The Jerusalem Council Thru the End of the Apostolic Era

But there are people who would say you need to keep the law in order to be saved, or you need to be circumcised in order to be really accepted by God. The original Pentecostals taught that you need to speak with other tongues to be saved.

There's this group called the Campbellites, today they're called Church of Christ, and they say that you need to be baptized in order to be saved. So you can have the true gospel, and they have one thing, and Paul says they're condemned.

Oh come on, it's just one thing. I mean, can't we just, you know, in order to reach people, in order to kind of be more attractive and to be free, can't we just compromise on one, one thing?

No? We can't.

No.

Yeah, Paul says, well, if you do, you know, let them be anathema. So we're picking up in Forerunners of the Faith. So let's look at number five, open to Acts 15, we'll look at this. The first church council, Acts chapter 15.

Where was the first church council held? Who knows? Yeah, throughout history, there have been councils held in what, Nicaea, Constantinople, and we're going to look at, I'm sure, some of the church councils throughout history, but the very first church council, and the only council mentioned in scripture, is right here in Acts chapter 15.

What is a church council? Let's start with that.

Like the deacons?

Well, deacons, bishops, here, the apostles. There was an issue the church was facing. They had a question, they had to resolve the question, so they all came together in a church council, so all the leaders of Christianity came together to discuss this important matter and to come, hopefully, to a resolution.

So I'm just going to read the opening here, which is not in your book. It says, the second half of Acts 11 records the beginning of a Jew-Gentile church in Antioch.

Of Syria.

Because of the conversion of Cornelius, the leaders of the Jerusalem church were eager to send help when they heard about the believers in Antioch. To meet the pastoral need in Antioch, the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas, that's Acts 11, 22, and the ministry went so well that Barnabas invited Saul to come and help him.

You remember, I think we talked about this last week, right? The conversion of Saul, who was called Paul because Paul is his Gentile name, and he became the apostle to the Gentiles. So after strengthening that church, and after a trip to Jerusalem to minister to believers there, Saul and Barnabas were sent out by the Holy Spirit, Acts 13, 1 -3, to go to other cities within the Roman Empire to preach the gospel and to establish churches.

Chapters 13 and 14 overview the trip Saul and Barnabas took to the churches of Southern Galatia. The trip is known as what? Who knows? Paul's first missionary journey. Acts 13, verse 9, Luke began to refer to Saul by his Greek name, Paul.

This change is likely due to the fact that Paul's missionary career began in Acts 13, being focused primarily on the Gentiles. And you have this in your book. It says in Acts 13, 38 and 39, after a lengthy gospel presentation, Paul told the audience in the synagogue, therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man, Jesus Christ is preached to you, the forgiveness of sins.

And by him, everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Okay.

So how is a person justified by keeping the 10 commandments? Through faith.

All right.

Why are people not justified through keeping the commandments? Yeah, because you can't be justified while you, first of all, you can't keep the commandments. Nobody has ever been able to do it. And it's been salvation by faith from the very beginning.

So look at, here's a few things you had to fill in. These verses summarize the heart of Paul's gospel invitation, namely that through faith in Christ, sinners can be what forgiven from their debt of sin and justified that is declared righteous by God.

Faith alone in Christ accomplishes what adherence to the law of Moses cannot provide. Salvation is by what faith alone apart from the law. So salvation can't be by the law. One reason is because there is a time where the law didn't exist, right?

When did the law get instituted?

Yeah.

Mount Sinai, which is Exodus chapter 20. So a couple thousand years of human history has already passed. So what about all those people from Adam up until Moses? They didn't have the mosaic law. So how were they saved?

Are we going to conclude that nobody was saved from that time period? No, we know at least, well, it was more than one, but there was one man we know was saved. His name was what he not, he not walked with God and God took him.

I'm thinking of Abraham though, in the book of Romans chapter four, it makes it very clear Abraham is justified by faith. So people have always been saved by faith, not the law and the law didn't come until after and even today we're not under the law.

Obviously that doesn't mean you can go out and break the commandments because that would be a violation of, of God's plan for our lives. But salvation has always been by faith. So again, this is not in your book.

It says when Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch after completing their missionary journey, some false teachers arrived insisting that sinners must be circumcised and obey the law of Moses to be saved.

And I think by now everyone knows who these false teachers were. They, they were called right? Judaizers. Are there still Judaizers today? There are Judaizers today, but that's not a big problem. It's not the biggest problem we face, but there are people who would say you need to keep the law in order to be saved or you need to be circumcised in order to be really accepted by God.

