Acts 15:3-6

Chapter 47

Prayer

Almighty God, as thou hast called us unto love, may we not stop short of the mark to which we are summoned. All the law is fulfilled in one word, "Thou shalt love." Enable us by the grace that is in Christ Jesus to grow up to that great obedience and enjoyment. Deliver us from the littleness of the letter, and draw us, day by day, into the vast-ness and comfort and liberty of the Spirit. Thou hast sent a message to our hearts; may our hearts be open to receive it, and may they have understanding to know the meaning of every word and every tone, and also grace to answer thy message with thankfulness and obedience. Give us the hearing ear and the understanding heart whilst we tarry in thine house. May the Spirit of Christ be in us, ruling us by its gracious authority, and bringing us into subjection to the truth, that being no longer self-satisfied, we may find our one contentment in the revelation of thy kingdom. Prepare us to hear what God the Lord will say, and, without questioning or disputing, may we receive the same with loving hearts, and make the answer of an obedient life. The kingdom of Christ is not a kingdom of the letter, the hard rule, and the righteous law; it is a kingdom of spirit and feeling, of intelligence and sympathy, of glowing love and all-surrendering sacrifice. May those of us who bear the great name of Christ, and take our conduct from the spirit of the Cross, show what his religion is by bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit; not by high controversy in the letter, but by such pureness, meekness, simplicity, truthfulness, and charitableness which can only be wrought in the human heart, and expressed in the human life, by the mighty energy and the tender grace of God the Holy Ghost. Show us that it is devolved upon us to prove the reality and the heavenliness of the Christian religion. Having the evangelical word, may we have also the evangelical spirit; acknowledging the truth in terms, may we live it in obedience; and what is mysterious in our utterance, may it be made simple by the eloquence of a beneficent life.

Send comfort, thou Holy One, to hearts that need it most. Make up the vacancy at the fireside, fill the empty place at the table, supply the necessity which is also an agony in the bewildered and desolate heart. Let death be swallowed up in victory; whatever that death may be, whether loss of friend, or child, or money, or health, may the victory of faith swallow up all the little death of this little time. Guide us during the rest of the road. Sometimes it looks high and difficult, and great rocks frown at the top of it; sometimes it looks long and deep, with abysses yawning at the foot; but whatsoever the way may be, high or low, over rocky heights or through rocky valleys, guide us, and our feet shall get good hold, and, at last, our eyes shall see the city which our hearts have long desired. We hope for the enlightenment of thy Spirit, for the comfort of thy grace, for the sureness of thy pardon, and for the confidence which comes of close communion with thy heart. We ask for the pardon of our sin; day by day the black cloud comes, day by day the violating hand is put forth into the very Holy of Holies, but the Cross of Christ is greater than all the sin of man, the blood of Jesus Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin, so we will find that the death of our sin is swallowed up in the victory of thy grace. Speak comfortably to us. Say from heaven's high height, "Thy sins are pardoned; thine iniquities are forgotten." Make every good man stronger in his toil, make every bad man weaker in his purpose; make every trustful man enlarge his faith; and thus bring us, in thine own good time, the old and the young, with every distinction of human personality and human relationship, into one great family, marked with the blood of the Lamb, clothed with the fine linen of the saints, whose being established in thy presence is figured by harping upon harps, and singing eternal anthems, and standing in eternal day. Amen.

Act 15:3-6

3. They therefore, being brought on their way [sent, and accompanied part of the way] by the church, passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren.

4. And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received [formally, as messengers from the church at Antioch] of the church and the apostles and the elders, and they rehearsed all things that God had done with [xiv. 27] them.

5. But there rose up [in the church meeting] certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed, saying, It is needful to circumcise them [ Act 15:1 ], and to charge them to keep the law of Moses [this had been to subordinate Christ to Moses].

6. And the apostles and the elders were gathered together [ Act 15:22 and Act 15:25 show that this consultation took place in the church meeting. Gal 2:2 refers to other private visits to them paid by Paul] to consider of this matter.

