GALATIANS: No Other Gospel

Now that we have wrapped up our conversation about the narrative of God, I want to start diving into the letters of the New Testament. I will not try to present the letters in any sort of chronological order, as I feel like the debate is a lively one, and it doesn’t lend easy answers. Instead, I want to focus on hearing each letter in its context.

I would like to start with the letter to the Galatians for a few reasons. First, I personally believe Galatians is the earliest letter of Paul’s (even though I won’t be trying to present these chronologically). Second, I think the letter to the Galatians is the one that flows best out of the record of Acts. And third, I think understanding the context of Galatia and the argument we touched on surrounding Christianity in Asia and Asia Minor is essential to interpreting our New Testament correctly.

To review, we said back in our post about Barnabas and Paul in Pisidian Antioch that the Jewish world of Asia and Asia Minor was having to wrestle with a question found in the new world of the Diaspora: What do we do with the theosabes — the God-fearing Gentiles? We talked about how the city of Pisidian Antioch sat on the edge of the region of Galatia, and the region was dominated by the ultra-conservative worldview of Shammai. Galatia was a backwater, off-the-beaten-path kind of place where those Jews who wanted to maintain the purity of their Jewish faith could go and avoid the corruption of the Greco-Roman world. If the Gentiles wanted to worship the God of Israel there, the answer was easy — they can convert to Judaism.

But the arrival of the gospel changed everything in that world. All of a sudden there was a Jewish community insisting that God’s grace, salvation, and justification was for the Gentile just as much as it was for the Jew. This group of believers was arguing not only for a place at the fellowship table, but for full-fledged membership and adoption into God’s family.

In a region like Galatia, this was simply unacceptable. What this meant, of course, was that God-fearing Gentiles who followed Jesus were not given a place in the assembly, a seat at the table, or the hand of fellowship. They were excluded; unless they wanted to convert, they simply were not seen as a part of God’s family.

This led to a major temptation for the believers in Galatia. If they would simply convert to Judaism, they would be welcomed into the Jewish family and accepted at the synagogues. Not only this, but in the first century the Jewish people were exempt from the imperial demands of emperor worship through what historians refer to as “the Jewish Exception.” Based on an agreement instigated by Herod the Great, the Jewish people were the only people group excused from offering their worship to Caesar.

But what do you do when you are a Gentile and not included in the Jewish community? Not to bow your knee to Caesar was a capital offense. The reasons were many for why the theosabes would see it as easier and more beneficial simply to convert to Judaism.

Understanding this context is absolutely critical to understanding the letter to the Galatians. Look at how one of the opening paragraphs reads:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Paul says on no uncertain terms that the gospel of Christ is a gospel of inclusion. The whole message of “good news” to the people of Galatia is that in Christ, everyone is welcome at God’s table, and everyone belongs in God’s family. Paul insists that if they allow this message to be perverted, they are ruining the entire mission of God in Galatia. They must put the gospel on display despite the hardship and the persecution.

As we continue to look through the book of Galatians, we would do well to remind ourselves that, in Christ, there are no “those people.” We should remind ourselves that the gospel of Christ always has been, and always will be, a gospel of inclusion. This good news is an announcement that all people, through faith in Christ Jesus, have a seat at the table. There is no people group, geographical region, or religious establishment with a monopoly on faith.

To pervert this truth is to pervert the very mission of God.

** As we continue this study of Galatians, I would recommend The Holy Epistle to the Galatians by Thomas Lancaster. Lancaster does a great job drawing from some of the most recent scholarship to help us understand this letter correctly. While I don’t agree with the conclusions drawn in the last few chapters of his book, the contextual work surrounding the letter to the Galatians is fantastic.

the EPILOGUE

As we wrap up the book of Acts and begin to turn our attention toward the New Testament letters, it will be important to make a point about this meta-narrative of God as it’s recorded in the Scriptures. When we began to look at the book of Acts, I mentioned this was an "epilogue of an early church.” Let me explain what I meant by that.

