John 13:31-35

John 13:31-35 (NRSV)

³¹ When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³² If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. ³³ Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ ³⁴ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:31-35 is a teaching by Jesus around two topics. The first is with his glorification and departure. The second is with the new command of love.

           John 13:31-35 is a teaching by Jesus around two topics. The first is with his glorification and departure. The second is with the new command of love.

John 13:31-33 deals with the glorification of Jesus and his departure. ³¹ When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now. The "now" marks a decisive turn in the narrative. It refers to Judas' departure. John repeats the absence of Judas as a means of transition from one scene to the next. Yet, this repetition serves to remind the reader that now the community is closed. Jesus is among his 11 truly faithful followers who are alone worthy, if uncomprehending, to receive the teachings of his farewell discourse. These words may imply that Jesus spoke under a painful restraint, given the presence of a traitor.  The presence of Judas may have prevented Jesus from fully expresses his mind and heart.  The departure of Judas allows the farewell discourse to begin.  Jesus offers no reflections upon the traitor.  He does not focus upon his own approaching suffering. The arrival of the hour is now the governing narrative and theological reality of the Gospel. John redefines past, present, and future in the light of the arrival of the hour. In this “now,” the Son of Man has been glorified (doxa praise, honor; glorify, exalt). The verb "to glorify" occurs five times, but the temporal framework in which John uses the verb shifts from past to future. This temporal confusion is intentional, because in these verses the mutual glorification of Jesus and God is a reality that is underway even as Jesus speaks. Jesus speaks of the glorification of the Son of Man. John underscores the eschatological import of Jesus' announcement by his use of the title "Son of Man" here. "Son of Man" is the Christological title with the strongest eschatological associations in the Fourth Gospel (5:27; 8:28; 12:23) and is most explicitly linked with Jesus' descent and ascent—that is, his coming from and returning to God (1:51; 3:13-14; 6:62; 12:32-34). John's particular gift to New Testament theology combines two strands of tradition into the one title "Son of Man." Outside the New Testament, the Son of Man is a figure of glory (Daniel 7:13-14). Within the Gospels (whether it reflects an interpretation by Jesus himself or the early church is of no consequence here), the Son of Man takes on the role of the one who suffers sacrificially for others (e.g., Mark 8:31). In the fourth gospel, Jesus as the Son of Man combines in one experience both the suffering and the glory. In his glorification, God will fully reveal Jesus for who he is: God's Son. The obedience of Jesus in the way of the cross reveals the glory of God. Further, God has been glorified in him. "Glory" is a visible manifestation of God's majesty in acts of power.  John sees this glory supremely in Jesus' death and resurrection.  Thus, it means here Jesus honors God in his obedience and that Jesus reveals the glory of God. For the other evangelists, especially Mark, of course, the crucifixion entails bitter suffering and abandonment. However, for John, the crucifixion is a “lifting up” or “exaltation” (3:14; 8:28; 12:32) and a glorification. ³² If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. In this scene, John reveals glorification in the act of Judas leaving the fellowship. John has a much broader understanding of Jesus' glorification – he does not localize it in any one event. Rather, God glorifies Jesus in and through the entire process of his revelation from the Incarnation (1:1), to the words and works of Jesus (2:11, 7:18, 8:54, 11:4), to the Passion (see also 12:23). In the fourth gospel, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is much more aware of the unfolding drama of this final week and his part in it. The distinction between Jesus and God disappears: As you see Jesus, you see God. The Father receives glorification in the Son, and the Son glorifies the Father. The Father and Son exhibit perfect unity.  

Jesus refers to them as ³³ Little children (tekni’a little child, child), at 1:12, the Prologue announced, "to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God." When Jesus addresses his followers as "little children," he acknowledges the truth of the Prologue's claims. This verse is the only place in the Fourth Gospel where Jesus explicitly addresses his followers as "little children,” an ordinary form of address for members of the believing community in I John (2:1, 12, 28; 3:7, 18; 4:4; 5:21).  The phrase refers to 7:33 and 8:21, six months before.  The New Testament does not use the word for little children. A different Greek word, paidion, is the word it uses for that purpose. It implies a bond that, while not mutual, nonetheless includes affection and a sense of protection and responsibility for the disciple on the part of the teacher. This glorification and revelation of Jesus is too much even for the insiders, let alone the Jews, to fathom - and so Jesus calls his disciples "children." I am with you only a little longer. Whereas Jesus was with them only for a short time and will come again only at the consummation, the Spirit will stay with them always, as in 14:16.[1] You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ The time for them to suffer is not now. The time for them to share in glory is not now.

John 13:34-35 deals with the commandment that the disciples love each other. Love one another and you will be happy. It is as simple and difficult as that.[2] One way to think of the mission of the church is to fulfill the commandment of Jesus as understood by John: love one another, as I have loved you. Love alone can have almost any content we might provide. Love is also common. Spouses love each other. Parents love their children. We love our friends. The Shema of Israel commanded the people of God to love God with all they are, and Jesus would refer to it as the greatest of the commandments. He also offered a second commandment, taken from the Torah, as lie the first commandment in its command to love the neighbor as oneself. In all these ways, the command to love is not new. However, when we think of love as having the content that Jesus provided in his life, it takes on distinctive character. It becomes sacrificial. It no longer has whatever content we want to give it. It is no longer common. If one would like to provide one simple mark of the Christian life and of the church, it would be love. For that reason, it becomes even more distressing when the church so regularly falls short. Of course, Christians fall short as well. We struggle with what it means to love. What we think of as love toward another, the other may not receive as love. Loving is not as simple as it might appear. 