Working on the Road

FOR a little time the noise of controversy ceases; the disputants determined to refer the question to a council to be held in the metropolis. Paul and Barnabas might have taken a much shorter way to Jerusalem than the one which they adopted; but Paul was a man who, like the Master, always wished to do some work on the way. When Jesus Christ was apparently hastening to a particular locality where His interposition was requested, He would often on the road stop a while to do some intermediate miracle. Paul was not a man to waste time in travelling. He said, "We will preach as we go; we will make this journey to Jerusalem a missionary journey; no doubt the question which is agitating us is an important one, but we will do some work on the road, so that we may gather fresh evidence of our calling, and add somewhat to the certitude of our faith"; so, instead of taking the shortest course to Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas passed through Phoenicia and Samaria. That was the district where Philip had done his wonderful works. We do not meet Philip often by name, but we do meet him very frequently in his actions. He founded churches, he prepared the way for greater ambassadors than himself; he was the pioneer of the Apostles in Phoenicia and in Samaria (Gentile regions). Paul and Barnabas would find many a trace of the man who had been driven forth from quiet and comfortable quarters by pitiless persecution. We should all leave footprints behind us; people that come afterward should know that we were there first. By instruction given, by stimulus imparted, by comfort breathed upon withered and desolate hearts, they should know that we have passed on before, and have left, it may be, an inadequate but a most sincerely-intentioned testimony to the truth and reality of the Christian kingdom.

Follow the Apostles imaginatively. They find a line of Churches all the way, generally speaking, from Antioch to Jerusalem. There were houses of call on the road. The pioneer had not in words, but by sacred influence said, "Other and stronger men will be coming this road some day be prepared for them." So Paul and Barnabas find a road clear-cut through deserts of heathenism to the great metropolis of Christianity. We, too, walk on roads that have been well-trodden for us; we do not make our own paths. We take the roads of a country as a matter of course, forgetting that without roads a country is a prison, and the civilization of it is little better than a swamp. Who ever thinks of roads, or could suppose that a poet could wax eloquent upon road-making? Yet even so common a thing as a road is essential to commerce, to progress, to the interchange of opinion and good offices. Our roads have all been made for us; and Paul and Barnabas had not to take their spade and mattock, and cut their own way from Antioch to Jerusalem it had been cut by other hands; so the Apostles found it comparatively easy to move from one metropolis to another. Brethren, we, too, are debtors to the past. We forget the road-makers we think it easy enough to make, yet in reality there is nothing much more difficult to make than a path wide, solid, and pleasant to go upon; not a path of a few yards long, but a road that runs through cities and capitals, and makes the whole land but a network of populous and thriving streets.

Surely as they passed along, Paul and Barnabas would often think of Philip, and would often hear of him in the homes where they lodged. It is pleasant to see, in little wayside houses, the pictures of Wesley and Whitefield, and pastors of humbler name, who have lived in the locality, and done what lay within the compass of their power for its culture and progress. These pictures are texts; they are the starting-points of the most interesting conversations; to have such a picture is to have a sort of centre round which a whole Church may gather, and about which the heart of that little Church may beat with thankfulness. Despise not your forerunners; they may not have been Pauls or Peters, men of greatest force of character, but they had a work to do, and they did it with diligence, so their names must not be held otherwise than with reverence and thankfulness.

What peeps we get into the domestic life of the time! The two men coming into a house turned it at once into an historical temple; the house could never be the same afterward. There are some visits that transfigure the localities in which they are paid. There are some visitors that give a new sanctity to any house in which they eat, or sleep, or pray. What a sensation along all the land through Phoenicia and Samaria! What wonderment about the two travellers! What special interest in one of them! How bright his conversation, how spiritual his remarks! every look a picture, every speech a revelation, every prayer an opening of heaven. And the breaking of bread, and the little common feast, and the sort of talk which passes between men and unites men's hearts! Forget not the little idyls that help to make up the massive poetry of great histories. There were little occasions, as well as great ones, in the development of the Christian story. There were meetings, as we should say, at firesides, at little tables, not spread with dainty feasts, but blessed with heavenly approbation. Hand-grips, and special prayers, and peeps in the sick-chamber, where the weak one lay, and where the tenderest of all supplications were breathed, and still the men passed on, having to argue a great question at Jerusalem, and to maintain a valiant and historical testimony in the face of the first council of the Christian Church.

As they went along the land, what did they talk about? "Declaring the conversion of the Gentiles." There ought to be great joy when soldiers come from the field of war with the latest news. It is true we care nothing for that news now! We soon rough down, by dumb applause, the stumbling missionary who tries to tell us that the blood-red banner is floating higher than ever in the wind! It is true that he is nothing to us with our horses and carts, and tradings, and progress, and capitals, and balances! In the old time it was something to see the soldiers come home, and to say to them, "What news, comrades?" and to see the soldiers stand up, and say, "The Gentiles are converted!" and that is meat, drink, rest, reward. To have lived in those heroic days would have been almost heroic! The early Christians were full of their subject; we easily slip out of ours. They had but one theme, only it included all other themes, as the firmament holds all the stars. They took pleasure in their work; they liked Sunday better than Monday nay, they made Sunday seven days long. They kept no black chalk, or white, or red, to mark off the days into ones and twos; there was but one day in the week for the old soldiers; they realized the whole typology of the sun standing still, and the moon, and all the diurnal distinctions were lost because the fight never ceased.

