or the apostles and the elders. Because the congregation in Jerusalem now, I'm guessing, was tens of thousands of people large. So, hey, we could say it was the first mega church if it was a church. Um, but it's, it was huge. Let's say tens of thousands of people. I mean, in the first three chapters of Acts, you have about three or four chapters of acts. You have about 10,000. Uh, it grew, it grew, grew quickly. So here you have apostles, and Peter is the head guy and elders.

22:03 And who's the head guy? Jacob. Jacob seems to be, I don't want to call him the head rabbi or the head pastor. He was, he was known. He was the, he was the head elder of the elders in Jerusalem. And so with him, uh, I, I believe we could, we could argue that with Jacob, he sat in the seat of authority that Yeshua talked about with his apo, with his disciples early on when he was arguing with the, the sag, with the Pharisees and the scribes. And he says, the authority is being taken away from you

22:49 and given to, to them. And so, so to, to a Jewish believer, this authority was given. And I believe it was given to Jacob or James as the leader of the first huge congregation in Jerusalem. I think it's probably an important thing to note. This is Jacob, who's Yeshua's little brother. I just, I, we had a conversation about this. Yeah. I, both of us are the only boys in our families. So we've never lived in a family with multiple boys, but I have seen families with multiple boys. And how, you know, there's the olders and the youngers, and there's some

23:34 friction in between, perhaps. Well, look, look at, if you ever read John chapter seven, you'll see that during ko, all of the boys, Yeshua's, younger brothers, All of Yeshua's younger brothers were getting ready to go up to Jerusalem to celebrate Kot. And, uh, and they turn, they turned to him, probably Jacob turns to him out of all the brothers. 'cause he's the, he may be the oldest of the younger brothers, but all of the brothers turn to him and they say, Hey, why aren't you going up with us? You know, anybody who wants to become a public person has

24:23 to go up to Jerusalem, do their stuff in public. Why don't you do your miracles in public? He was saying this sarcastically. How do I know? Because the next part of that verse says that his brothers were not believing in him. So here, just like the transformation of Rabbi Saul, rabbi Shaul into the Apostle Paul, you have another transformation of Jacob who was unbelieving and was not a follower, didn't believe in his brother's position and identity, and was not a follower. And ridiculed him along with the other brothers like Jude, who wrote later, wrote a book here in the New Testament. And, uh, and now he's not only a believer,

25:13 but he's so zealous for his own, for, for Yeshua's Messiahship that he, he has humbled his heart before the Lord, you know, in hi, in, in his, in historic legend or whatever you want to call it. But in history, he's known as camel knees, not like me. He didn't break his knees a lot, but he, like, unlike me, he spent a lot of time praying on his knees. And so he became known as camel knees. He was such an intercessor. And so here he has become the, the, the known leader who is sitting in the seat of authority. And here this question comes about,

26:00 can Gentiles be saved without being circumcised? It comes to the seat of authority to find the answer. Yeah. And he says, And he says, I judge Yeah. Not to trouble those among the Gentiles who are returning to God. So here we're talking now about particular people, which we've now heard the rumor or the report from Paul and Barnabas of, of these signs and wonders, um, about them turning. And he says, these are the ones who are turning to the Lord for those people. This is what he says, he says, but to write to them, to abstain from the contamination of idols, uh, contamination of idols.

26:47 Yes. And from sexual immorality and from what is strangled and from blood. So I find it interesting that he says, I judge, Um, which is sort of a pointer to the fact that he was apparently the leader who was sitting in a, who was in authority. He says it, it's, it's, it could be unlike it, it could be like, you know, rabbi Ari standing up in, in, in a meeting like this or, or a maybe a more formal judicial meeting and say, it's my judgment that this and this and this, and everybody's gonna take that with a lot of seriousness

27:34 and a lot of weight because who he is. And so that's what happened with James or Jacob. He says, it is my judgment. It's more than just my opinion. You could, you could say, it's my opinion, but it's more than that. It's my judgment. So with the seriousness of the man who is likely the leader, lead elder in Jerusalem, working with the apostles, and who is Yeshua's brother, he's got some weight, he's got some weight. And he says, it is my judgment that, that we should,

28:20 we should not trouble the Gentiles. And this is so important. I want you to hear this. We should not trouble the Gentiles who are turning to God. And I, I think that's a good, it's a good principle. It's a good lesson for us when we are sharing the good news of Yeshua. Don't trouble people with other things that maybe you use or you do, or you consider needs to be done. Just lead them to Yeshua and then let Yeshua take over. You know what I mean? He'll take the wheel, He'll take the wheel. Yeah.