³⁴ I give you a new commandment (evntolh,), that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. The commandment builds on Jesus' words to his disciples after the foot washing (13:15); his love for them has provided them with the model of how they are to relate to one another. The content of the command is to love one another. In order to understand why this is a new commandment, it is important to look at how "commandment" is used elsewhere in the Gospel. At 10:18, John describes the decision of Jesus to lay down his life as his enactment of God's commandment; at 14:31 and 15:12, Jesus' obedience to God's commandment is the mark of Jesus' love for God. For Jesus to keep God's commandment is for Jesus to enact his love of God in words and works (cf. 12:49-50). What is new, therefore, is not the commandment to love, because that commandment lies at the heart of the Torah (Lev 19:18; Deut 6:4; cf. Mark 12:28 and par.). ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Rather, what is new is that the commandment to love derives from the incarnation (see 3:16). The "new" turn in the commandment of here is that Jesus asks his followers to enter into the love that marks the relationship of the Father and Jesus. They will give others evidence of their participation in this relationship the same way that Jesus' is: by acts of love that join the believer to God (cf. 14:15, 21, 23; 15:12). St. Augustine made such distinctions long ago. They remain true. This commandment is what makes the community a distinctive and serious partner in discussion with the world.  With it, it takes place that the people united in it do what people do not do elsewhere.[3] Early Christian theology found the content of the new law here in the new commandment here. It is part of the emphasis of John that God is love. Love elevates us to God and is a matter of abiding in that elevation. Such abiding is the union that unites believers to each other and thus also to Jesus and the Father.[4] He declares the importance of loving friendship. The intimacy of "little children" sets the framework for Jesus' teaching in these verses. The context is that of the "hour."  "As I have loved you," means laying down his life and taking it up again.  It is a gift.  "As I have loved you" makes Jesus the source of such love.  Only secondarily is Jesus the standard of such love. Keeping this commandment is the identifying mark of discipleship because it is the tangible sign of the disciples' abiding in Jesus (15:10). To model one's love on a love whose ultimate expression is the gift of one's life is to model one's love on a love that has no limits, that knows no boundaries and restrictions. To interpret Jesus' death as the ultimate act of love enables the believer to see that the love to which Jesus summons the community is not the giving up of one's life, but the giving away of one's life. The distinction between these prepositions is important because the love that Jesus embodies is grace, not sacrifice. Jesus gave his life to his disciples as an expression of the fullness of his relationship with God and of God's love for the world. Jesus' death in love, therefore, was not an act of self-denial, but an act of fullness, of living out his life and identity fully, even when that living would lead to death. The example to which John points the love commandment is the love of Jesus for his disciples, a love that will receive its fullest and final expression in his death. John exhorts Jesus' followers to love one another as fully as he loves them, a love that may indeed find its expression in the laying down of one's life. To maintain the new community, protect themselves from the outside and grow in their faith, Jesus gives the disciples the new commandment. The love of this new commandment is not an allegiance to a romantic philosophical idea, or future nirvana. The love that Jesus commands is intimate and personal. This love becomes a sacramental witness to the fundamental relationship that Jesus has with the Father (17:23-25). Jesus may be physically absent from his disciples; however, those who remain can experience the actual presence of his love, as they love one another. In loving one another, they will experience the love that is between Jesus and God. This commandment is the hallmark of discipleship, yet we often miss the radical call of this commandment. We often dismiss the ethical demand of this commandment, which focuses so specifically on love within and among members of the faith community, as "easier" or "softer" than the ethical demand to love one's neighbor as oneself (Matt 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31) or to love one's enemies (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:27-35). Yet, the very narrative in which John places this commandment suggests that there is nothing easy about keeping the commandment to love one another. The setting of the Last Supper makes it a covenant term.[5] Intimacy, knowledge, indwelling are themes throughout the Last Discourse.  The Hebrew Scripture knew of the generosity of God, but in another sense, no one could know it until the giving of the Son.  It is a response to the physical departure of Jesus.  In the love of the community, Jesus confronts people. John unrelentingly places Jesus' teachings on love and discipleship in the context of the betrayal and death of Jesus in John 13.

            Mutual love is the way that members of the community will make Jesus present, and any discord within the community will suggest just the opposite. In John, Jesus implies that the world - those outside the faithful fellowship - will be looking at the witness the community offers. If there is an emphasis on evangelism here, then it suggests that the example of this close-knit community will draw seekers, rather than have the word or outreach convert them. There is great contemporary tension in this text. It is easy to dismiss this exhortation to the community to become an inward-looking, spiritually esoteric, homogeneous fellowship. It is likewise easy to assume that inward spiritual growth is of secondary importance to outward displays of mission and social action. Yet, the author of the fourth gospel, given his due, reminds the church that the world continues to observe how the faithful community acts within itself. The behavior of the faithful within the church can reveal the power and presence of the living Christ.

            What John presents in this new commandment is a call to the disciples to mirror, in their love for one another, the love between God the Father and Jesus the Son. This love is intimate and sacrificial (see also John 15:13; 17:26). It reveals that John, the writer of the gospel, may have had a particular definition of true discipleship in mind. The Johannine tradition directs discipleship inwardly. The primary way to witness to the essential being of God and the relationship of the Father to the Son is by loving other faithful members of the community. John repeats this theme with an even more sharply honed edge in the first of the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:1-11). Some would see the Johannine and synoptic witnesses as a complementary description of the inward and outward direction of God's love. Others would see them as competing interpretations of the ministry and teachings of Jesus.

            One rarely achieves in life the commandment to imitate the love of Jesus, a fact observed famously by Gandhi. “I like your Christ,” he said, but “I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” This judgment stings because of its truth. Christians must struggle to regain the same ethos of love which caused an ancient observer to say of them, “See how they love one another, ... how they are ready even to die for one another.”[6]

            To love one another as Jesus loves us is to live a life thoroughly shaped by a love that knows no limits, by a love whose expression brings the believer closer into relationship with God, with Jesus, and with one another. This love carries with it a completely new concept of the possibilities of community.

When we talk about love, it can sound like a Hallmark greeting card. A group of social scientists asked some children, “What does love mean?” The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think.

 

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis, too. That’s love.”

“Love is that first feeling you feel before all the bad stuff gets in the way.”

“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.”

“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs.”

“Love is when someone hurts you, and you get so mad but you don’t yell at them because you know it would hurt their feelings.”

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”

“If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend whom you hate.”

“When you tell someone something bad about yourself and you’re scared they won’t love you anymore. But then you get surprised because not only do they still love you, they love you even more.”

“There are two kinds of love — our love and God’s love. But God makes both kinds of them.”

“Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.”

“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.”

“My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.”

“You really shouldn’t say, ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”

“When they crucified Jesus, God could have said magic words to make the nails fall off the cross, but he didn’t. That’s love.”