Look at the fourth verse. "And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the Church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them." Note here that the Church is spoken of in its unity. The Church was in those days a well-defined body, the very Body of Christ, the visible shrine of the invisible Spirit. The Apostles were received of the Church. Did the Church stand up to look at them? It may have done so. Did the Church put out its arms in token of welcome and hospitality, fellowship and unity? It may have done so. The Church is one. We have made it into a thousand, and therein may have grieved the heart of its Redeemer and Founder, but we must endeavor, at least in the spirit, to get back to the apostolic days when the Church was one. I do not object to denominations any more than I object to different regiments in the same army; but as I expect all the regiments to bow to one throne, and to honour one law, so I would expect all denominations, whilst preserving their individual distinctions, to have common ground upon which they can meet in common prayer, and to have a common altar, and a hymnology in which there is no discordant note. Is it not even so to a large extent now? When we talk to God, we talk the common language of Christianity; it is only when we talk to one another that we begin to dispute and to dissent. The moral of that fact is, that we ought to talk less to one another, and more to our common Father. Being received by the Church, the two new speakers stood up to tell their tale. Have we no tale to tell? If not, that is the reason why we are dumb! If a thief broke into your house, you would tell everybody about it whom you met, and with whom you were acquainted. If your house was on fire, all the neighbourhood would know it. A man who has a tale to tell tells it; and he is right in doing so. The reason why we are dumb dogs is that we have forgotten the story; that we have no personal story of conversion, inspiration, and enthusiasm. We are not unwilling to speak, but we have no story to relate. We cannot turn blankness into eloquence; having no history, we dare not awaken imagination, and so the Church, in many of her sections, is dumb. "Paul and Barnabas declared all things that God had done with them." How marvellous the eloquence; how realistic every sentence; what home-thrusts they gave! Keep to what you know, not to what somebody told you about it, and you will speak with clearness, simplicity, and emphasis.

Look at the fifth verse. "But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, that it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses." Observe the nature of this contention. First: It was Pharisaic. Not many of the Pharisees believed, and those who did believe caused some trouble. It was difficult to say whether they were not greater opponents as believers than as unbelievv. There are hinderers in the Church as well as outside the Church. This position was not only Pharisaic, it was literary; that is to say, it was founded upon a narrow reading of the letter. There are persons who cannot get out of the four corners of any subject; and if the subject itself has not four corners, they will make four. If Christianity is a square with well-defined walls, there are men who could stand in the middle of the square and defend it bravely; but if Christianity is a horizon which recedes as we advance, and which has room enough within it for other universes tenfold larger than our own, they become bewildered, the letter is of little use to them, and there is a demand made upon religious imagination and religious sympathy which they cannot meet, and so they make four corners for themselves, and subside within the prison of a creed. It is difficult for some men to see the bud in the seed. It is impossible for some men to believe that the bud is the same thing as the seed. They say you insult their reason by the suggestion, and you throw suspicion upon their very sight by telling them that the one is the other in a new form. Christianity has its blossom as well as its root, its fruit as well as its blossom. The fruit is the root, the root means the fruit; the type only lives by its little self until the fulfilment comes, and then it passes away not because of contempt, but because of fulfilment and fruition. Who were they who upheld the Law of Moses? They were Pharisees. How marvellous the providence that a Pharisee of the Pharisees was sent to answer them! The pompous, cultured, refined Pharisees would have made short work of other men, but there arose in the providence of God a man who was a very prince of the blood, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised the eighth day, concerning zeal persecuting the Church, and in his presence they met an unexpected and successful check. A man who knows a smattering of a language may astound the untravelled villagers who never heard of it; but let a man arise who knows the language perfectly, and then the blatant pretender will fall away in shame from his temporary preeminence. It is thus that God grows his own men, so to say. It is in such circumstances that we have an annotation upon the words, "He is a chosen vessel unto me." God will always find his own champions and his own preachers. He knows where the men are; he will bring them up from Asiatic capitals to the Judæan metropolis. He who found water in the rock and honey in the desert will find a minister for every post, a commander for every army, a victory for every contest. Let us rest in the God of truth; he will find its best teachers and expositors; and the truth shall never be in want of a man of adequate capacity and needful eloquence to show its grandeur and enforce its claims.