Daily Read

Acts 16:1-15 (NIV)

It’s one thing to trust God when the way forward is obvious. It’s way more complicated when the way forward is unclear and filled with questions.

Today’s passage on Daily Read shows us just how complicated trying to participate in God’s work in the world can be. Paul and his companions are on their way through the province where they had previously planted churches announcing the decision from Jerusalem that Gentiles do not need to be circumcised to belong to the family of God.

During this time they meet Timothy, who’s mother is jewish and his father is greek. This makes him a jew by birth, but uncircumsized by his greek father. Paul wants Timothy to join them in their ministry, and circumcises Timothy. Hold on, didn’t we just decide that circumcision wasn’t needed. That’s right, it’s not, not to be included in God’s Family. But the work they are called to required them to go to the synagogues first, which means they need to be ritually acceptable to get in the door. Pauls not contradicting himself, rather he and his companions are committed to doing everything they can to not create unnecessary obstacles for the message they’re delivering.

If this isn’t complicated enough, they have been kept by the Spirit from preaching in Asia, which is basically everything on the left between them and the sea, and as they travel, the Spirit continues to block them. So basically they can’t go right or left and end up at Troas, which is a coastal city… just waiting. Now this isn’t just a day’s worth of travel, it’s like a 200 mile walk. Three weeks. Sandals, dangerous roads, new companions… then a dream.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What stood out to you in today’s passage?

2. Paul has Timothy circumcised in order to not create barriers to the good news among the Jews they’re preaching to. It’s clear from the last chapter that Paul doesn’t think this is necessary, but he and Timothy do what it takes to appeal to the people they’re called to. Are there ways that you need to limit yourself, change behaviour to appeal to people God’s called you to serve?

3. Paul and his companions find Lydia, not a man waving his arms. For 200 miles they couldn’t imagine that God would call them to Macedonia, but even in the call they couldn’t imagine finding women, yet they enter in and follow Jesus. How might the Spirit be stretching your imagination when it comes to where and who he might be calling you to serve?

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Acts 15:36-41 (NIV)

When you have a sharp disagreement with someone, how do you know when it’s time to go separate ways?

Today on Daily Read, we find Paul and Barnabas arguing over whether or not they should bring John Mark along with them as they plan to go back and visit the churches they’d planted. Paul thinks they should not bring him because he wasn’t reliable the last time they went, Barnabas seems to have wanted to give him a second chance.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen some pretty significant disagreements with people I love and respect, folks who I’ve served alongside in ministry. It’s hard! Now sometimes these disagreements have been because me, the other person, or both of us are sinning. But other times, we’ve both been right, and the question was about who’s gonna do what. Will we align around one side, one of us give up and let go, or is it better to part ways?

There is no clear answer to the trouble we see in today’s passage, but it gives us a window into the presence of conflict in the early church. It happened then, it will happen now, the questions is are we in disagreement over the mission or something else?

----------REFLECT----------

1. Who do you think you’d have agreed with, John Mark shouldn’t go, or he should get a second chance?

2. Think of a recent, significant argument that you had with someone you love and respect. What were you arguing over, and what happened. Did you give in, did they? Or did you decide to agree to disagree? How do you feel about it right now?

3. It’s not clear whether it’s the same Mark, but Paul tells Timothy to bring Mark to him because he is very useful in ministry. If this is the same Mark, then a lot has changed, there has been a reset, there’s been redemption. Is there someone who you’ve disagreed with who you need to reach out to?

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Acts 15:22-35 (NIV)

When you hear about ethical and moral boundaries, do you hear them as limitations or invitations?

Today’s episode of Daily Read picks up where yesterday’s passage left off. A council has gathered in Jerusalem to discern what to do about the growing number of Gentiles who are receiving the Holy Spirit and beginning to follow the way of Jesus. So far we’ve heard some say that they think the gentiles should be required to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, while others have objected saying “we should not make it difficult for the gentiles who are turning to God.”

----------REFLECT----------

1. What is your initial reaction to this passage?

2. The people who gathered to hear this letter from the council received the message as encouraging. What would you find encouraging about the letter from the council, if you were to hear something like it read today?

3. Sometimes our relationship to rules causes us to mistake the good news of Jesus with the gospel of behaviour modification. We can believe that as long as we don’t do this or that then we’re good. Or on the other hand as long as we do this act of justice or say this thing the right way at the right time, somehow we’re in the right. Rather, how can you embrace the good news that Jesus invites you into as you are into a light of Righteousness and  Justice?

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Acts 15:12-21 (NIV)

If God is gracious and loving, then what are the boundaries of behaviour for those of us who begin to follow Jesus?

This is a part of the questions that the followers of Jesus are trying to work out in today’s passage? Now that the Holy Spirit is moving in and including the Gentiles in the family of God, what does it look like to walk together and be set apart as God’s holy people? Some say that they need to be circumcised and follow Torah.

Now, this passage is full of contention and debate around how we should interpret it, but here are some helpful thoughts. Basically James says that we shouldn’t make it hard for Gentiles to turn to God, instead let’s tell them to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, sexual immorality, and from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. Some take this as a basic set of guidelines to keep from offending the Jewish Christians. Others think it’s a narrowed set of basics that are being prescribed. And still others probably think that it’s a problem with scripture and don’t like that it’s there.

