Year 4, Day 244: Acts 11

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

Acts 11 has always been a sad chapter for me.  The reason that it is a sad chapter is because it truly shows the human flaw that we bring to Christ’s church.  In Acts 11 we hear Peter come back to Jerusalem.  He is all excited about what God had done in his life.  The Jerusalem church sucks the very life out of his excitement.  Peter gets “shushed” in Jerusalem when he tries to talk about the movement of God’s hand.

The Christians in Jerusalem criticize Peter for eating with Gentiles.  In other words, they criticize Peter for going out into the world.  They criticize Peter for following God’s directive to go with the people Cornelius sent.  Rather than hearing Peter and listening to his testimony, they are critical of him because his actions don’t fit into the proper box.  Where Peter thinks outside the box, the Jerusalem Christians rebuke Peter for doing so.  Granted, we are told that they are silenced and God wins the day.  But that doesn’t change the fact that we see very little character in them in the first place.  Instead of being interested in God’s hand at work, these Jerusalem Christians are interested in supporting their own preconceived notions of how God can be at work in the world.  They lack the divine character.

The church in Antioch does not lack character, however!  They embrace Barnabas.  They even embrace Paul, who has a huge black spot upon his reputation.  When it is heard that people are turning to Christ in the Gentile world they send out support rather than criticize the evangelists who are doing the work and following the Lord!  This is Christian character on display.  Christian character follows God’s hand.  Christian character rejoices when it sees God’s hand at work.  Christian character willingly rejects the “stay-in-the-box” thinking of humanity and follows God wherever God should desire to lead.

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