But that was a big problem back then. So the false teachers, they have the truth, but the false teachers came in and they're teaching something different and this just muddies the water and it confuses everybody.

And that's the problem today with people. They say, well, how do I know what's true? You know, this church teaches this, this church teaches that this religion over here teaches.

This.

How do I know what's true? Well, the Bible tells us what's true. You just need to tune out the false teachers and don't listen to them because they're, they exist. The devil has them here to confuse people.

All right. So this resulted again, not in your book, this resulted in a conflict about the essence of the gospel acts 15 one through five Galatians two, four and five. So the question was, are sinners saved by faith in Christ alone as Paul had been preaching or do they need to need to follow the law of Moses?

So to settle this conflict, Paul and Barnabas traveled to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles and church elders there. And Paul met with some of the elders privately according to Galatians two, one through 10 before a public council meeting took place.

So you understand what the church council was there to do. They're all getting together to decide this question. Do you need to keep the law of Moses to be saved? So let's read acts 15 verses seven through 11.

It says, and when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, men and brethren, you know that a good while ago, God chose among us that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

So God who knows the heart acknowledged them, who's the them, the Gentiles by giving them the Holy spirit, just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them purifying their hearts by faith.

Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear. But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they.

So what is Peter saying here? Salvation is not by the works of the law. Our fathers, the Jewish people, we couldn't do it. The Gentiles aren't going to be able to do it. Salvation is by faith alone in Christ.

So there really wasn't much of a dispute with the church council, but they were addressing the Judaizers and their false teaching. So what does this tell you? I think it tells you that false teaching needs to be refuted, even if it's not a huge problem.

Now was it a huge problem in the days of the apostles? I mean, it was a pretty big problem, but it's not like the apostles were confused about.

It.

Like all the elders and the apostles knew what the truth was. They just wanted to make sure that the people in their churches didn't get sucked into this. So as Peter explained, sinners are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So if it's by grace, it can't be by works.

Good.

So you fill this in. Hopefully in your book, it says under the leadership of who James, okay. Under the leadership of James, the brother of Jesus, the council affirmed the ministry of Paul and Barnabas because you remember Paul and Barnabas are ministering to who the Gentiles.

Gentile believers were not required to follow the law of Moses, though they were instructed to avoid immorality and to be sensitive to the conscience of fellow believers from a Jewish background. So do you remember what the Christians were told to avoid?

Well, sexual immorality, that's one thing. What was another thing they were told to avoid?

Strangle me, right?

Meet things that were strangled, um, meet sacrifice to idols, right?

Okay.

So don't do those things because you're only going to offend the Jews. You know, the Jews were having a hard enough time accepting the Gentiles as it is. So you don't need to add, uh, to the offense. Now they shouldn't have had an issue.

They should have received this freely and, uh, many of them did, but you know, it's hard. This is a major shift in the life of God's people. So don't make it harder than it has to be, right? So don't do anything to offend the Jewish believers.

That's really what the council, uh, first church council was about.

All right.

Any questions on that?

Okay.

It says later, Paul learned that the churches he and Barnabas had planted on their first missionary journey in Southern Galatia were being threatened by the same false teachers. He responded by writing a letter to express his concern.

So let's turn to the epistle to the Galatians, Galatians chapter one. And we're going to see what Paul said. Uh, he, he really wasn't, like I said, the, the apostles were not confused about this. They knew exactly what the truth was and they were very, uh, blunt in communicating it.

Yeah.

I mean, very direct. So look at what Paul says in Galatians chapter one, we're going to read versus six through nine.

Everybody got it.

Galatians one. Paul says, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to what another gospel. So Paul, he went into this region. He was preaching the true gospel.

People were getting saved, uh, churches were established, and then he went on his way. And then he heard later on that, Hey, these guys are getting led astray by the false teachers. So he writes this letter and say, Hey, what's going on?

I hear that you're turning away from the gospel that I preached to you for seven, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. So in other words, there, there's only one gospel, this other thing that you're calling the gospel that you think is the gospel is no gospel at all.

It's actually bringing you back under bondage verse eight. But even if we, now here's the direct statement, but even if we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than that, which we have preached to you, let him be a curse or let him be anathema as we have said before.

So now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than that, which you have received, let him be a curse. And what does it mean to be a curse? Let him be.

Yeah.

Eternally condemned. That's what Paul is saying. So that is a pretty strong statement against the false teachers. So he said, these people are basically, yeah, they are condemned because they are corrupting the gospel.

What did they do to corrupt the gospel though? Yeah, it really is one issue. It was this issue of circumcision. So you can have the true gospel and they have one thing and Paul says they're condemned.

