Year 4, Day 248: Acts 15

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Calling

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.

Acts 15 is a great negative example of calling.  What I mean by that is that Acts 15 contains example after example of the failure of people discerning God’s call for them in their lives.  Acts 15 is filled with story after story about people who get calling wrong.

Take a look at the first story.  Some people come down from Jerusalem and hear about what Paul and Barnabas had seen happen in their mission experience.  But here’s the thing.  Rather than coming down and rejoicing in where God is at work, they argue about what happened.  They argue about the fact that Paul and Barnabas weren’t “doing it right!”  Rather than being called to support God at work, they argued about how God couldn’t have possibly worked in that manner.

Then there is the Jerusalem Council.  Again we see the same thing.  Rather than these leaders encouraging people to celebrate what God is doing through Paul and Barnabas, the Jerusalem Council worries that God’s methodology among the Gentiles might offend the Jews.  So they tell Paul and Barnabas to tell the Gentile followers how to act.  Rather than encourage people to celebrate what God is doing, they take the people in whom God is at work and quench their spirit.  Another case of missed calling.

This leads us to the split between Paul and Barnabas.  I’m not going to argue that Paul and Barnabas should have stayed together forever.  But I am going to suggest that arguing over how to use a follower of God is a very silly reason.  If they had been called by God to different areas of the world that would have been a marvelous reason to split up the team!  But they split up over the worry that John Mark might not have what it takes to complete the journey.  I can’t help but wonder if they miss their calling and instead focus on their own desires.

Calling is absolutely important.  We should seek God’s hand at work in the world.  We should seek to join wherever we see God’s hand at work.  We should be willing to follow God’s calling rather than assert our own will.

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