29:09 So anyways, so anyway, I felt that was, that was important for us to understand. Yeah, I agree. So we have these four, what would've become known as the four prohibitions. And, uh, I just wanna spend a minute, or unless you want to do something else before we spend a minute, Well preface to that minute, A preface to that minute is that Av Shaul Apostle Paul picks up on these prohibitions when he's writing to the Gentiles for the churches that he planted. And, and by the way, Ari, Ari may say this too, but we're in agreement. There were many more churches that were planted after Acts 15 and this decision than there were before.

29:54 And so the Apostle Paul writes in one Corinthians, just a couple of examples. First of all, um, here in Acts 15 verse 19, it says, I, I judge that it, it is my judgment that we shouldn't trouble those among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but to write to them. So, so this is, this, apparently in James' mind, Jacob's mind is not a troubling thing what he's about to say. In fact, I think he's saying this, that it will take, bring them out of trouble, that these four, that these,

30:41 what are we called prohibitions, will actually help them out of trouble. And he writes, um, we want you to abstain from things contaminated the contamination of idols or abstain, or, or don't go around idol worshipers and offer things to idols. And, and UL picks up on this, and he writes in one Corinthians chapter 10, verse 20, actually the several verses before he starts the idea. But in one Corinthians chapter 10, verse 20, he says, um, you know, what's an idol? You know, in, in that context, he says, what's an idol?

31:26 You know, just something carved outta wood or metal. Um, he says, but the people who offer to idols, he says, they are offering, they're giving their offerings to demons. You can look it up. One Corinthians 10 20, they're giving their offerings to demons. And if those of you who are believers are hanging out with them in their times of offerings, or in the pagan temples, he says, you are partaking or sharing in their demonic offerings. So he, so, so what he, he picked, Paul picks up on this letter. And so he's, he, so, so James here is saying,

32:12 it's my judgment that you don't become contaminated by idol worship. In other words, even if you're not offering to idols, but you're hanging out with people who are offering to idols, you can be contaminated by that. Secondly, Paul picks up, this is just in terms of introduction, just so you know, it's 1220. Okay, then I'll be quick. The second thing he picks up is about sexual immorality. Now, he, Paul writes a lot about sexual immorality, but just one example is in one Corinthians chapter six verses 18 and 19, he says, don't you know that sexual immorality is different than other sins? He said, because this is the sin of the body.

32:59 Other sins are not of the body, but this one is of the body or in the body. And he says, don't you know that the body, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? So that's all I wanted to say. Paul picks up on it and writes, based on the decisions that are made being made here in Acts chapter 15. So I don't know if we want to talk about where do they come from, these four? Uh, we may not want to take the time. I'd say just give a little quick, okay. Quick, quick. We'll, we'll talk quickly for a moment. Uh, we have, we have a couple differing opinions. We have a few differing opinions between the two of us.

33:45 Yeah. Well, I, I don't think we should argue that in front of everybody. We, we want, we wanna be nice. There, there, there is an argument that can be made that it is a, um, a moral adaptation of, uh, of law that's from the Talmud. Um, I'm not gonna spend much time in that one because I don't think, I don't think it's, it's quite as relevant. Uh, there's an argument that can be made that these are elements, these four are elements that are involved in pagan worship. And so we, we want to abstain from things for, for what you just said, from connecting to pagan worship, because are they anything? No, they're not. The idols are nothing, but they're worshiping demons that are standing in opposition to God. And therefore, when we partake in that,

34:30 it puts us into opposition with the Lord. Uh, that's a position. Uh, there is another position, which I find quite fascinating and and you'll learn is my position. Um, I say that, uh, I actually, I I think there's some validity to all Of these. Actually. It was Moses' position. It Is Moses' position number. 'cause Moses is read in the synagogue every Shabbat. That's right. So there's a, there's a position which says that these four come from Leviticus 17 and 18. And there, So, so if I can interrupt Sure. Leviticus 17, 18, and 19. Well, the whole book of Leviticus, you could say, is a book of holiness. And the center of the book of 18 takes place in,