In the beginning of this study, I said I teach my students that Genesis 1–11 serves as a kind of “PREFACE” to the narrative of God. The rest of Genesis (chapters 12–50) could be seen as the “INTRODUCTION” where God sets the stage for His great story. I always felt like this was important because we need to be able to talk about the meta-narrative of God in a coherent way so we can understand who God is and what He’s been up to in the world. If we can understand this story, as seen in the Text and told by the Author Himself, it will help us understand where we fit into the story and how we can step into the mission of God.

Because He’s still looking for partners to put the world back together.

And so I want to be able to teach the entirety of the Bible within a meta-narrative “package” that sees the story of God as a cohesive whole. It should have a beginning and a plot, a narrative arc of tragic and/or comedic redemption, as well as a conclusion that remains an open-ended invitation for God’s people to join the Story.

This is why I teach God’s story has a PREFACE and an INTRODUCTION. What we have been studying since then is the narrative itself. I believe this narrative is “A Tale of Two Kingdoms: Empire v. Shalom” — and the main plot and narrative arc is one of exodus and liberation, ultimately culminating in restoration. I believe the mystery of the incarnation was that Jesus came — the Divine wrapped in humanity — and showed us through his life and ministry what this narrative is like when it’s seen in flesh and blood. The story of Jesus, as seen in the gospels, is the climax of this great narrative God has been telling.

So if I were to pause, I would recap the narrative of God as follows:

God writes a PREFACE to help us reframe our understanding of the world. Who is God? Who is man? What is God doing in the world?

God then set the stage for His great story in an INTRODUCTION. He introduces us to the family He chooses to partner with and their descendants. They are a stubborn people, filled with fiery chutzpah, and a willingness to trust the story amidst many mistakes and questionable character. However, their ability to trust the story sets them apart from the other characters we’ve met thus far.

God then begins His great narrative of exodus. He starts with a literal exodus from Egypt and invites His people into a missional partnership to show the world what God is like (the very lesson learned in the PREFACE and modeled in the INTRODUCTION). We watch the characters struggle to learn this as a nation, we watch them wax and wane and eventually crumble to the temptation of Empire. They lose the plot of the story, and God disciplines them, reminding them what exodus looks like and what the plot of the story should be. Having learned some good lessons, the people of God try to rebuild a new Judaism and people, but as temptation creeps back in, there are multiple responses as to what the proper interaction with this temptation should be.

Into this vibrant and lively cultural debate dives the incarnated Christ at the climax of the narrative. God wraps Himself in flesh and the Author of the narrative jumps directly into the story. He shows us what it means to live a life of exodus, to trust the story in such a way that you are free to lay your life down on behalf of others. This pure model — this incarnated Text — brings us back full circle to the best moments of the INTRODUCTION, as Jesus becomes the perfect example of the kind of man Abram was on his best days. Jesus becomes the living expression of the complete, realized potential of humanity, made in the image of God.

This means the book of Acts becomes the EPILOGUE to the narrative. Having shown us what it looks like to live out the narrative of God correctly, Jesus leaves his followers with a special deposit — the realized indwelling of the Holy Spirit. While still not perfect, this “holy nation” is empowered (by the Holy Spirit) to do things the narrative hasn’t seen before. Jesus even mentioned these acts would be greater than his own (cf. John 14:12). The EPILOGUE shows it is possible for this narrative to find a comedic and restorative end, and God will in fact put the world back together through a partnership with His people.

To succinctly describe this narrative arc in literary terms of the Hebrew Scriptures, I would say this: After God invites, defines, tests, and fulfills the covenant relationship with His people in TORAH, we are invited to watch the continued evolution and breakdown of this covenantal relationship in the NEVI’IM (the Prophets). The story is supplemented with the KETUVIM (the Writings) and the Jews take this evolved Judaism and rebuild in the post-Babylonian era. As they try to figure out, as a community, how to respond appropriately, God joins the scene and incarnates the story in the GOSPELS. We see the fruit of this narrative played out in the book of Acts.

However, the story — even the EPILOGUE — is far from wrapped up with a tidy bow. A few things become startlingly clear:

The story is far from over. Full restoration has not been realized, only it’s potential. The rest of the story is yet to be written. How will God’s people respond?