 

A man once spoke to a group of high-schoolers about the idea of love. "Someone define love," he said. No response. "Doesn't anyone want to try?" Still no response. "Tell you what: I'll define it, and you raise your hands if you agree. Okay?" There were nods all around. "Okay. Love is that feeling you get when you meet the right person." Every hand went up. 

This is how many people approach the idea of love. Consciously or unconsciously, they believe love is a sensation or a feeling (based on physical and emotional attraction) that magically, spontaneously generates when Mr. or Miss Right appears. Moreover, many, just as easily, since they believe this is love, have found that it can spontaneously degenerate when the magic "just isn't there" anymore. You fall in love ... and you can fall out of love.

 Come on people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another

Right now[7]

 

In his famous book The Art of Loving, author Erich Fromm noted the sad consequence of this misconception when he says: "There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love."

So then what is love -- real, lasting love?[8]

 Well, St. Augustine once said husbands and wives love each other, parents and children love each other, and indeed love binds all human relationships.  What makes this commandment new is that we should love as Jesus loved.  This love renews us and makes us new people.[9]

Jesus would, of course, demonstrate his love to the fullest measure by dying on the cross, giving himself for the whole world. Referencing that kind of love, Jesus would repeat the New Commandment Mission (John 15:12-13): “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

The great Quaker writer Thomas Kelly said, "No single person can hold all dedicated souls within his [or her] compass in steadfast Fellowship with equal vividness." (He considered the Fellowship so important that he wrote it with a capital "F"!) Kelly went on to acknowledge that there are degrees of Fellowship. Although all might be within the bonds of love, some are nearer to us individually than others. Some of these who are not so near us might be nearer to others, however, making various groupings in the church that overlap. 

"The total effect in a living church," said Kelly, "[is] sufficient intersection of the bonds to form a supporting, carrying network of love for the whole of [humankind]. Where the Fellowship is lacking, the church ... is lacking and the kingdom of God has not yet come. For these bonds of divine love and 'carrying' are the stuff of the kingdom of God. [Those who are] in the Fellowship [are] in the kingdom of God."[10]

---

[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 453.

[2] --Michael Leunig.

[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [68.3] 816. 

[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 70, 183.

[5] Raymon Brown in Anchor Bible.

[6]   (Tertullian, Apology 39, 3rd century)

[7]  --Refrain from the song, "Get Together," performed by the Youngbloods.

[8]  --Dan Christopher, "Love one another," from a sermon, February 10, 2013. Bellefontefaith.com. Retrieved November 6, 2015.

[9] St Augustine, Tractate 65. The Lord Jesus declares that He is giving His disciples a new commandment, that they should love one another. "A new commandment," He says, "I give unto you, that ye love one another." But was not this already commanded in the ancient law of God, where it is written, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"? (1) Why, then, is it called a new one by the Lord, when it is proved to be so old? Is it on this account a new commandment, because He hath divested us of the old, and clothed us with the new man? For it is not indeed every kind of love that renews him that listens to it, or rather yields it obedience, but that love regarding which the Lord, in order to distinguish it from all carnal affection, added, "as I have loved you." For husbands and wives love one another, and parents and children, and all other human relationships that bind men together: to say nothing of the blame-worthy and damnable love which is mutually felt by adulterers and adulteresses, by fornicators and prostitutes, and all others who are knit together by no human relationship, but by the mischievous depravity of human life. Christ, therefore, hath given us a new commandment, that we should love one another, as He also hath loved us. This is the love that renews us, making us new men, heirs of the New Testament, singers of the new song. It was this love, brethren beloved, that renewed also those of olden time, who were then the righteous, the patriarchs and prophets, as it did afterwards the blessed apostles: it is it, too, that is now renewing the nations, and from among the universal race of man, which overspreads the whole world, is making and gathering together a new people, the body of the newly-married spouse of the only-begotten Son of God, of whom it is said in the Song of Songs, "Who is she that ascendeth, made white?" (1) Made white indeed, because renewed; and how, but by the new commandment? Because of this, the members thereof have a mutual interest in one another; and if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; and one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. (2) For this they hear and observe, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another:" not as those love one another who are corrupters, nor as men love one another in a human way; but they love one another as those who are God's, and all of them sons of the Highest, and brethren, therefore, of His only Son, with that mutual love wherewith He loved them, when about to lead them on to the goal were all sufficiency should be theirs, and where their every desire should be satisfied with good things. (3) For then there will be nothing wanting they can desire, when God will be all in all. (4) An end like that has no end. No one dieth there, where no one arriveth save he that dieth to this world, not that universal kind of death whereby the body is bereft of the soul; but the death of the elect, through which, even while still remaining in this mortal flesh, the heart is set on the things which are above. Of such a death it is that the apostle said, "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." (5) And perhaps to this, also, do the words refer,

"Love is strong as death." (6) For by this love it is brought about, that, While still held in the present corruptible body, we die to this world, and our life is hid with Christ in God; yea, that love itself is our death to the world, and our life with God. For if that is death when the soul quits the body, how can it be other than death when our love quits the world? Such love, therefore, is strong as death. And what is stronger than that which bindeth the world?

5. Think not then, my brethren, that when the Lord says, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another," there is any overlooking of that greater commandment, which requires us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind; for along with this seeming oversight, the words "that ye love one another" appear also as if they had no reference to that second commandment, which says, "Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." For "on these two commandments," He says, "hang all the law and the prophets." (7) But both commandments may be found in each of these by those who have good understanding. For, on the one hand, he that loveth God cannot despise His commandment to love his neighbor; and on the other, he who in a holy and spiritual way loveth his neighbor, what doth he love in him but God? That is the love, distinguished from all mundane love, which the Lord specially characterized, when He added, "as I have loved you." For what was it but God that He loved in us? Not because we had Him, but in order that we might have Him; and that He may lead us on, as I said a little ago, where God is all in all. It is in this way, also, that the physician is properly said to love the sick; and what is it he loves in them but their health, which at all events he desires to recall; not their sickness, which he comes to remove? Let us, then, also so love one another, that, as far as possible, we may by the solicitude of our love be winning one another to have God within us. And this love is bestowed on us by Him who said, "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another." For this very end, therefore, did He love us, that we also should love one another; bestowing this on us by His own love to us, that we should be bound to one another in mutual love, and, united together as members by so pleasant a bond, should be the body of so mighty a Head.