Oh, come on. It's just one thing. I mean, can't we just, you know, in order to reach people in order to kind of be more attractive and to be free, can't we just compromise on one, one thing? No, we can't.

No. Yeah.

Paul says, well, if you do, you know, let them be anathema. So that that's what Paul said is direct, bold statements against the Judaizers.

Yes, Larry.

Well, that's why even today we have to be careful on who we allow to come in to our congregation, whether to do a presentation or a Bible study or, or whatever the case may be because there's so many that's so close that have just a little different theology or a little different twist on what the word says and it can easily lead people astray.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, you think it's just this one thing added and it's this, it's a corruption of, of the gospel.

Yeah.

False teachers are pretty slick. They're sly. You know, they circumcision was commanded by God in the old Testament. Like how, how is that a corruption of the gospel? I mean, they, they were able to persuade people that this is good, but you're right.

We have to be careful about who, you know, we would allow in. See, I wouldn't let anyone just take the pulpit or teach adult Sunday school without me knowing that they're reliable. Like if somebody comes in and wants to speak, you know, I sort of need someone else to vouch.

For that.

If I don't know them, I would need someone else to vouch for them. But even then, you know, you need to be careful. Of course, the problem we run into today is that, you know, yeah, that's one thing bringing someone into the church to teach and preach, but everyone has one of these things.

You can get all sorts of different people to teach you a reminder.

Yeah.

So you can get this type of thing from all different sources. But the point is that the people in Galatia, where they saved, were these true Christians in Galatia? Yeah, they were. I mean, I'm not saying every single one of them, but they were true believers and they were deceived.

So true believers can be deceived.

Okay.

So the discussion question, what were the key differences between the gospel Paul preached in the errant gospel of the false teachers? So read Galatians one, six through nine, which we just did. Why is it so important to understand the gospel correctly?

Okay.

So what are some of the key differences added to or taking away?

Okay.

So here it was something that was added. But if something is taken away, I mean, if you read like revelation 22, it talks about adding to God's word of the prophecy of this book or taking away from it.

Can anyone think of an example where something is taken away that would corrupt the gospel?

Yeah.

Okay.

So Jesus did die on the cross for our sins, but that was just an example of love somehow, but he didn't really rise from the dead. I mean, that's probably the majority of the mainline churches today. They believe that Jesus died on the cross.

And in some way, that was an example. It expressed the love of God and however way they define that, but they don't really believe he rose from the dead. So, yeah, you're taking away the resurrection.

The whole house crumbles if you do that. But if you add something to the gospel, like circumcision, here's another thing that Christians all see this differently, but there's this group called the Campbell lights today.

They're called church of Christ. And they say that you need to be baptized in order to be saved. Well, when I was growing up, that was adding something to the gospel, right? That you're saved by faith.

And obviously every true believer should be baptized. That's clear. But for them to say that, no, you're not saved until you hit the water. I mean, that sounded a lot like adding baptism to the gospel.

Then Jesus would have been a liar when he told the thief on the cross today, you'll be with me in paradise.

I would assume they'd have some justification to get around that. But yeah, Aaron. Yeah, the early Pentecostals. Not every Pentecostal today believes this, but certainly the original Pentecostals taught that you need to speak with other tongues to be saved.

And we talked about tongues last week or the week before where, you know, they weren't saying that you need to speak this foreign language that people can hear. It was more of the gibberish, but yeah, that that's a clear, that's a very good example of adding to the gospel.

You're not saved unless you speak in tongues.

Good. Yeah.

So these are some obvious, I guess, examples. The works thing is nobody's going to say, hey, you need to do works in order to be saved. Like people know enough not to be that blatant with it. So they kind of smuggle it in through the back door.

Barb.

The Church of Christ response to the thief on the cross is that we're still under the law. That the new covenant had not started yet. So the thief didn't need to be baptized.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah. So they think the new covenant started at Pentecost or something. Okay. That would be a way around it. So if anyone ever says, yeah, you need to keep the law in order to be saved. Obviously that's false doctrine, but false teachers are more crafty than that.

Yeah. Marcus.

Oh, okay.

Any other differences between the gospel Paul preached in the errant gospel of the false teachers? I would say that Paul was an apostle and they're listening to people that aren't apostles. Right. So today you say, well, we're not listening to apostles today.

Well, if, if the Bible is being preached accurately, we are getting our doctrine from Christ and the apostles. If we're preaching the Bible. Okay. So why is it so important to understand the gospel correctly?

Because any little thing added or taken away corrupts it. All right. If there's no other questions on that, we'll move on to the next section. Number six, additional missionary journeys. This is act 16 through 28.