The rest of the story (the sequel?) will certainly be full of conflict and drama. Now that we have realized the full potential of God’s mission turned loose, we are also realizing the implications of a story understood correctly. The book of Acts does a wonderful job showing us how difficult it will be to walk into the future chapters of this tale, where outsiders are welcome, a family is redefined by lots of “adopted children” and the scandal of grace is hard to contain.

In light of all this, we now have the ability to see the rest of the New Testament appropriately. The New Testament letters — the writings of Paul, Hebrews, James, Peter, John, and Jude — now find their appropriate place amongst the narrative of God. These writings are now seen as the application of this narrative to very specific and varying contexts. In a sense, the New Testament letters become inspired midrash for this new, realized mission/narrative of God.

I’m very careful to state INSPIRED midrash. I have taught this before and the claim that the letters are midrash sets many listeners off that I am taking their authority away. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I see the New Testament letters as completely breathed by God and as authoritative as they can be. My point is that we simply cannot interpret and apply these authoritative teachings correctly unless we see them within their appropriate place in relation to God’s great narrative.

This will help us understand why a writer like Paul seems so schizophrenic. In one letter, he tells women to “learn in quiet submission,” while in another letter he tells the readers to greet all the women he put in public ministry. Instead of trying to decide which prooftext we want to cherry pick in order to match our theology, we can instead read each correspondence within the context that it was intended. When Paul wrote to Corinth, Paul was helping the Corinthians apply the narrative of God to their context; when Paul wrote to Ephesus, he was helping the Ephesians apply the exact same narrative to their unique context.

The same goes for the book of Hebrews, the writings of Peter, and the letters of John — and even the great Revelation. Each correspondence has a specific intended audience, many times regional and geographical, and sometimes demographical, but always with a unique context. Each of these correspondences is attempting to apply the same narrative of God to that unique setting and should be read in that way.

As I see and understand the story of God, this will be essential in order to move forward through the New Testament. Hopefully, by this point in our current conversation, the following diagram makes sense:

In my opinion, one of the most frustrating mistakes we have made in evangelical theology is that we have placed our interpretive lenses on the parts of the Scriptures we find the easiest to understand. Since we don’t understand the ancient context of the Old Testament, we misinterpret its meaning. While we love the saving work of Jesus and his loving character, we don’t understand and we misinterpret his rabbinical teachings. What we think we understand (but ironically don’t) are the writings of the Apostle Paul. Using his Greek writing styles and his imperative prose, we prefer the ease of exegesis and application, all the while missing the contextual work that needs to be done for properly understanding its original application (which happens to be the inspired, God-breathed application).

In the words of Brian McLaren, “We have welcomed Jesus as our savior, but have made Paul our lord.”

When we have the order of Jesus and Paul right, it allows us to keep Christ where he should remain — as the center, the climax, and the truest revelation of God’s story.

...or a Prophet?

Before we wrap up the book of Acts, we need to finish another conversation we left hanging. You will probably want to refresh your memory by going back and reading about it. In that part of the story, we discussed Saul’s meeting of Jesus on the road to Damascus, where he was headed to continue his persecution of the early Christians. We asked the question of whether or not Saul’s story was best understood as a conversion or a repentance. Did Saul change teams and join something new, or did he revise his thinking and align his service to a proper understanding of what the King was doing in the world?

It will also be helpful to go back and read the story in Acts 9:

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

But the question gets even better if we consider Saul’s own understanding of the incident in question. How did he see it? Did Saul understand that day as a conversion? Did he see it as a repentance? Is there something else entirely?

Fortunately, we have some help in that Paul mentions his testimony more than once. The way he talks about his experience may make all the difference in our properly understanding how to interpret that encounter.

Unfortunately, his testimony only seems to make things worse. It seems Saul has a horrible memory of the event and has embellished his story. The main testimony we will look at is found in Acts 26 as Paul shares his story with Agrippa:

“On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

“Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’

“ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ ”

Apparently Paul can’t remember the details, and some of these may seem like minor details, but we have to consider whether they really are minor/harmless, whether Paul has a faulty memory, or whether he’s doing this on purpose. Remember, we aren’t dealing with a slouch in Paul; we are dealing with a highly trained Jew who is a former student of one of the greatest teachers of Judaism (Gamaliel). Let’s outline the details that have changed.

