A letter is delivered to the church in Antioch with the results of the Jerusalem conference. It was determined that God clearly accepted the Gentile believers without the need to put them under the bondage of the law of circumcision or the Mosaic laws concerning food.
It is James who determines that the following things should be kept for their physical body's sake in the area of health and sexual purity. They were not to eat blood nor meat from strangled animals and were required to keep themselves pure and free from sexual sins such as fornication.
Now in the rest of these verses, Paul puts together a group of believers to travel back to where they had previously preached to see how the new converts were doing in their Christian walk and to encourage them to stay faithful.
Paul and Barnabas have a disagreement over John Mark, who had left them during their first missionary trip when they had trouble in another place. They could not come to an agreement, so it was decided to split and create two teams. I would not make a comment as to who was right except that John Mark was Barnabas' nephew. It is best if the Lord's workers can come to a working agreement for their betterment and for those who are looking on. It may also be due to how workers for the Lord feel about their family ties in their assessment of their work. In either case, God used it for good by multiplying the effect of their work through two teams instead of one!
No comments:
Post a Comment