3.     "By this," He adds, "Shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another:" as if He said, Other gifts of mine are possessed in common with you by those who are not mine,--not only nature, life, perception, reason, and that safety which is equally the privilege of men and beasts; but also languages, sacraments, prophecy, knowledge, faith, the bestowing of their goods upon the poor, and the giving of their body to the flames: but because destitute of charity, they only tinkle like cymbals; they are nothing, and by nothing are they profited. (1) It is not, then, by such gifts of mine, however good, which may be alike possessed by those who are not my disciples, but "by this it is that all men shall know that ye are my disciples, that ye have love one to another." O thou spouse of Christ, fair amongst women! O thou who ascendest in whiteness, leaning upon thy Beloved! for by His light thou art made dazzling to whiteness, by His assistance thou art preserved from falling. How well becoming thee are the words in that Song of Songs, which is, as it were, thy bridal chant, "That there is love in thy delights"! (2) This it is that suffers not thy soul to perish with the ungodly; it is this that judges thy cause, and is strong as death, and is present in thy delights. How wonderful is the character of that death, which was all but swallowed up in penal sufferings, had it not been over and above absorbed in delights! But here this discourse must now be closed; for we must make a new commencement in dealing with the words that follow.

[10] Kelly, Thomas. A Testament of Devotion (New York: Harper & Row, 1941), 85-86.

Acts 11:1-18

Acts 11:1-18 (NRSV)

 Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. ² So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, ³ saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” ⁴ Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, ⁵ “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. ⁶ As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. ⁷ I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ ⁸ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ ⁹ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ ¹⁰ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. ¹¹ At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. ¹² The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. ¹³ He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; ¹⁴ he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ ¹⁵ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. ¹⁶ And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁷ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” ¹⁸ When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

The theme of Acts 11:1-18 is the justification of the behavior of Peter that Peter offers for what he did in the gentile household of Cornelius. The specific issue of the departure of the early church from Jewish rules regarding clean and unclean foods is a good case study of how and why the church should be flexible in its approach to tradition. 

The closing section of the story of Cornelius retells Cornelius' vision. Luke explains that the table fellowship upset the church at Jerusalem (when baptism or circumcision is more likely). Luke shies away from this possibility. It would have occurred sometime between 36 and 50 AD. According to some scholars,^[1] the story may also reveal the beginning of the congregation in that city. The converted person was Cornelius, a Roman soldier stationed there. He was a “God-fearer,” a person unwilling to adopt the Jewish rituals, but attracted to the moral teaching of Judaism. We may question certain details of the story of Luke. However, we have no reason to doubt that Peter admitted the first gentile and that the Jerusalem church acknowledged the legitimacy of his action. Many of the issues raised by scholars arise from the Tubingen school of the 1800s, which assumed that gentile Christianity was of one single type that Paul created. The reality was that Peter was also on the Hellenistic side of Judaism.^[2]

 ¹Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. Luke presents this conversion not as an isolated case but as a fundamental turning point. ² So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, ³ saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Many readers of the Bible forget that the Jewish community debated the matter of inclusion in the Jewish community after the Babylonian exile, in the 400’s and 300’s BC. The camp exemplified by Ezra and Nehemiah favored the complete expulsion of all foreigners who had joined Israel and sought to settle with them in the restored territory of Judah (Ezra 9; 10:6-17; Nehemiah 13:23-31). In this period, Jewishness meant ethnic purity through the line of the mother. The only way to guarantee the purity of Israel was to close the door to all foreign influence. However, we find another outlook in Jonah and the latter part of Isaiah, especially Isaiah 56:3-8. Such views urged Israelites to consider opening the doors to all Gentiles who would worship the God of Israel. In this vision, Israel would survive by letting the world in — by inviting the entire known world to see their “light to the nations” and come to the religion of the one true God. In a way, Christianity’s decision to seek actively the conversion of the Gentiles is a continuation of this thoroughly Jewish mindset — namely, that all creation should return to the worship of its Creator. In this view of Israelite religion, it is the job of the faithful Israelite to spread the religion of Israel’s God as widely as possible. In this case, the recently turned Christians in Jerusalem accuse Peter of table fellowship with gentiles. They have no problem with him baptizing gentiles. They resent the implications that this new gentile mission has on the traditional Jewish emphasis upon clean and unclean foods. Peter must explain to them why he has made the bold move of accepting non-Jews into the Christian community. Peter is discovering a new way of being the people of God when he returns to Jerusalem after his coastal swing through Lydda and Joppa. Back home in Jerusalem, the center of religious and cultural life, other leaders debriefed him about his activities in the homes of non-Jewish persons who had received the good news with enthusiasm. Some disciples had criticized Peter for having table fellowship with non-Jews. Did their unity in Christian baptism mean that in Christ, God wanted the social barriers between Jew and Gentile broken down? His explanation, however, does not end discussion of this issue by any means. Paul and Peter continue to argue this issue with the Jewish part of the community for many years to come. Many scholars refer to the problem that Peter has trouble eating with non-Jews in Antioch, as recorded in Galatians 2:11-13.^[3] The argument that this incident robs Paul of his originality in relation to the mission of the church to gentiles is weak. Paul preached to Jews, of course, just as Peter preached to gentiles. However, even a notable exception does not make Peter the Apostle to the Gentiles. Nor on the other hand does Paul ever claim that he was the first to preach to Gentiles. His sense of independence and originality sprang not from that but from his conviction that Christ called him directly to do for the Gentiles what others were doing in the main for the Jews. The fact that Paul calls Peter the apostle to the circumcision no more proves that Peter never preached to Gentiles than does Paul's claim to be the Apostle to the Gentiles prove that he never preached to Jews; we know in fact that he often did so (I Corinthians 9:20). ⁴ Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step. The report in verses 5-16 does not schematically repeat all that Luke related in Chapter 10. The fact that Luke tells the story of the vision of a Jew eating unclean food and the conversion of Cornelius twice was an ancient dramatic device to emphasize the importance of the event.^[4] Luke regards the conversion of Cornelius as an event of supreme importance. He even adopts the literary device, common in epic writing, of twice reporting every detail in the story. Peter repeats everything that the narrator tells in 10:9 ff. in his defense in 11:4 ff. while Cornelius himself describes the vision of the centurion in 10:3 ff. again, on Peter's arrival at Caesarea, in 10:30 ff.  Luke can put such stress on the incident only because Luke regards it as the first case of the admission to baptism of an uncircumcised pagan. Further, Luke ascribes the initiative in this new departure, not to Paul, but to Peter. ⁵ “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. ⁶ As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. ⁷ I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ ⁸ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ ⁹ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’