Most English Bibles have maps located in the back. If you've ever looked at them, you've likely seen a map of Paul's missionary journeys. Paul's second missionary journey started as a return trip to the churches.

He and Barnabas had planted on their earlier trip. This time, Paul traveled with who? Silas acts 1540 and Timothy acts 16, one through three. So the first trip he went on with who? Barnabas, but Paul didn't want to take Barnabas for the second trip.

Why is that? Yeah. Well, Barnabas went up.

Excuse me. Yeah.

John Mark went home early from the trip. So they all went together. Paul, Barnabas, John Mark, John Mark went home early. So the next trip Barnabas wanted to take John and Paul said, we're not taking him.

He bailed out. We're not taking them. And then they had an argument and they decided to go their separate ways. But it actually worked out because Paul, yeah, now you have two teams going out. So in the providence of God, I think it ended well.

But it says the scope of their trip was expanded by the Holy Spirit, who in acts 16, nine through 10, gave Paul a vision of a man of Macedonia asking for help. Paul and his companions, his companions responded by traveling to cities in Macedonia and Greece, like Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus.

So in your books, it says in each city, Paul preached the gospel faithfully. He began in the synagogue. Okay. So why would Paul start by going to the synagogue? Marcus.

Because the gospel came to the Jews first and then to the Greek.

Okay. To the Jew first and then to the Greek. And that's true. Remember from the sermon series through Matthew, Jesus came to the Jews. Jesus came to the Jews and he told his disciples, do not go into the cities of the Gentiles.

Remember?

So it did go to the Jew first. Although once Jesus gave the great commission, he said to go out to these other groups. And it took the apostles a while to do that. So they kept going back or especially Paul.

He kept going back to trying to win over the Jews. Did he have much success? No, it is usually the Jews in the city that would stir up, you know, the trouble and the angry mob against him. But he began in the synagogues reasoning with the Jewish hearers from what?

Right. From the old Testament, which was the only scripture they had. When he was no longer welcome there, he would preach to who? The Gentiles. In each city, Paul preached the gospel faithfully. He began in the synagogue reasoning with the Jewish hearers from the old Testament.

And when he was no longer welcome there, he would preach to the Gentiles of that city. So this was Paul's practice to go typically to the synagogue first. And he did that because they should have been the most receptive people, which wasn't always the case.

During his second missionary journey, Paul wrote first and second Thessalonians. Paul's third missionary journey begins in Acts 1823. And again, he traveled to the cities where he had already been, like Ephesus and Corinth to strengthen the churches there.

During his time in Ephesus, Paul trained the disciples for more than two years, Acts 19, 8 through 10. As a result, churches throughout which area? Were planted in places like Colossae.

Asia Minor.

Yeah, Asia or Asia Minor, which today is modern day Turkey.

Right. Okay.

Eventually, the gospel made it where? To Rome. Paul was placed under house arrest, approximately how many years? Two years. That's Acts 28, 30 through 31. This first Roman imprisonment occurred from AD 60 to 62.

Luke likely wrote the book of Acts during this time. Since the narrative of Acts ends at this point.

Okay.

So the discussion question, read 2 Corinthians 11. So let's turn there. 2 Corinthians 11. Read 2 Corinthians 11, 23 through 29. And it says, Paul wrote this during his second missionary journey. What stands out to you about the sacrifices he was willing to make for the sake of Christ?

So what sacrifices was Paul willing to make?

Let's read.

2 Corinthians 11, starting in verse 23. He says, are they ministers of Christ? And who's the they? The false apostles, right? Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more in labors, more abundant in stripes above measure in prisons, more frequently in deaths often from the Jews.

Five times I received 40 stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day. I've been in the deep in journeys, often in perils of waters and perils of robbers and perils of my own countrymen and perils of the Gentiles and perils in the city and perils in the wilderness and perils in the sea and perils among false brethren in weariness and toil and sleeplessness, often in hunger and thirst and fastings, often in cold and nakedness.

Besides the other things, what comes upon me daily is my deep concern for all the churches who is weak. Am I not weak? Who is made to stumble? And I do not burn with indignation. So what are the sacrifices that Paul made?

Well, he just read a list of all the trials and tribulations that he went through and all the people that were persecuting him. People on both sides, Jew and Gentile and people who said they are Christians, but they were actually false brethren.

Paul went through arguably more than any other apostle.

Yes.

Well, Paul is a Roman citizen. He gave up a lot of his rights as an order to reach the people before he was even given.

A trial.

At one point, he was beaten without a trial. These were all things that were against the law in Rome.