Paul seems to embellish the radiance of the light and the way it engulfed him and his companions.

Paul adds to the dialogue he hears from God. The phrase “It is hard for you to kick against the goads” is completely absent from the original story and seems to be an arbitrary addition by Paul.

Paul continues to add to God’s conversation by saying God told him to “stand on [his] feet” when that instruction was absent in the story.

If that wasn’t enough, Paul adds the entire conversation within his testimony about God rescuing him and sending him to his own people, bringing them from darkness to light, etc.

What’s going on here? Is Paul a liar, liar, pants on fire?

Our first clue might be the whole bit about the goads. For those who may not know, a goad is a cattle prod; to kick against the goads would be an expression of fighting against where God is trying to lead you. In Jewish thought, the idea of kicking against the goads is brought up commonly in the conversation surrounding the prophet Jonah. Jonah was the only prophet in the Tanakh not directly obedient to God’s call; he was the prophet who “kicked against the goads.”

And Jonah spent three days inside the belly of a fish. Fish have scales. And if you were inside a fish, you would experience blindness in a very unique way.

Saul was blind for three days, as well, and when it was done, scales fell from his eyes.

This idea might lead us to start looking closer at these details. Why the additions? Consider the calling of Ezekiel in Ezekiel 1 and 2:

Then there came a voice from above the vault over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.

This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

He said to me, “Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you.” As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me.

He said: “Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have been in revolt against me to this very day. The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says.’ And whether they listen or fail to listen—for they are a rebellious people—they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or be terrified by them, though they are a rebellious people. You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious people; open your mouth and eat what I give you.”

It might feel like a stretch, but to have all of those varied phrases and “embellishments” pulled straight from the same passage in Ezekiel seems to be far too much of a coincidence. Furthermore, Jonah was sent on behalf of the Gentiles and Ezekiel was going to encounter the pushback of his own people.

You still might feel like that’s a stretch.

But then consider that Paul gave us another brief testimony in the opening of Galatians:

But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

There is no stretch on this connection. Any Jew who heard the phrase “set me apart from my mother’s womb” would immediately think of the prophets. Consider the following passage from Jeremiah:

The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, 

    before you were born I set you apart;

    I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

“Alas, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”

But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.

Or this passage from Isaiah:

And now the LORD says— 

     he who formed me in the womb to be his servant  

to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself,

for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD 

    and my God has been my strength—

he says: 

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant 

    to restore the tribes of Jacob 

    and bring back those of Israel I have kept. 

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, 

    that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

I believe it becomes clear at this point how Paul understood his calling that day on the road to Damascus. He certainly didn’t see it as a conversion. I would argue he associated that day with something much different than even repentance (although I don't think he would deny that repentance was taking place).

Paul saw his experience as something akin to the calling of Jonah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. Like Jonah was called to the Gentiles, so he would be called to bring repentance to the nations. As Ezekiel was called to confront the stubborn people of God, so was he. As Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah would announce light to a world of darkness, Paul would join the rank of prophets who were called by God to remind His people of their calling to be a kingdom of priests and a light to the Gentiles.

Paul saw that day as more than repentance and different than a conversion. Paul saw that day as a prophetic calling. And it might help us interpret the story correctly if we saw it that way, as well.

Looking Like Jesus

The rest of the book of Acts (and most of the New Testament, for that matter) will be the record of how the early church continues to spread this gospel of grace and inclusion throughout the world of the Gentiles. This doesn’t make the story any less Jewish, mind you. It will take another 80 years or so before we see a Gentile-dominated church (and what a mess that will be). Yes, the part of our Bible that we have come to know as the New Testament is the collection of correspondences between the apostles and the communities scattered throughout Asia and Asia Minor that are trying to bring this good news into every corner of the empire — and the struggles they have in the process.

But there are a couple more observations I would like to make before we close up the book of Acts. Both of them are about Paul. We will need to wrap up that discussion we had earlier about Paul’s conversion… or repentance… or whatever that was.