In his book What’s So Amazing About Grace? Philip Yancey tells of a time the pastor asked him to present the sermon in his church. He started out with a children’s sermon and invited all the children in the church to join him. He held up a bag, from which he pulled a package of barbecued pork rinds for them to munch on. Next, he pulled out a fake snake and a large rubber fly, which led to squeals from his young audience. Yancey and a few of the children then sampled scallops. “Finally, to the children’s great delight,” he writes, “I reached cautiously into the bag and extracted a live lobster. Larry the Lobster we called him, and Larry responded by waving his claws in a most menacing fashion.” After the children departed, Yancey explained to the congregation that Levitical laws specifically forbade everything they had just eaten. No Orthodox Jew would touch any of the contents of his shopping bag. This is why the message in Acts 11: 9 is such radical news: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” 

 ¹⁰ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. Another traditional storytelling element is present in this story, namely “trebling.” Trebling simply refers to the practice of noting that something in the story occurred three times in a row. In both accounts of this story, Peter notes that the sheet in his vision that descended holding the unclean animals did so “three times” (Acts 10:16; 11:10). Folklore scholars believe trebling to be another way of underscoring the importance of a given detail in a story. Luke appears to want to make it clear that Paul, even if as an apostle to the Gentiles, carried out his ministry in continuity with Peter and the church in Jerusalem. Luke also wants to emphasize the divine origin of this outreach to non-Jewish people by the dream given to Cornelius and Peter. Of course, human beings made decisions, but Luke wants us to see the traces of divine guidance in this new dimension of the mission of the church.^[5] 11 At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. Some scholars think the chronology may be a little off as recorded by Luke. They suggest the escape of Peter from prison in 12:1-17 should occur before the incident in Caesarea. Their reasoning is that the revolt that followed Herod Agrippa’s death in 12:20ff led to the Romans establishing a garrison at Caesarea. Obviously, the point is that the occupying army of Rome would have stationed Cornelius in Caesarea at that time. A consequence of this rearrangement of the sequence of events would be that Peter's activities at Lydda, Joppa, and Caesarea would be taking place during much the same period as the early mission work of Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, and all three would return to Jerusalem to give account of their missions at approximately the same time.^[6] 12 The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. ¹³ He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; ¹⁴ he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ Those who practice infant baptism look to passages like this for biblical support. We can draw no firm conclusions as to the baptism of infants from such statements relating the baptism of the household. Such verses inform us that turning to faith in the message about Christ was not always an isolated individual decision. From early times, it might be a family matter.^[7] Such passages remind us of the importance of the ancient household to the social, cultural, and economic fabric of ancient life. ¹⁵ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. ¹⁶ And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ In Luke 3:16, John the Baptist speaking of Jesus says, “I baptize you with water, but … He [Jesus] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” We could acknowledge that between the two passages, Luke is getting the sense of it correct. Of course, the attribution of the saying to Jesus rather than John is curious. More significantly, we see here that primitive Christianity found in the gift of the Spirit the decisive feature of Christian baptism as an effective sign of salvation, especially in distinction from the baptism of John. Although the text does distinguish between Spirit and water baptism, the aim is to show the connection between water baptism and reception of the Spirit.^[8] 17 If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”  Good question. Until now, the early church clearly had positioned itself solidly within the traditional Jewish religious context. This experience, however, began a separation process in which the new, young faith that would be known as The Way, whose followers would soon be called Christians in the non-Jewish city of Antioch, would soon emerge with its own identity, quite distinct and apart from its Jewish roots. The reference of course is not to the Spirit-baptism that has already taken place, but to the water-baptism clearly willed by God. ¹⁸ When they heard this, they were silenced. This story about Peter changing his mind can teach us a lot, especially that it is okay to change one’s mind, opinion or point of view. Peter's opponents hold their peace. This is precisely opposite of what is going on today. We are many things, but one of them is that we are not silent. We are too busy shouting, condemning, and being unloving and unkind than thoughtfully wondering if there might be more going on here than we realize. We will generalize, scrutinize, jeopardize, antagonize, stigmatize, demoralize, victimize, brutalize, ostracize, and marginalize, but we will not under any circumstances apologize, harmonize, or even socialize with those who may be leading us into new territory. These saints, however, were silent. Imagine that! Today, the church continues to struggle with how to engage with the issues of our times. Let us take time to listen to our prophets as did our ancient forebears to the apostle Peter. Let us be silent and engage in prayerful reflection. And then let the church erupt into praise and thanksgiving. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” They recognize that God has now admitted the Gentiles to the community without their first having to become Jews.  