35:18 in these two par short, which you can talk about. But, but I want to just say these, what Ari is about to say, what Rabbi Ari is about to bring up from Leviticus 17 and 18, and I would add 19, uh, are all, they all focus on holiness, on the holiness of God and the, and because of God's holiness, the holiness of his people. So here they are in Leviticus, and they're even in the same order, by the way that they are presented in the letter. They're not in the same order that James says them. Uh, but they're in the same order that they're presented in the letter. It starts with idol worship. And, and by the way, in, in, in 17 and 18, these laws that I'm going to mention are not

36:04 for the people of Israel. These are for the sojourners that dwell among the people of Israel Who are gentiles. Who are gentiles. But, but they dwell among the people that is of Israel in peace and, uh, in good relation, we can call it that way. Yeah. W with the Jewish people, We can just say they're pro-Israel people. Yeah. They're pro-Israel living, pro Israel, sojourners. That's right. Living in the land with Israel. Yeah. So in 17 eight, in verses eight, nine, I'm not gonna go read the verses, but it, it references idol worship in 17, 10 through 12. It talks about eating blood or the prohibition against eating blood. All of these are, by the way, are prohibitions. Not, you should do these things, but you should not do these things. The, the one that, the one that it's a little bit

36:50 of a stretch, uh, is, uh, in, in, in Jacob's list, it says, from what is strangled in, in, um, Leviticus, it talks about something that dies naturally where the blood isn't drained. Uh, and, and so those, I I equate those and, and make them relatively similar. Similar. And then all of 18 lists, uh, relationships that are considered to be sexual immorality. And then at the end of all of it, this is the part that, that I will read at the end of all of it, Leviticus 18,

37:38 starting in verse 27, for all of these abominations, this is going back through the previous chapter and a half because we haven't changed the subject, but in that previous chapter and a half, for all of these abominations were done by the men of the land who were before you in the land became defiled. So who are the people in the land? Those were the Canaanites in, in, in the nations that were dispersed. If you defile it, the land will vomit you out as if vomited out the nation that was before you. In other words, we can't do those things either. In other words, if you do those things, you kind of become lukewarm towards God and he'll vomit you out vis-a-vis the book of Revelation. Well, that's a,

38:27 that's a really good connection because we had this conversation about, you know, it's often talked about the seven churches who John writes, man, that's really interesting. I haven't talking about that. Okay, well, Let's, more than half of those churches, by the way, the, their problem that John lists is here in the list of prohibitions in Acts 15. And you can make an argument that all of them through a connection is because they're, they're, they've gone beyond what acts 15 lists. Uh, but that's, I think that's a discussion for another day. So, so, may I insert a parenthetical thought? Here's a parenthesis.

39:14 The reason we call this or have called these series of messages, the paradigm shift you, it, it becomes obvious. But, but let me just reiterate. It's the paradigm shift, because now Jewish leaders are taking what was completely and solely belonging to Israel and to the Jews. And not only giving them or applying them to, to gentiles who live among them, but now taking them to gentiles that live everywhere who have turned to God. Yes, I think so. I, I'm gonna take your parenthetical and I'm gonna put my own parenthetical, which is,

39:59 the list is nothing new. The list predates the existence of Israel in the land. Why? Because Canaan lived in the land before Israel, and they were vomited out for these, for these very reasons. So the list already exists, and here they're just capturing the list and saying, we're just gonna apply this now from beyond the land of Canaan to other lands. Okay? That's the shift. I don't, I don't wanna water down the idea of vomit. Excuse me, we're being gross. But God doesn't vomit out the pagans. He vomits out the believers who are acting like pagans, who are doing pagan things. He, the people who have never turned to him, he rejects them.

40:45 Yeah. You switched the subject though. I'm talking about the land vomiting. Okay. The Land, the land vomited. Alright. Okay. The land vomited. Okay. Okay, we're good. So now, yeah, we gotta we gotta move Quick. Getting a little far afield. Okay. Verse 21. Now we're, James is still, Jacob is still still teaching. He, he continues the thought. He lists the four prohibitions, and then he says, for Moses from ancient generations has had in every city those who proclaim him since he has read in all the synagogues, every Shabbat. So this is the interesting, this is the sometimes controversial verse, of course. Was it, why did James insert that into his speech? Why, you know, what was he meaning all of a sudden,