But it’s also interesting to note how Paul changes throughout his ministry. We mentioned earlier that his first convert seems to do more for Paul’s intentions than simply giving him an idea for a name change. Paul seems to be bent on the idea of getting to the top of Rome —  speaking to Caesar himself. We also mentioned that God continues to step in his way.

If we follow Paul closely in his missionary journeys, he has some major changes in either his strategy, his philosophy, or both. On the first journey, Paul meets his first convert and it appears to change his plans radically. He bounces throughout the region of Galatia and Iconia, sporadically jumping from one town to another. He doesn’t stay in any city for more than a couple weeks. While some might argue he “plants churches,” he does not start any real communities — what we would call “house churches” — and he certainly doesn’t belong to any fellowship of believers where he stays for any period of time.

After his first journey, there is no record of Paul making any disciples or starting any house churches.

His second missionary journey happens at a much slower pace. He stops in Corinth and stays for quite some time, starting a house church with Priscilla and Aquila. We are also told he had swung through Lystra again and called Timothy to be his talmid. Add Timothy to Priscilla and Aquila and we get the following count:

After his second journey, Paul has three disciples and has started and belonged to one house church.

Things continue to progress and Paul is now expanding his ministry on his third journey. Still working with his disciples, he is now sending them out and starting more intentional communities. But possibly even more important is this reference in Acts 19:

While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”

“John’s baptism,” they replied.

Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all.

After his third journey, Paul has helped plant multiple house churches and now has “about twelve” disciples.

Wait a minute, “about twelve”? What is Luke doing? Did the Holy Spirit have a hard time remembering the exact number when He inspired Luke to write it down? About twelve? What was it? Was it eleven? Twelve? Thirteen?

Apparently, what we’re supposed to hear is “about twelve” — but why?

Because Paul is starting to look more and more like Jesus. Luke isn’t trying to give us the exact count of the talmidim following Paul, he’s trying to tell us who Paul is becoming. My teacher told me he had a Jewish Rabbi notice that Luke deliberately makes his account mirror the life of Jesus. Consider the following:

Have you ever heard of a Rabbi who:

 - Recruited disciples who used to follow John the Baptist?

 - Tells his disciples he has to go to Jerusalem?

 - Is accused of speaking against the Temple?

 - Is convicted by a Roman governor?

Luke is trying to tell us Paul is looking more and more like Jesus every day.

And I would argue the driving idea is that Paul is spreading less empire and “planting less churches,” and making more disciples. And I don’t know if Paul even gets it himself. What I find so interesting is that Paul is so dead set on getting to Rome, but God keeps preventing him (according to his own words). The moment I’m told Paul makes “about twelve” disciples — the moment I’m told Paul is starting to make disciples the way Jesus made disciples — God shows up and says, “Now you can go to Rome.”

And I find myself back at my soapbox. I feel as though God is pretty serious about this disciple-making stuff. And it doesn’t seem like disciple-making is church planting. And it doesn’t seem like disciple-making is expanding Christendom. It looks as though disciple-making is done the way Jesus did it.

“Timothy, come. Follow me.”

Seemed Good to the Holy Spirit?

But our last conversation isn’t the only thing that tends to stand out about the meeting in Jerusalem and Acts 15. After the meeting, the apostles decide to circulate a letter and the message of the movement’s decision. The letter reads as follows:

The apostles and elders, your brothers,

To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

Greetings.

We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul—men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell.

In what always struck me as one of the most bizarre statements in Scripture, the apostles and elders declare to the theosabes that “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit.”

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit?

In the faith that I was raised in, I was told all about absolute truth. I was taught that truth exists in its abstract form and could not be moved or negotiated. Truth is truth, period. God is truth and God decides what truth is. Now, I’m certainly not here to dismantle the notion that absolute truth exists, nor do I write with the intent of engaging in the work of deeper philosophy. But at the very least, the notion that an idea and decision would “seem good” to the Holy Spirit — or that the Holy Spirit was in some sort of peer-level dialogue with the believers that day — was beyond my understanding.

How I understood the story, I would have said that the apostles needed to get together and pray and hear from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit would tell them the truth and it would be their job to hear it and respond in obedience. But make no mistake about it, the Spirit would be the one calling the shots. After all, the Holy Spirit is God.