Luke views this portion of his story as showing the resistance within the church that even Peter encountered. We know from the accounts of Luke and Paul that this incident does not settle the question of gentiles and the early church. The Council in Jerusalem, which occurred around 48 AD, recorded in Acts 15 and Galatians 2, seems to re-consider the legitimacy of opening Christian baptism to non-Jews. The proceedings of the council imply that the legitimacy of Gentile missions had never been before the mother church, and that it was the arguments of Paul that first induced the apostles to give their sanction to the new development. Yet, the council at Jerusalem took place at least ten years after Paul's conversion. By then, Paul had already been preaching to Gentiles, as he states in Galatians 1:16. The church at Jerusalem must have been aware of what he was doing. The question of the legitimacy of such a Gentile mission must have occurred to its leaders. Further, the leaders in Jerusalem “glorified God because of me” in Galatians 1:24, so clearly, they approved. Moreover, Galatians suggests that the new factor that precipitated the trouble later at Jerusalem was not the preaching to Gentiles for the first time, but the renewed question of its legitimacy. The "false brethren" (Gal. 2:4) had come only recently into the limelight and did not represent the hitherto prevailing attitude of the Jerusalem church. Thus, the fact that the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity was re-examined at the council is no proof that at an earlier date the Christians in Jerusalem at least tacitly recognized its legitimacy. Such recognition may well have come first because of just such an event as the conversion of Cornelius. I grant the puzzling nature of the flow of events. If this incident in Acts occurred, why did he need the correction provided by Paul as recorded in Galatians? However, this problem overlooks the difference between accepting people into Christian baptism, which Peter clearly accepts in this story, and participating in table fellowship with non-Jews, which was another step that Peter needed to take as a Jewish Christian. For example, in Acts 11:3, the disciples at Jerusalem criticize Peter for having table fellowship with non-Jews. The vision concerning eating unclean foods seems to have the same emphasis. However, the church “glorifies God” in 11:18 because of the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity and baptism. It was quite another step for the church to suggest that Christian Jews no longer followed Jewish law in matters of purity and impurity. In other words, did their unity in Christian baptism mean that in Christ, God wanted the social barriers between Jew and Gentile broken down? Peter's behavior toward Cornelius is entirely in line with his impulsive nature, and shows the same uncalculating spirit that later led him to throw aside traditional scruples and live in intimate fellowship with Gentiles at Antioch (Gal. 2:12). Yet, again, if the story of Cornelius is indeed historical, how are we to explain Peter's subsequent change of front when "he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party"? If the circle around James had sanctioned Peter's conduct with Cornelius at Caesarea, they could hardly have found fault with him for doing the same thing at Antioch; nor could Peter have been so vacillating as thus to disown the crucial step he had taken when he admitted Cornelius to fellowship. This objection rests on a misunderstanding that, we must confess, is due partly to Luke himself, who is throughout confusing two distinct questions—social intercourse between Jews and Gentiles, and the admission of Gentiles to the Christian community. In Acts 11:3, the disciples at Jerusalem criticize Peter for having table fellowship with non-Jews, and it is to this question that we are to relate the vision Peter received on the housetop (cf. also 10:28). The question to which Peter successfully directs his defense is the admission of Gentiles to Christian baptism—a quite different matter. Note too that at 11:18 the church "glorifies God," not because the social barriers between Jew and Gentile have been broken down, but because "to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance unto life." In other words, in the conversion of Cornelius the Jerusalem church recognized what, after renewed criticism by the "false brethren," they reaffirmed at the council—the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity. They did not yet admit the right of a Jew to disregard the social prohibitions of the Jewish law. Luke may not have clearly realized the distinction between these two steps; hence, he too, like modern critics, may have been so puzzled by Peter's vacillation at Antioch that he omitted the incident altogether from his narrative. A clearer perspective may not excuse Peter's conduct, but it at least makes it understandable. 

The notion of food that is ritually clean or unclean is not a live one for most of us. For Orthodox Jews and Hindus, it remains a live issue. When a religion goes down this path, it limits its circles of friends. The positive side of this approach is that you can maintain your identity for a long time, for your primary influences are with each other. The negative is that it limits the ability of a religion to become part of the culture and therefore witness to it. Realistically, some cultures do not allow such influences. I think of military dictatorships, communist governments, and Islamic governments. In some cultures, the church must take on the character of a close-knit culture within a culture. We can be thankful for not being in cultures like that. 

The church confronted such questions early in its life. It was slowly moving toward making disciples of those who did not share the Jewish tradition. An important part of that tradition was ritual purity laws. Some of these rules related to food. Do not make the mistake of thinking that Jewish dietary laws are silly.  Israel has endured centuries of scorn and persecution by its pagan neighbors by lovingly adhering to these laws.  Laws about food were not only clear in Scripture; they were a life and death issue of Israel. Another related to circumcision of males. Another related to women. The list went on. In the end, the focus was on maintaining Jewish heritage in distinction from the world around it. Many of these rules focused upon separation of Jews from their culture. It certainly inhibited friendships with non-Jews. Other religions, Hinduism being another example, would develop different rules, but having the same effect. It kept them so separate that it inhibited friendship with others. Through the ministries of Peter and Paul, the church was able to break down some of these barriers. Jesus himself, of course, was not afraid of challenging the purity rules of his time. He set the example. 

In any case, I think this passage illustrates the difficulty of altering traditional practices. It clearly suggests that the Holy Spirit wants to move us in new directions for the sake of the witness of the community in the world. The church needs to develop some openness and sensitivity to the leading of the Spirit. 

What Does God Want? Peter said that it is best not to hinder God. But hinder God at what? About what should we not hinder God? It could be that God wants us to remember that God is a God of new things. Gracie Allen of the 1950s comedy duo, Burns and Allen, put it this way: “Don’t put a period where God has placed a comma.” What does God want?

Every human community or culture is a mixture of the old, tried, and true things that have stood the test of time, on the one hand, and the possibility of the new thing that has come along on the other. How and why does the community embrace the new thing? Granted, most of us know churches for their ability to conserve the past. Yet, they have often shown the strength of their faith and the power of their God by their willingness to make significant changes to accomplish their mission. 

This passage raises the tricky question of how the people of God are to distinguish themselves from the culture in which they live. Some people will argue for the notion of accommodate and include. The people of God are to approach the future by leaning toward accommodating its ways to that of the modern world. Such persons have a predisposition to expand the boundaries of their previous views and to reach out to include people. In their attitudes and actions, Christians who seek to accommodate belong in the "Christ of Culture" category that Richard Niebuhr described in his classic book, Christ and Culture. Rather than being exclusive, accommodators are inclusive. Acknowledging and valuing diversity is only a beginning for accommodators. In their enthusiasm for inclusiveness, they are ready to cherish and embrace divergence. Accommodators see and celebrate the beauty of God's creation in everything.  Their confidence in the goodness of the human spirit brings buoyancy to relationships and the hope for a better future. In contrast, they give limited attention to the darkness of sin.  Accommodators focus more on a theology that extols the benefits that flow from God as Creator than on the need to encounter Christ as Redeemer. Because they are more attracted to love than to truth, they are more drawn to the Great Command than to the Great Commission (Matthew 22:36-40 and 28:18-20). These people of God would not likely attend a conference based on the theme "Biblical Directives for Being Different."  Accommodators appeal to people who believe in the inclusiveness of God's love for all creation. Their love for God motivates a concern for people. When it comes to compassion for others, they rate exceptionally high. Their conviction soars when people trample upon the rights of others.[9]        