41:34 you know, he, he's in a circle of Jewish people as far as I can tell. There are no gentiles in this group, just Jewish people. I mean, maybe, maybe there are a couple from Antioch who came with them, but, And the text doesn't say that. It says they delegated Paul and Barnabas right to Go. So, so apparently it's all Jewish people. And now he, so he's speaking, he's inserting this verse, but he's, he's speaking it still, and it is my judgment. And then he says, look, don't do this, don't do that. Don't do this, don't do that. Hey, anyway, Moses is taught from ancient times, ancient generations. What does that mean? Yeah. So I've heard this verse applied a few times to say,

42:21 yeah, they don't have to be circumcised. They could start with these four, but in the end, they're gonna end up to that point because they're gonna go to all the synagogues in the, in the nations, and they're gonna go learn what Moses read or what Moses wrote. Okay? So, which I, to me is a misapplication of the verse, but So, so here, here's one idea. I mean, there are many, many people have ideas about this. Um, some, some people believe that what you just said this, let's take a baby step. Moses is taught in all the synagogues anyway, so let 'em, let's just give 'em a little bit, you know, just four prohibitions, you know, instead of the whole 360 plus 613, 613 Laws that, I mean, was calculated later on.

43:09 Not at this point. But, um, you know, instead of just, instead of give giving the gentiles the burden of the whole McGill, let's just give 'em four things. 'cause those four things will become so loved that the rest of it will be gonna grow on them. And, um, eventually they'll become like us. But I don't believe that, I don't agree with that. I don't, in fact, when I think about how this was done in a private setting among only among Jews, and it was not written. This is, this is just right now just

43:54 what James is saying in, in public, he's, this is part of the debate. The letter that was written as a result of this debate does not include James thought about Moses writings from ancient days. And it's read in all the synagogues on Shabbat, that's nowhere found in the letter that was actually sent to the, to the churches. So it could be actually that he's making an internal comment in this discussion that actually has no, um, No bearing on the, No bearing for the outward movement of the Letter. Well, I think there's a little bit of bearing, Or maybe not bearing, maybe that's a, maybe that's the wrong word, but, okay. Application.

44:39 There are a couple of applications that I see. One, I believe James, because there may, there are Jews, obviously there are Jews there in this circle during the council who are threatened by Gentiles coming to faith and not being circumcised and converting to Judaism. So, so they're threatened because wait a minute, they're gonna take our Messiah and it's not going to be the same as how we relate to our Messiah. Right? And I, I think you talked about this a week or two ago, how many more from the nations are there than there are from the Jewish people? Yeah. So if it goes to a particular point, Well, if everybody in the world got saved,

45:24 it could be all Jewish, the whole world. Anyway, that's not as, not the way it's supposed to be. In fact, I love to think about going back all the way to the beginning in Genesis and see how God created man after his own men image. And then he said, man, man looks, God says, man is not complete. You know, he needs someone to come alongside him and be with him as a partner. And so he took a rib from him, and I'm not ribbing you, but this, he took a rib from man, he put him, this is the first surgery by the way, in, in scripture. He, he put the man to sleep, Adam, he took a rib out

46:14 and formed that rib into a woman. And when Adam woke up, he said, whoa, man, He didn't speak English, dad. He went, Ish. Ah, yeah. So, so they both mean the same thing, right? Woman, and Isha means woman. And so, so I want to, I wanna say that God, God delighted in at that moment,

46:59 delighted in the differences between a man and a woman. And I wanna say further than that, Adam also delighted in the difference. And I'm going to, I suppose that Eve also delighted in the difference. So, but it didn't stop, the differences didn't stop them from becoming one. Right. It became a mutual blessing. The two of them were incomplete until they came together, and they, it formed something that became a mutual blessing. So you're telling me this is the reason I like to go to a barbecue restaurant and order a side of ribs, a side of beef ribs.