Yeah.

So what stands out? Paul's deep commitment. He was willing to endure anything, including death. Okay, so next section. This is number seven. After the book of Acts with the closing chapter of Acts, the spirit inspired record of church history ends.

Nonetheless, with direct evidence from biblical certain biblical passages and historical information from other sources, we can piece together a general sense of what happened in the final few decades of the first century church history.

The evidence suggests that Paul was released from house arrest. He apparently traveled where Troas and Miletus. That's second Timothy four, 13 and 20. Also, Crete Titus one, five, and even as far West as Spain, Romans 15, 23 through 24.

And some of the earliest church fathers did confirm that Paul did make it to Spain. Although I guess that's a debated point in the 80s and 90s. So this is first century 80s and 90s. It features the ministry of the apostle who?

Yeah.

So by the year 8085, I mean, John may be the only apostle. The only apostle left at this point. He moved from Jerusalem to Ephesus ministering in the region of Asia minor. And it says, John likely wrote his gospel in the 80s.

He was exiled where, where was right. He was sent to the island of Patmos where he wrote the book of revelation. And that was during the reign of emperor demission. And it was during his exile that yes, he received that final revelation of Jesus Christ.

And once revelation is written, once that is finished, you get to what point the end of the new Testament canon. And then once John dies, this is the end of the apostolic era. So if you look on the next page, you'll see next Sunday, Lord willing, we'll get into part two, which is the patristic period.

So we're going to depart from, from this era of the apostles, which also means what you don't get any more Bible because everything about, uh, well, the Bible is finished by 95 AD. So we're going to enter into what you would think of as church history, but we still have four minutes.

So let's look at the discussion question in chapters two and three of the book of revelation. It addresses seven churches from the region of Asia minor. Some of these churches were faithful. Some had done what compromised.

What would you identify as the primary marks of a faithful church? So if you had read these two chapters, you see the letters to the seven churches. What are, what's the mark? What makes a faithful church, a faithful church?

Well, the people there just seem so nice. Is that what makes it? I mean, that helps. That, I mean, there's such great music there. That's, that's really what makes a church, a church. The pastor is just so charming and charismatic.

That's really what makes a church, a true church.

No.

Yeah.

What, what matters if you read this? And I looked at the faithful church. What's the faithful church and revelation of those seven churches? The church at Philadelphia, which one is it?

Is it an emphasis?

Well, now you're getting me to second guess myself. So let's, let's look.

Oh, I'm guessing. I was guessing. I wanted to answer the other question.

What's the, okay.

Go ahead and answer the other question.

Adherence to the scriptures.

Adherence to the scripture, right? What makes a faithful church? A faithful church is do they keep the word, right? That's let me look at this. I thought, let's see revelation chapter.

Okay.

Let's see message to Philadelphia. That's the church in revival.

Yes.

Verse eight, revelation three, eight. I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door and no one can shut it. For you have little strength, but you have kept my word, right? So a church needs to uphold the word of God.

They need to teach sound doctrine and actually like do it actually apply it. Another thing, a faithful church needs not to do is to deny Christ's name. That's pretty obvious. Another thing, a faithful church needs to persevere.

So in the face of opposition, you persevere. And then obviously we need to love God and love each other. How do you do that? You love God by obeying his commandments and you love one another by serving one another.

And then it says coming full circle. A survey of the apostolic age of church history teaches many important lessons. Here are three to consider. The good news of salvation is intended for all people of every ethnic background and language.

Group.

Sinners can be forgiven and justified through faith in Christ apart from the works of the law. The offer of the gospel is possible because of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. So that is the simplicity of the gospel.

Jesus died on the cross for our sins, rose again, salvation by faith alone in him. You are saved by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's it.

That's all it is. That's the gospel. Number two, followers of the Lord Jesus Christ are called to be his witnesses, speaking with conviction and standing with courage. The apostles modeled that kind of boldness in the face of growing hostility and even violent persecution.

They stood firm for Christ, no matter the cost. As Peter told the religious leaders in Acts 5, we must obey God rather than men. That ought to be our mindset too. And then the last thing, the Lord has been faithful to fulfill his promise to build the church, to observe the gospel, prevail against all odds from the book of Acts to the present is to see that promise unfold.

The church continues to grow even in the face of severe opposition. For those who are part of Christ's church, how encouraging is it to know that we are part of a movement that cannot fail because it is guaranteed by God himself?

And then discussion, what other lessons stand out to you from your study of the first century.

Church?

And I'll let you answer that next Sunday.

Okay.

Thank you. You're dismissed.