However some context will help. First, these abstaintions were not new, they were actually given to the Israelites in the wilderness with provisions for the gentiles living among them in the wilderness. So we can hear James just reaching back to that tradition. Some Jewish scholars point back to Noah, and the laws given to him. And others the James is pointing to the need for Gentiles to no longer participate in the Pagan temple practices which included all these things.

All of this is probably at play, but at the end of the day, Gentiles didn’t need to adopt the Law of Moses because they probably already would have if they wanted to. But they also couldn’t go on living life as usual, and if they can get along with their Jewish neighbors without causing them to stumble even better.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What challenged you in this passage?

2. The verse about David's Fallen tent is a ref. To the temple and God’s desire to restore it, and he does so by placing his presence not in a new temple but in humans where there are new creatures. How do these abstensions make sense when you think about humans as temples?

3. Sexual immorality is actually the most clear abstention. But what about the other two? Food sacrificed to idols was about not participating in idol worship, and the rules about strangled animals and blood was about respect for life. In what ways might the Spirit want to restore you, his temple, in respect to our modern idols, you sexuality, and your view of the value of life?

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Acts 15:1-11 (NIV)

How do you respond when someone goes back on an agreement they’ve made with you?

Today on Daily Read Paul and Barnabas return from their missionary journey to tell of all the ways that the Holy Spirit was moving among the Gentiles. It’s happening! What began with Cornelius is now happening in far off cities and towns. But certain folks are not completely satisfied with the news. And they let their disapproval be heard. They say that the gentiles who come to faith in Jesus need to be circumcised and follow the Law. The only problem is that’s     not what they said about Cornelius when Peter came telling of what the Spirit had done in him and his household, and Peter speaks up about it.

But we need to try to understand where these pro circumcision folks are coming from. Circumcision was a visible sign that marked out God’s people in the world. God promised to make them a nation that would bless all the other nations and so (pardon the details but) everytime a jewish child was conceived, keeping that covenant hope alive, it was done so with a visible reminder that it was God that was multiplying them and who would sustain the next generation. So to do away with that practice is a big deal. How can you be covenant people without that marker?

The point is, Jesus fulfilled the role that Israel was given by God, and in his flesh, all the nations of the earth could belong to the family of God. It’s this act of Grace that is the new act of inclusion in the redeemed people of God, and to impose the former covenant marker on the nations that are now marked out by the Spirit is to fail in seeing that the hope that the sign pointed to has finally come.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What word or phrase stood out to you?

2. The leaders who bring up circumcision are going back on what Peter thought was settled with Cornelius now that they see that it’s not a one off conversion. What do you think was motivating their suggestion that the gentiles be circumcised and keep torah?

3. Sometimes our adherence to certain rules and regulations, even ones that gave us a deep sense of identity can turn out to be a way to discriminate between us and them. Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever done this to another? Bring this before the father who knows your name.

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Acts 14:21-28 (NIV)

What kind of advice have you received from the people who are further ahead in the faith?

Today on Daily read Paul and Baranbas retrace their journey on their way back to Antioch. And as they do they leave the churches with a word of encouragement. What kind of thing would you say, maybe something about staying in God’s Word, maybe something about loving your neighbors, what about something to do with growing in their ability to share the good news themselves.

Sometimes we get so caught up in what we need to be doing, how we need to be growing, ways that we could be working that we forget that the deeper call is to remain true to the faith. When we lose sight of that we lose hope. But when we fix our eyes on it, we can endure whatever it takes to see God’s Kingdom.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What word or phrase stood out to you in today’s passage?

2. What kind of advice do you tend to give or receive? Does it line up with the encouragement in this passage? Bring to mind people in your life who are enduring hardship, how might you encourage them today to remain true to the faith?

3. Paul and Barnabas, didn’t leave these disciples without a way for them to continue to be invested in. Sometimes we can find ourselves in seasons where we are living off of the words of people that we don’t have a relationship with. They appointed local leaders to oversee these new disciples. Who is pouring into your life? Take a moment to thank God for them, or ask God for someone like that.

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Acts 14:8-20 (NIV)

Have you ever tried to explain the good news and find that you are being completely misunderstood?

Today’s passage is comical in that Paul and Barnabas are mistaken for God’s and worshiped on the one hand. And on the other it’s quite troubling to hear that as they were trying to get away from that, they were caught by a group of Jews outside the city and Paul was stoned.

We have to be aware of what stories people see themselves living inm. You see, the city in which Paul and Barnaba find themselves is Lystra, and legend had it that this area had received an ancient visitation from Zues and Hermes, to Greek gods. In the story of this visitation, only two people received the gods graciously and the rest of the population was destroyed in a flood. See they saw themselves living in a story where distant Gods either had favor on them or not and might show up any minute and destroy them. So even when they encounter the truth they are hearing it through the story they knew.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What struck you about today’s passage?