47:45 Okay. Getting off track here. A lot of ribs. We, you mentioned actually that there was a prophetic application for this verse that Moses has taught. Yeah, that's true. In, In all of the synagogues, uh, around the world for the pur the prophetic purpose of actually keeping the Gentiles who are coming to faith with a connection That's right. To the People of Israel. That's right. Until, until the, what I'm gonna call the church fathers, um, until they, they all came together in the first church council known as the Ene Council. It took place in 3 25 ad

48:35 um, there, let's just say that the church cut the ties between the church and Israel. O and, uh, that was a mistake in my, in my, in my humble estimation, uh, that was a huge mistake. But, you know, God even takes mistakes and makes them right. But this was, this was a long, it was a long period of time after this. And I, it's my own theory, you know, I'm not an expert. I'm not a scholar, and I'm not a, I'm not a professional historian, even though I like to study history. But I, you know, it looks to me like from about 3 25 when these decisions were made

49:24 at the Ian Council for the next thousand years, which many people call the dark ages, that the church really stumbled and lived in a very difficult time, not from the outside, from the inside, creating a very difficult time by, and I think my theory is, is because they officially separated themselves from Israel and even cursed to Israel, many church fathers even cursed the Jews and cursed Israel. However, that's another story. But I, I think bear it out by, we can bear at bear this out by Acts chapter 21, when Paul comes back to Jerusalem after his second journey planting

50:13 gentile churches around around the nations, he comes back and James again approaches him, Jacob, who's still there, the leader of the congregation in Jerusalem, he approaches Paul and he says, look, Paul, people here are hearing rumors about you saying that you are telling Jews that they don't have to circumcise their children anymore. And James says, well, look, we wrote this letter that gave these four prohibitions and said, Gentiles can, you can go ahead and circumcised. But that had nothing to do with Jewish application. That was gentile application. And he says, so prove this to everyone here. All the believers here, all the Jewish believers here in

50:59 Jerusalem, we want you to prove to them that the rumors are not true. Go, go, you know, shave your head. You know, go take a Nazarite vow, et cetera, and or, or, or break a Nazarite vow and, and pay for these other guys who are doing the same thing into the temple. And so, Paul, the apostle Paul does it, and he pays out of his own pocket for all of this, making these offerings in the temple. And some, I don't know why, but some Christian theologians seem to think that Paul was strong armed to do this. Let me tell you, Paul survived stonings and,

51:44 and, you know, killing, you know, almost killings or maybe, maybe he died once and came back. Um, but he, he has survived shipwrecks. He survived all this, all this stuff that was against him. And you're gonna tell me that he gets with James, and James is able to strong hard arm him, especially after the letter was sent out, and Paul was part of it. No, Paul did not teach the Jewish people to stop circumcising their children. No, and not at all. And he, and he wanted to prove that to all the Jewish believers in Jerusalem. So he followed through with it. So in in Acts chapter 21, I think we can, we can say we can apply Acts 21 to Acts 15

52:33 and say this, James made that statement. Moses or the Torah has been taught from ancient gen through ancient generations all the way back from Moses generation, right? All the way back 1500 years prior to this, from ancient times Moses has been taught. And, and actually it's taught every Shabbat in the synagogue. Well, synagogue, there were no synagogues back in those ancient, ancient times. They came later through the dispersion of Jewish people into the Babylon. And in Babylon, they started to form what I call the pre synagogue form of Judaism. And they came back from Babylon

53:18 and brought the synagogue, the synagogue with them, the idea of the synagogue with them. And synagogues were formed in Israel from that, from that time on. So maybe I can say this, because I think I remember this conversa part of this conversation that we had the four abst donations, if I can call 'em the four prohibitions. He's talking about Gentile identity, and then he, maybe Paul is maybe Peter Sw, um, Peter, Paul James, who are we talking about? We're talking about James, Mary, Peter, Paul, and Mary. No, we're talking about James. James maybe is now even referencing Messianic Jewish identity. So keeping that there, there's a possibility that there's, there's a little bit of a, a, a separation,

54:05 but also, uh, working together for the beautification of the Lord. Yes, I agree a hundred percent. I think, I think what Acts 15 represents is that Gentiles don't have to become Jews or identify as Jews. And Jews don't have to be in, in order to believe in Yeshua, don't have to become, I don't know, forgive me if I'm, if I'm blowing anybody's mind away here. Jews don't have to become Christians to become followers of Yeshua and Messianic Jews, and don't have to become uncircumcised if that was possible. Um, so that's why I said that earlier.

