Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Because there arose no little dissension and debate

by Paul and Barnabas with them,
it was decided that Paul, Barnabas, and some of the others
should go up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and presbyters
about this question. 

It seems the first Christians were not as naïve about religion and spirituality as many American Christians. They did not suppose saints should be free of controversy. The Acts of the Apostles records not only the successful movement of the faith from Jerusalem to the “ends of the earth;” it also documents the first crisis of the faith. Saint Luke, the mildest of the New Testament authors, often puts a benign spin on his reporting, but he does not skip over this quarrel.

The conflict first appeared concerning the care of Jewish and gentile widows. Despite their good intentions the distributors of alms, perhaps unconsciously, were favoring the Jewish poor. If the benefactors could not see it, as they often don’t, the recipients did. Their complaints led to the first major reorganization of the church and the appointment of “deacons” to manage the day to day affairs.

But as more and more gentiles joined the church and the Jews found themselves a shrinking minority, some of them introduced policies to stem the tide of new converts:

Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved.”

Most men would find that a daunting prospect. How many people today insist they believe in Jesus but cannot pay the price of church attendance? If minor surgery of the most painful and personal kind were required of them, even fewer would come out!

But the argument could not be dismissed outright. The apostles and first leaders were all Jews and felt an intense loyalty to the Mosaic Law. Many still hoped that all Jews would come over to Christ; others believed that Jesus’ mission was to the Jews but not to the entire world. If a few gentiles joined the fold that was no problem; but if the church became majority gentile, it would certainly lose its focus on baptizing Judaism.

The controversy finally came to a head and the leaders gathered to discuss it. They would not sweep their differences under the rug and allow the church to be shattered by varying opinions. As they met in Jerusalem they remembered clearly the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper – that all should be one (John 17:21).

(When people today wonder why the Church seems so backward in some policies and so forward in others, they should consider the challenge of keeping an international church of rich and poor, sophisticated and rough, old and young, and every imaginable culture together.)

Their decision, prompted by the Holy Spirit, for unity and universality would change the course of the Church forever.