But to paint a picture of the Spirit hanging out and being part of a conversation was too much. The idea that the Spirit seemed to be persuaded…

All of this changed when I was taught the concept of “binding and loosing” for the world of the apostles and first-century Judaism. The understanding of the people who wrote the Scriptures was that there are absolute truths in the world (and although they wouldn’t talk about it in such a western way, they did understand it that way). Many of those truths had been recorded in the Scriptures. In short, there are things in the Text that God has said. What God says is final. There is no changing, adjusting, or ignoring the statements and statutes of God.

However, there are a lot of things that God did NOT say.

Some things are black and white. Many others are very gray.

God very rarely engaged in the art of interpretation. God left that up to us. God gave us the Truth, but how we interpret and apply that truth is up to the community of God’s people. And ever since the Law was given at Mount Sinai, God’s people have had to gather together and decide, led by the elders of the community, what God’s intent was (or would be) in each and every context, generation, and circumstance.

The black and white issues were never up for discussion, but on those other issues that were difficult to interpret and apply, the community had to do the work of “binding and loosing.” If the community gathered together and decided that in their context, a certain command would be applied one way, then that is how the command would be applied. An example of this would be, “Can I drive on Shabbat?” The community would get together and discuss all of the issues at stake with what we KNOW to be black and white.

God told us not to work; is driving work? God told us not to light a fire on Shabbat; does the internal combustion engine constitute a fire? What was the spirit of the rule of Sabbath and what is being violated, if anything? They would wrestle with question after question until the community could come to a decision. If they decided to say, “No, you cannot drive,” that would be binding up the issue. If they decided to permit driving on Shabbat, that would be called loosing.

To be sure, the community very rarely agreed unanimously on these issues. There would always be groups of people who disagreed, but the process of “binding and loosing” was understood and they respected and submitted to the larger opinion of the community.

They didn’t leave and go find another church. They didn’t write nasty letters to the editor or send damning emails to the church office.

Imagine.

They respected the decision of the community and continued to love their neighbor.

Whatever the ruling of the community, the understanding was that God — on these issues of gray — would hold them to their decision. If they decided to bind it up, then God would hold them to the decision as if it were His. If they decided to loose it, then God would join them in their decision.

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit.

It’s as if God says, “I don’t know. I’ll let you decide. Please make your decisions for good reasons, but whatever you decide, I’m ready to go with it.”

Sounds crazy, right?

Listen to Jesus in Matthew 16:

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Jesus told his followers that he expected them to engage in this practice.

And I wish we engaged in this more, particularly here in the western world. It’s such a foreign concept to us. In a sense, we bind and loose all the time. It’s how we created denominations, only we did it out of ignorance. I wish we knew how to respect the dialogue and opinions of others more. I wish we knew how to honor our elders and equip them with the positions and respect that would allow them to teach and lead more. I wish we respected the community’s decisions more than our own personal opinions. It seems like we might be able to do more for the Kingdom — and in an ironic twist, we’d actually preserve the space to disagree in a healthy way.

I find there’s so much more that I want to unpack with this teaching. And I know that when I introduce this idea to my students it changes everything — so I know there’s so much more to be said. But it’s pretty interesting to watch an ancient community of people who came together with a really big problem and some really good arguments. They hashed it out, they weighed the options, and they decided to side with grace. They loosed the Gentiles from the miqsat ma’asay haTorah.

May we find the courage to follow in their steps.

"Not to burden you"

So Paul and Barnabas continue on their way through the region, heading to places like Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. They have very similar experiences in these places as they had in Pisidian Antioch. If you read through Acts 14, you will find they are initially received quite well in all these areas. As they go throughout Asia Minor, they proclaim a gospel of inclusion for the Gentiles. We are told they are quite persuasive in Iconium and a great number of Jews and Gentiles believe. They also have quite a successful beginning in Lystra and a wonderful time in Derbe. At each location, they have a group of Judeans (as it would be translated more literally, not simply “Jews” as most of our translations have it; these Judeans are from the Jerusalem church that has rejected this newfound inclusion of the Gentiles) who follow them, causing controversy, division, and, over time, their rejection at these locations.