54:51 Okay. So before we move on, I wanna make one more. So identity is very important here. Yeah. Before we, I just wanna make an aside for the congregation's sake. Um, and then I think we move on to the next thing and wrap it up. Um, I, I find it very interesting because right here we have proof that number one, that there was a regular meeting of Jewish people outside of the land of Israel and synagogues every Shabbat. And number two, that they had a regular reading from the Torah, Just like we Do, just like we do today. Now, it, it is a, I think the, the readings have changed, but the quite fascinating thing that I, uh, that we discussed is this Torah portion 17

55:36 and 18 of Leviticus is, is, is from the Torah portion, re moat, uh, in, in the next, in 19, in 19 and 19 is part of, it's quite fascinating that the Hof Torah portion, at least in our modern reading, is from Amos nine 11 and 12, which is what James just quoted. That's right. So, I don't know, to me, there's some, it is quite fascinating if there's a connection even in our modern reading. Not that the schedule would've been the same back then. Okay. We got, we got our, we gotta speed up a little bit. All Right, let's go. So here, now we're continuing on, we've done two verses by the way. So, So I'd like, I'd like to say this because, because we haven't, I don't want it

56:21 to sound like Jewish people should stay away from Moses or the Torah. No, not at all. The opposite of that, I think, I think in a sense, this, this, uh, this sentence that James says Moses is taught from ancient generations means that it's been taught, it's gonna continue to be taught. And, and as you mentioned earlier, it will provide a foundational teaching connection to believers who are not Jewish, to remain in good standing with Jewish people, and with Israel and with the Torah. It, it has nothing to do with salvation. Salvation. Jewish people and gentiles are saved the very exact,

57:08 exact same way. That's what was said earlier. Sure. You know, in earlier when Peter spoke and, uh, and also by James. Okay, so we move on. Are we moving On? Yeah. Well, I just wanted to say Gentiles can continue, Gentiles can continue to learn from Torah, but you don't have to become Jewish. Okay. Is that simple enough? I don't know. Sure. Okay. So we continued on and it says, then it seemed good to the emissaries and the elders with the whole community to choose men from among them. This is Acts 1522, to choose men from among themselves to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judah also called bar Saabas

57:55 and Silas leading men from among the brethren and this letter along with them. So I think obviously we have leading men. Judah and Silas seem to be very prominent in the community. Maybe, maybe It could be shaham. We, We could put in our own Elders, Could be an elder or a ish as a representative of the community. And, and, and then the letter is this, the emissaries and the elders. Your brothers to the Gentile brothers of Antioch, Syria, and cia. Greetings. Okay. I wanna pause there, but we didn't talk about this part. Can you, Joshua, can you flip me back to the map for a second?

58:42 I, I, the area that we're talking about that this letter is going to is Antioch, Syria, and CIA is, oh, Not working. Oh, my pen is out of battery. It's this area right here, which includes Antioch. Antioch is the center of it. I glad you have enough electricity in your finger. Yeah, yeah. My finger is electrifying. Um, but it's fascinating because it terms sacia, which is by the way, where Tarsus is, and I find it interesting. I'm wondering if Paul planted the congregation already,

59:27 and Tarsus already already shared the gospel before he came to Antioch. Yeah. So now they're going back to where Paul's already been and which is this area right here. And then, and by extension, it will go to, it Looks like the circle of trust. Sure. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Just as, I just wanna make that comment before we move on to the Gentile Brothers of Antioch, Syria, and Isha Greetings, since we have heard that some from among us have troubled you with words disturbing to your souls, do we wanna go through this verse by verse? You can read it. I mean, you just read it, but I say just since we're running outta time, you can just highlight what you wanna highlight. Okay. So in other words, they,

1:00:13 they've heard from among that some from among them have troubled them. So by the way, Peter, uh, James and the council are acknowledging that some went forward and and caused trouble from them. From them and, But without authorization. Right? Well, I'm getting there. Okay. They, but they troubled them. In other words, they put some baggage on them that, that was unnecessary. And he says they troubled you, or that were words that were disturbing to your soul. Like that's a, like, that's quite, yeah, quite deep Soul in the Hebrew mindset, nefesh and other words, uh, has to do with your life. I mean, it's, it's not just, Hey, I don't like the shirt you're wearing today.