First, that which precedes dramatic change is the challenging task of dismantling of what people might think of as the tried and tried and true practices du jour. People do not embrace such agents of change quickly. Many people have invested themselves in that which is tried and true. One can expect opposition. Thomas Kuhn, in his book, The Structures of Scientific Revolutions, called these changes paradigm shifts, a phrase that writers used widely in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Galileo chopped down the tried and true. He helped to move us from a pre-Copernican and geocentric view of the cosmos to a modern, solar-centric universe. Martin Luther. Louis Pasteur. Thomas Edison. Alexander Graham Bell. Orville and Wilbur Wright. Henry Ford. Albert Einstein. Thomas Watson. Rosa Parks. Martin Luther King Jr. Steven Jobs. Bill Gates. All these persons chopped down what people thought of as the tried and true as they reached out for the new possibilities. A paradigm shift changes the way we view the world and therefore reality. The world has not so much changed as our understanding of it. It affects the way “facts” fall into place for us. 

Part of the job of a pastor is to be open to new understandings, and to share these developments with the congregation. We have the example of Jesus, of course. He was not afraid to chop down some tried and true notions of the Jewish faith. Jesus knocks down the old law to replace it with a new love. 

When I attended Indiana Wesleyan College I was slowly becoming aware of some these issues within Christianity. In the early 1970s, for example, I celebrated such things as new translations of the Bible. They were helping me read my Bible more. Yet, some Christians said that the only translation that was valid was King James. Another controversy was the emerging Christian rock music. Personally, I found myself thrilled to sing the faith in the same type of music that I grew to love to as a teen in the 1960s. Yet, some Christians argued it was music “of the devil.” In both cases, I hope we can say something like, “Who am I to hinder God?” As followers of Christ, we need to ask ourselves the question: What is the tried and true of our day that may need challenging for the sake of effective Christian witness?           

Second, at the same time, God calls us to be faithful guardians of the big picture of Christian faith while being open to fresh expressions of that faith. I want to be quite honest here. It is difficult for a minister to know how much to change and how much to preserve. I “draw the line” in a different place than my clergy colleagues and probably than some of you. We need to make the time to see the big picture. 

A brief example might help. A GPS can be a great tool, but it can also lead to a kind of tunnel vision that causes drivers to focus so much on the route on the screen and the directions given by the voice that they fail to see the full picture of the road in front of them. In 2011, three women were in a rental SUV on their way to a Costco convention in Washington State when they followed their GPS instructions to the letter: down a boat ramp and straight into a lake. Neither of the other two passengers in the car stopped the driver. They just did what their GPS told them. 

Many Christians may view God's instructions the same way, focusing only on what we perceive to be our one and only path and not on the big picture context of God's mission in the world. Many are the Christians who have doggedly stuck to their own theological or hermeneutical interpretation of Scripture without listening to the Spirit's guidance for the larger context. As a result, they wind up off track and in deep water. We can become like the Pharisees whom Jesus called "blind guides" who "strain out a gnat but swallow a camel" (Matthew 23:24). To put it another way, we sometimes miss the forest for the trees!

Rita Snowden tells a story from World War II. In France, some soldiers brought the body of a dead comrade to a cemetery to have him buried. The priest gently asked whether their friend had been a baptized Catholic. The soldiers did not know. The priest sadly informed them that in that case, he could not permit burial in the churchyard. The soldiers dug a grave just outside the cemetery fence. They laid their comrade to rest. When I read that, I thought of how the church has too often drawn lines that have unnecessarily painful and hurtful consequences. However, that does not end the story.  The next day the soldiers came back to add some flowers — only to discover that they could find the grave nowhere. Bewildered, they were about to leave when the priest came up to speak to them. He could not sleep the night before, so troubled was he by his refusal to bury the soldier in the parish cemetery. So early in the morning he left his bed, and with his own hands, he moved the fence — to include the body of the soldier who had died for France. Truth demands that we build some fences. Nevertheless, grace demands that the shape of those fences be flexible.^[10] We need to be discerning as to where in our lives we need to build the fence, and when we need to move it. 

The world of tomorrow will not look like the world of today. We have known for a long time that the West, the cradle of Church, has become a mission field for the church. North America is a mission field. Society is becoming increasingly hostile toward Christian teaching and values. Clergy and laity are forging a new relationship, with some analysts suggesting the distinction will disappear. Improving what they are doing will not be a fruitful approach to the ministry of the church. Improving the success of yesterday may well be the sure way to fail in fruitful ministry. We can see hints of the reason for the decline of many Protestant denominations as they maintain bureaucracies and traditional structures. Yet, churches need to remember that amid it all, Christ is the center, and the Bible is the primary source of faith and practice. As the Body of Christ, the churches are to find a way to faithful witness to Christ in their setting.^[11]

We might use the image of reinventing the church. Resistance to such reinvention exists everywhere. We will deny the need for change.  We pretend as if nothing has changed.  We have not looked out the window to see the changes that have taken place.  We will experience depression.  We focus our energies on maintaining patterns that no longer work.  We deplete our imagination.  We bargain.  We try to use something that used to work long ago, wondering why people do not respond the way they used to.  We have anger.  Pastors become the easy scapegoats for everyone.  Denominational leaders tell the pastor that he or she is the reason the local church does not accomplish its mission.  Laity blames the pastor for every failing while every success belongs to someone else. Churches that want to be faithful witnesses today cannot cling to the tried and true of the past without considering the possibility that the Spirit may well be leading them into unfamiliar territory. The tried-and-true tradition may need to find a new way to communicate their meaning to this setting. Leaders will need to communicate why they remain an important part of the life of the church. Leaders will also need to be open to developing and integrating new traditions into the life of the church.  