2. How have your communities' preloaded stories shaped the meaning that they make of the Gospel? They may not start sacrificing animals to a preacher, but they might expect a certain set of blessings, or comfort, or lack of hardship? What distortions take place?

3. The problems with crowds that are easily persuaded is that anything the sounds right can win them over. This crowd gets used by Jewish leaders outside their jurisdiction who use the crowd to trap paul and stone him. What do you think makes Paul willing to suffer life this?

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Acts 14:1-7 (NIV)

Are you willing to proclaim the good news even when the results might include division?

It can be difficult in our society today to say things, especially around the truth of the gospel,  that we know might very well contribute to the division that is so prevalent in our world. Some of us might prefer to step away from that kind of thing, preferring not to cause any kind of conflict. So, we stay quiet and we assume that THE truth is better left as our truth. Others of us, may not be able to focus on anything but the conflict and we end up in endless debates with folks who are just as fixed on the conflict. We neglect those who are truly open while we batter those who are at the total other end of the spectrum from us.

On today’s episode of Daily Read, Paul and Barnabas don’t do that. They neither run away from the conflict, nor do that get pulled down into the mud. They do the work of faithful proclamation to all those who are open to it, even if it means that some would be actively turned against them. And, yet they don’t stick around to get abused for it either, they say what needs to be said and they move on unencumbered. Oh let it be so with us LORD.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What phrase in this passage did you find most intriguing?

2. Has there ever been a time when you have been so afraid to cause division that you’ve softened or adapted the good news to the point where it barely resembled what we know to be the good news? Or, have you ever gotten stuck in an argument with a person or group way too long? To the point where no matter how convincing you were the relationship was dead. What do you think was motivating you?

3. Paul and Barnabas spoke boldly for the LORD.  There is a great book on evangelism that helps us understand boldness as the healthy place between timidity and pushiness. Where do you tend to be, timid or pushy? Ask the Holy Spirit for what you need to become Bold.

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Acts 13:42-52 (NIV)

Imagine the people who are misfits in your church, chapter, or community, what would you feel if they became the majority in your group?

This is what we see begin to happen in today’s passage on Daily Read. You see the reason Paul tells the story the way he does, is to help people see that the whole point was for Jesus to do for Israel what they could not do for themselves. That it’s in Jesus that God would fulfill Israel’s vocation to be a blessing to all the nations. It’s happened, the promise that was made to Abraham has been radically released in the narrative, and the reaction of the people whose whole identity was centered on that promise was jealousy.

It’s getting more and more difficult to be a follower of Jesus in our world today who can’t see the tensions that exist within the church across racial, cultural, economic, and political lines. Like the rest of the world we have tended to retreat to our corners and huddle up. Those of us who are in churches or chapters with a large majority and a small minority might find this passage especially challenging. What would you be tempted to feel if all of a sudden your identity group became the extreme minority? Think about your community and imagine it flipping  or getting a rapid growth of people who’ve never been a part of it before. Be honest with yourself…

----------REFLECT----------

1. What moment in this passage stood out to you?

2. The promise of God to Abraham was to make his descendants a blessing to all the nations. Yet, here we find that moment beginning to happen and the reaction is jealousy. This shows that they had lost sight of the important things. Where might you, your church, your chapter or your community be at risk of losing sight of the main things?

3. Consider moments when you’ve reacted to the movement of the Holy spirit with Jealousy. Take a moment to repent of that, and then take the rest of the day to consider what it would be like to meet even the most costly movements of the Spirit with joy and gladness.

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Acts 13:32-41 (NIV)

Forgiveness. It’s something that doesn’t really come easy to us. I can’t think of a day since our younger daughter has been old enough to talk that we didn’t have to intervene in some sort of scuffle between our girls. Most of the time they play pretty well together, but at some point one of them does something that hurts the other’s feelings, body or pride. The anger of young children is just really honest. So, after we work out what happened and who did what, and after everyone has a chance to calm down, we talk about forgiveness. And it’s hard. But if we’re honest, it’s just as hard or harder for us as we grow up. And generally the hurts are deeper and more significant the older we get.

Today’s passage continues Paul’s speech in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch. Jesus must be the Messiah, says Paul, because unlike David, Jesus’ body did not see decay. But the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection is something the Jewish people didn’t see coming. Somehow through the death and resurrection of Jesus there is just this wide open offer of forgiveness. A freedom from guilt and a freedom from sin that has never before been on the table without a lot of sacrifices and rituals under the law.

Listen now as Paul opens up this new idea to those listening. Imagine how it might sound to them, in their context, and ask yourself what it means to you.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What stood out to you in the passage?

2. For the Jews, this was amazing news. Paul warns them not to dismiss it but to welcome it, even if it seems hard to believe. What about the Gospel feels hard for you to believe?

3. When we talk about forgiveness, there are a lot of dynamics at play. There are those we hope will forgive us… There are those we really have a hard time offering forgiveness to… But there’s also this very real, open invitation—that everyone who believes in Jesus is forgiven and set free from sin. How does that reality sink in when you think about yourself? How does it feel when you think about those who need your forgiveness? Bring those thoughts and feelings to the LORD today.

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