They eventually return to Antioch after causing quite a Jewish ruckus in Asia Minor. The church is forced to deal with the mounting tension within this very Jewish church.

They head to Jerusalem for what many have called the “Jerusalem Council” to discuss what to do about these Gentiles. What is the Church’s position going to be regarding this huge influx of Gentile believers? Will they have to become Torah observant like everyone else? As we mentioned before, this conversation is not new, nor is it even a conversation unique to the Jesus movement. These Jesus followers have taken the same conversation to whole new levels, but it’s far from new dialogue.

We spoke about how Shammai and Hillel kept their typical form in disagreeing about how to handle things. Shammai thought a Gentile would only be justified through obedience to Torah. If this is true, then while a Gentile is welcome to worship God, they will never experience true justification without conversion to Judaism. Hillel argued everyone is justified by faith. If this is true, it would mean Gentiles do not have to become Jewish in order to experience justification; while they still aren’t full children and heirs of God’s chosen household, they are fully accepted cousins and welcome to worship the God of Israel. However, more context will help us understand the guts of the arguments of Shammai and Hillel.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has done much to help the understanding of the context of the New Testament in some incredible ways. One of the things it helped us discover is how we have much of our reading all wrong (particularly with the teaching of the Apostle Paul). One of the scrolls found is titled Miqsat Ma’asay haTorah, or “The Works of the Law.” Through our study of Mishnaic Judaism, we now understand some things about how first-century Judaism understood Torah. Much of this was prompted by the very argument Shammai and Hillel were engaging about the Gentiles. 

The Jews had broken down the Law into three sections (please note that these are not the typical three sections that are often arbitrarily imposed on the Law [moral, civil, liturgical], which have not produced any historical credibility; these are unrelated distinctions that are being defined more and more thoroughly in modern scholarship through scholars like Mark D. Nanos):

CULTIC LAW: This is the part of the law that has to do with liturgical worship at the Temple. This is the Levitical system of priesthood, sacrifice, and Temple worship. In short, you need a Temple to engage in cultic law. As believers in Jesus, we would say Jesus has become the cultic law for us (which is the argument of the book of Hebrews).

ETHICAL LAW: Ethical law is simply true. No matter who you are or where you are, these laws are universally true for all people. Ethical law isn’t true just because “God said so.” Ethical law is true because it’s the way God made the universe to function. The Ten Commandments would be a good example of ethical law. It’s not an issue of whether or not you are “bound” or “under” the law of the Ten Commandments — “do not murder” is a good idea for everyone. It’s ethical.

“MIQSAT MA’ASAY HATORAH” (The Works of the Law): This is the part of the law that makes you Jewish. After presenting the ketubah of the Ten Commandments at Sinai, after God’s people said “Yes!” to God’s wedding vows, they voluntarily agreed to carry the Law that would make them a “kingdom of priests.” God wanted them to be different than the world around them and put their God on display for the nations. He did this by giving them the “works of the Law” that would do the work of making them different. This includes circumcision (which happens to be the mark of carrying miqsat ma’asay haTorah), kosher eating, wearing tassels, not wearing blended fabrics, etc.

Shammai had decided that you were justified — you were declared righteous (please note, this has nothing to do with salvation) — when God saw you being obedient to the miqsat ma’asay haTorah. This would mean that a Gentile has to become Jewish and begin carrying all three parts of the Law.

But Hillel said God declared you righteous when you believed — just as he did with Abraham in Genesis 15. This would mean that carrying the miqsat ma’asay haTorah was a function of being Jewish, not an expectation from God in order to be justified.

Now, back to our story in Acts 15.

The early Christians are battling through this same argument, only they have more at stake. In the new Kingdom order Jesus brought, this won’t just be about justification; this will be about sonship. This will be about God’s household. This will be about these pagan, rough-around-the-edges, former idolaters becoming full-fledged heirs of God’s promises.

There are some Jesus followers who are adamant that this is too much, and the gospel is going too far.

There are some who say this is what God has always been up to.

And they don’t agree. And they argue. And when they are done, they decide Hillel is right and Shammai is wrong.

And just like their Rabbi Jesus, they decide Hillel hasn’t gone far enough. But more on that later.