The forms and structures that have served denominations well in the past no longer accomplish their purpose.  Churches normally change slowly.  The church likes to take its time.  The church has never had to deal with the need for rapid structural change.  The church is in fresh territory.  The pain is obvious.  Relationships among congregations, as well as between local congregations and the hierarchy, continue downward.  People do not trust the hierarchy.  Nothing the hierarchy does will change this attitude.  The financial structure breeds competition between churches and strains relationships from top to bottom.  We have become increasingly cooperative with other denominations, thereby making denominational structures less significant.  

Churches will need to re-examine their relationship with the peoples of other religions.

The passage in Acts 11 reminds us that Christian faith demands witness or testimony. Yet, in this passage, the early church finds itself on strange ground. A Roman, a Gentile, an army officer, part of the occupation forces in Jerusalem, has been converted, baptized as a Christian. How did this happen? Peter’s testimony of his vision and his move “even to the Gentiles” is the basis of the story. He tells a strange tale of the leading of God. He went to the Gentiles, not by his own design, but through the leading of God. Any faith that does not go and tell, that is not so full of good news that demands that adherents share it, is not the Christian faith, is not the good news of Jesus Christ. 

Yet, a major impediment to faithful and joyful witness today may be our lack of faith in and wonderment at the church. Pastors and leaders of the church have seen the church at its worst. We also need to see its great possibility. Churches gather without regard to race, gender, social class, or economic condition. We must never stop our amazement at this. In a society where there is great loneliness, a group of people who have gathered to feel someone else’s pain more than their own, could take responsibility for people who are not in their immediate family. This is a strange and miraculous thing. This is not happening all over town. Sometimes, congregations do not realize what a gift they have. Here is a group of people who care for and about one another. This gift, the gift of this congregation, the Body of Christ gathered here, ought to find its participants eager to share its life with others. Churches ask people to ponder deep, important, and demanding matters. Churches encourage people to take responsibility for someone beyond the immediate family. A group of people will know you and miss you when you are absent. The beauty of the music and setting can attract you. People will love your children. In your everyday life, where will you talk about God? You will do so in church. The church will talk about failure and sin. The community treats you as valuable. 

Some aspects of our practices need to remain, and some we may need to put behind us. What we do need is what Alan Wolfe, author of The Transformation of American Religion, calls the “thinning” of the faith. Truth without grace is cold and empty. However, grace without truth is shapeless — warmth simply dribbling away. I want to be quite clear. It is no longer love when you fail to share the truth you have within you. The church, therefore, must sift through what inhibits us from genuinely loving the world, as God has loved the world, welcoming the world into a love relationship with God. The focus, I think, is love. If the rule gets in our way of loving, we need to ponder, to pray, and to see if we need to make a change.  We have so much help in this, if only we would pay attention. For me, guarding the faith brings me back to some core biblical teaching. In morality, I think of the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the list of virtues and vices by Paul. In terms of who Jesus is, I keep coming back to Paul, especially in Romans. I accept the basic creeds of the church, such as the Apostles' Creed and Nicene Creed, as adequate summaries of what the church teaches. Of course, as a United Methodist, I will listen to John Wesley and the opening pages of our Book of Discipline. 

I realize that the mind of a reader may go to many “What about …” types of questions. My point here is not to resolve such questions. Rather, I am suggesting that the path of change is not easy. Church history is full of changes that failed. We call them heresies. Yet, the failure to change has led to a failure of the church to fulfill its missionary change from the risen Lord. If we are aware of the difficulty of these issues, maybe we can be more empathetic with those who may draw the lines in different places. We know what to guard, if we are open to the past. We know what to change and why, if we are open to the Spirit guiding us. We dare not settle for an isolated, righteous remnant. We must be open to apostolic witness. 

The church has two options.   It can adopt the attitude of the righteous remnant.  The Amish comes to mind.  In the biblical period, the Essenes would be a good example of this type of response to the culture.  The other option is that of the apostolic witness.  The church can adopt the attitude of Paul and forge into the mission field.  It can bring increasing numbers of spiritual seekers into spiritual companionship.  The righteous remnant will commit themselves to the church, manage committees, hold offices, raise money, do church work, and retire from it, be eager to know everyone, be loyal to each other, and perpetuate a heritage.  Apostolic witnesses will commit to Christ, do hands-on ministry, make disciples, serve in the world, rescue other people, find personal fulfillment and growth, survey the community, eager for everyone to know God, focus on experience, and envision a positive future.

---

^[1] Haenschen

^[2] The Beginnings of Christianity (Vol. I, p. 312)

^[3] On this account, radical scholars summarily dismiss the incident as unhistorical, and use it as one of the chief arguments against the Lukan authorship of Acts. The visions and angelic appearances, they allege, give the whole story a legendary coloring. Had Peter been enlightened in so unmistakable a manner about the lack of distinction between clean and unclean food, he could hardly have been guilty at Antioch of the equivocal conduct described in Gal. 2:11-13. Such a vision and the experience that followed it must have been regarded as conferring on Peter not only the right but the duty to evangelize Gentiles, and Peter, rather than Paul, would have to be considered as God's chosen instrument for the pioneering missionary work among pagans. On the contrary, 11:20 appears to record the first genuine case of preaching to Gentile Greeks, and it cannot have been anticipated by this incident. Finally, a motive for the insertion of this "legend" is ready to hand: From 15:7-9 our author actually did think it important to show that it was not Paul but Peter who was the pioneer of Gentile missions. This assumption is the reverse side of his overemphasis upon the Judaistic aspect of Paul (e.g., the circumcision of Timothy in 16:1-3, and his compliance with James in the matter of fulfilling temple vows in 21:17 ff.) Luke desired to gloss over any suggestion of conflict between the Pauline and Petrine parties within the church.

^[4] Haenschen.

^[5] Haenschen

^[6] Interpreter’s Bible

^[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 258.

^[8] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 241, 259-60.

[9] Donald Posterski from True to You, Wood Lake Books, 1995, p.38.

^[10] Susan Andrews, “Full of grace and truth: Demonstrating the divine,” Sermon preached January 24, 1999, at National Capital Presbytery, Covenantnetwork.org.

^[11] Inspired by William Easum, Dancing with Dinosaurs, 1993.