Who Is Welcome to Worship with You on Sundays?

By Tim Hallman,
Acts 15

Before Paul came on the scene, most of the Christians were Jews. Peter and John, along with James the brother of Jesus, gave leadership to the new Christian movement there in Jerusalem. In fact, the Christians were considered a sect of Judaism. The new Christians still worshipped in the Temple, attended the synagogues, observed the Feast days, offered sacrifices and prayers as required, and still considered Torah to be authoritative. The big difference was the belief that Jesus was the Messiah promised by the LORD, he was the promised King of Israel, the Son of Man, the Son of God. Everything was now being filtered through what their understanding of their Lord Jesus Christ.

But once Paul came on the scene, he started missionary journeys that eventually resulted in many Gentiles becoming Christians. It started with the God-fearers, those Gentile men and women who observed the Jewish customs and worshipped the God of Israel, but who had not been circumcised. They gathered at the synagogues for the Torah readings, and they responded to Paul's preaching the gospel. These Gentiles were then influential in other non-God-fearing Gentiles coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Within a decade, there were more Gentile Christians then Jewish Christians.

Tensions rose as the Jewish Christians wrestled with how to accept the Gentile Christians. There were Christians, particularly some of the born-again Pharisees, who were convinced that Gentiles needed to be circumcised in order to be fully Christian. This kind of thinking reveals how fundamentally linked was their understanding of Jesus and Jewishness and Torah. Jesus had said that he didn't come to abolish Torah, but to fulfill it.

In Acts 15 a council is convened in Jerusalem to determine what to do with these boiling tensions. Do the Gentiles need to be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses (Torah) in order to be considered Christians? (This assumes that Christianity was the fulfillment of Judaism... that it is Judaism plus belief in Christ as Lord). Torah was a boundary marker for who was an Israelite. If you observed Torah, you were understood to be a child of Abraham, one of the elected citizens of Israel, included in God's promise of blessing. And circumcision was the physical marker of your inclusion in this ethnic and religious community.

Peter gets up to speak, a full-blooded Jew, observer of Torah, first disciple of Jesus, leader of the apostles. He shares his story of how God taught him to welcome the Gentiles as they are - and to not require circumcision of the body. Gentiles don't need to become Israelites in order to be Christians, he learned; the gift of the Holy Spirit is the new sign of welcome. God revealed a new chapter in his plans for how people enter into community with him. Jesus is now the way, not the Temple, not the Torah, not the Feasts, not circumcision.


Paul and Barnabas go on to show that through them God produced many signs and wonders amongst the Gentiles - proof that God accepted them and welcomed them into the community of believers. God welcomes those who believe in Jesus - regardless of their ethnicity. And then James gives the final word.  He quotes from the Prophets, showing how the plan included Gentiles all along. No one quite expected God to work like this, but the evidence was in and how could they argue with it? The new Christian movement was to make no distinction between color of the skin, accent of the tongue, or tribal affiliation.

This was a really big step forward for the early church. It was not the easiest thing to let someone who is not like you worship next to you. To know that your ethnicity was dominant, that it was the one with religious power - and to know that you are now going to become a minority and you no longer hold that same influence... that is a humiliating situation.

And yet Peter and Paul and James and others were full of grace as they acknowledged the new reality. Paul was called by God to bring the good news to the Gentiles, those pagan tribes that occupied the WHOLE world. Everyone was welcome, anyone who believed in Jesus was embraced. That was a very good part of the good news.

Who lives around you that is not like you? Are they welcome to worship with you on Sundays? Even if they dress different? What if they smell or sound different? What if they make you feel uncomfortable? You can appreciate the leap of faith the Christian Jews made in welcoming the Christian Gentiles. And now we Christian Gentiles must keep the welcoming arms wide to all those Pagan Gentiles who are seeking God.

We who do the welcoming bear the burden of sacrificing our preferences in order to help others experience the acceptance of God.


God changes hearts, but he uses our arms for welcoming.