1:00:59 That might bother you emotionally, you know, why did that person say that? But, um, but this is troubling the soul. So it has something to do with the life, and It has to do with the inner life and the exterior life. Because we, we've talked about this multiple times, Yeshua, the reason he confronted the, the Pharisees is because they focused, at least it seems in the text, on the exterior, gotta make sure you do all of these things. But their interior didn't match, and Yeshua wanted their interior to match the exterior. And, and, and that's didn't want it to be troubling to do all of these other things. Okay. You were about to say something. Yeah, I was just gonna just acknowledge that in, in, in Greek,

1:01:45 the Greek word here is que, which is we get our word psyche or psychological. It's the, has to do with the brain. But, uh, um, in, in a Hebrew context, which sometimes is more holistic than Greek thinking, it's not just a, a change of your brain, but it affects everything inside. You know, God looks at the heart, not just the outside. Okay. So disturbing to, uh, with words, disturbing to your soul. And then, now this is what James says, although we gave them no such authorization, it seemed good to us. Do you want to No, I was just gonna say, it's like if one of you, or if a few of you go out somewhere else from em

1:02:30 and say, we're, we're, we're, we're coming from em and from Rabbi Ari and the elders, you know, but Rabbi Ari gave you no worth authorization, or the elders gave you no authorization to do it, but you're invoking something. Anyway. So that seems to be the case. You're invoking authority, which actually is, is quite often in Jewish literature based upon the words of rabbi so-and-so. Right. It seemed good to us having come to one accord. In other words, that everyone who's in that room, uh, debating hotly now have come into one accord. In other words, they all, That's a miracle. That is a miracle. I I think it's absolutely a miracle,

1:03:17 uh, anyways, coming to one accord to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul Who risk their lives for the name of the Lord, Yeshua. Yeah. So now the, the, the council is acknowledging what Paul and Barnabas have already done here in, in chapters Acts 13 and 14. You know, if you remember, Paul was stoned and they thought he was dead, right? So they've been risking their lives, sharing with gentiles about issue of the Messiah. They've, so here's an acknowledgement. We therefore into you, Judah and Silas. So this, this is part of the letter. Now, this is not the discussion anymore. Yeah. This is the official, oh, in fact, I think I forgot to,

1:04:02 I forgot to say something. The, it seemed good to us, by the way. Is is a, it's a, it's Hebrew idiom. It's A Hebrew idiom, which is like a halachic ruling, or it's a judgment. We find it good, and we're going to, this is what we're gonna do. This is how we're gonna live our lives moving forward. So this letter was actually official. It was, it was legal, it was binding to the believers. So we therefore send to you Judah and Silas, who themselves will report to you the same things by word of mouth. Why are they sending two people? Uh, to me, it seems you, you take the witness of two people, and the Torah is a pretty standard, uh, practice.

1:04:52 Yes. And I, I would wanna point out in the letter they said, here's this letter, but also we're sending the two people to confirm everything by mouth. Mm-hmm. Orally, so that you have the written letter and you have the oral letter. Yeah, That's good. So now here's, it's quite fascinating to me. I just wanna note, we've had this discussion, so I'm, I'm noting it for you guys. Nowhere in the, in the previous part of Acts 15, do we see them praying? Do we see them asking for the Lord's guidance? I'm not saying that they didn't, but is not noted in the text. But here the letter says, it seemed good to the Kodesh and to us starting with the spirit of the Lord,

1:05:38 it, it seemed good. This what has come forth, this unified direction is, is a unity between the spirit of the Lord and the Council. And I would just pick up on that again and say, AV Shaul or the apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter four, verses one through three, the Jews, and you know, Ephesus, the, the congregation, Ephesus had both Jews and Gentiles in it. That's how it started. And it grew. Um, but he, he picks up on an Ephesians chapter four, one through three, and he says, do me a favor, he, I'm paraphrasing. He says, do me a favor, maintain the unity of the Spirit

1:06:27 within you, among you, maintain the unity of the Spirit. This will bless me so much. Maintain the unity of the Spirit will bless you, because there actually is only one body, one spirit, one immersion, one faith that encompasses all of us Jews and Gentiles alike. So it seemed good to the aka kashian to us, not to place on you any greater burden than these essentials that you abstain from things or meat offered to idols from blood, from things strangled and from sexual immorality. See, this is where the order comes in. It's different than the order that Jacob says

1:07:13 This order is more reflective of Leviticus. Of Leviticus. Actually, in our conversation, my dad made it. You make the comment now. Yeah. I think, you know, I think after the discussion and debate and the suggestions, the, the strong judgment of, of Jacob or James, which they, which they took seriously, but I think there, it wasn't the end of, of the discussion. I think some of the, some of the Jewish people who were probably more observant, who finally said, okay, we can live with this. You know, maybe they don't have to be circumcised. We can live with this, um, probably influenced the writing of the letter, uh, by saying, by by, by moving the order of these four elements

1:07:59 into the Levitical order, rather than just leaving them as James spoke them, Then the, the letter ends by keeping away from these things, you will do well, Shalom. So how many, how many Christians do you know who still do these four abstain from these four things? Probably not many. This letter has been long forgotten. But anyway, I think that just to clo to close, to wrap everything up, and, and we started with this, which is, the question is what's the result of this letter?

