Acts 15:6-11
The apostilles and elders met to consider this question. After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
Reflection
When Peter addressed the assembly in Jerusalem he argued that the Gentile believers should not be required to become Jews and follow the Jewish law in order to receive the salvation of Jesus. When Peter made this statement he summed up what must be at the center of the Christian faith: “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved…” Peter was proclaiming that the only requirement to receive salvation was to have faith in Jesus.
Peter refused to make faith in Jesus a burden by requiring the believers to follow all kinds of rules and laws. When we look at the church of today we must be careful that we don’t muddy up the message of Jesus by getting the salvation of Jesus mixed up with the forms and traditions of the church. As Peter said the important thing is faith in Jesus not how we worship or how we envision what the church should look like.
How do we obscure the message of faith in Christ by insisting that the church remain in the form with which we are comfortable?