1:08:44 The result of this letter, there's a, an immediate long term, and then even a today application, the immediate result is there's a relief for the brothers who were in Antioch, in Syria, and, uh, Isha. Is that what it was? Yeah. In Isha, the longer term is there's an explosion. The, in fact, the rest of the Book of Acts is basically Planting one congregation, Planting one congregation after another of Gentiles who are coming to faith, And they deliver this letter wherever they go. So they, they have the ruling, and it, it may just seem like a ruling, you know, but to gentile men in particular, not to have

1:09:30 to be circumcised is a big deal. It doesn't mean that they can't be. In fact, when I was growing up, it became normal practice in the hospitals to circumcise boys. It doesn't matter, regardless of religion. Um, it's not so much anymore today, but back then it was not. I mean, it was not. Totally not. And so you can imagine that the, the growth of the body of the Messiah would've been much slower and smaller had circumcision been required. You know, you're gonna think you're 40, 50 years old, you're gonna think twice before you say, oh, do I really wanna believe in this thing. I have to have an operation, you know, I have to go have surgery, surgery,

1:10:15 Forgot the knife, so. Oh, that's right, we did that Sounds right. Okay. Obviously the Lord doesn't want us to do it. That's right. Anyways, I'm getting an affirmation from my mother. So what's the result? The immediate result was that there was a fantastic growth in the body of Messiah. So many people turn to the Lord. Um, so the, the long-term result, what would you say? I think we're living it. I think this is, this is, this is us today at BHS At Hashem. We're, we're really a, a modern form of, of Antioch, if I can put it that way. Yeah. And, um, I, I think we can finish there

1:11:01 and I'll make one more comment unless you have another Comment. No, that's it. I'll make one more comment. I, I recognize we have, at the same time, gone very slowly through the Acts 15, but on the other hand, we actually have gone quickly. I know it doesn't seem like it. Um, but there's a lot that is, if I could put it this way, a lot of dirt that is, uh, left to be turned in the chapter. Um, so if there perhaps are questions that you might have that we haven't addressed, we tried to address a lot of the questions that, that might come up. But if there's questions that you have, let me encourage you, write 'em down, uh, and, and you can even email 'em in if you want.

1:11:47 That's fine. We're gonna have an opportunity, if there are questions, if there's not, we, we might not, but we'll have an opportunity in a few weeks, uh, to do a little bit of a q and a. Uh, you know, if there's a question, we'll, we'll address the question as best we can and perhaps, um, bring a response. Uh, it doesn't mean you're gonna get an answer, but it does mean you might get a response, uh, from us. You mean a satisfactory answer? Well, you might not even get one of those. Oh, you may not, you just might get a response. Okay. I mean, I, I can't tell you how many times I get somebody, should we do this or this? And I say class, what do I say? Yes, that's exactly, I don't know. Somebody over there has been in class with me. Should, should we stand up during the Torah reading

1:12:33 or should we sit down? Yes. So if there are some questions that you might have, you can do that. I, I, if any of you has one, start with that, because that's going to send it in. You can send it to, to Cheryl in the office. Um, that's gonna let me know that there's still questions. If I get no questions, we might not do a live question response. Um, so anyways, yeah, the email address is office O-F-F-I-C e@bhsdallas.org. Um, And by the way, you mentioned, you know, we haven't gone through all the dirt, but you don't have to. That doesn't mean you have to ask a dirty question.

1:13:22 So anyways, on that note, I'll lead You to, I'll leave you to clean up. All right? If there's, if there is a need for a question response time, we'll, we'll do one. Um, and in fact, we might do it live. Um, but you're not gonna get the opportunity to stand up and ask the question. You'll have to write it down and send it in, uh, so that it can, I it'll go through a filter before it comes. And, and the reason for that is if you write it down, it means something. It, it's actually worth your time. I'm just telling you, this is a matter of practice.

1:14:08 When you write it down, it actually is worth more to you than when you don't write it down service. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

1:15:08 In the name of our Messiah, Yeshua Shabbat.