Transcription
All right, let's go back to chapter 13 and see what we can get. 13 and 14 is what, what event happens in 13 and 14? First missionary journey, as is noted by the fact that at the top of chapter 13 in your Bible, it says "First Missionary Journey."
I want to quickly cite in chapter 13 that there are some qualifications of the people who direct ministry. Notice what happens. There were at Antioch in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon Niger, Lucius, Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. So you have this lineup of people. While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I've called them." Notice that phrase, "they were ministering to the Lord." You've seen it before. Samuel was doing this. Whatever it is, it's something intimate and personal and very worshipful. And they were ministering to the Lord, and the Spirit of God calls him out. Separate Barnabas and Saul.
Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus. I want you to notice the qualifications of those directed directors. First, in the first verse, they were team players with a vested interest in the success. The second thing is, in the church at Antioch, there were, look at the reputation. They're not celebrities there. It's specifically related to that local church. People say to me, "Well, in the New Testament, churches didn't have members." Well, here's the thing. They knew who went there. They knew their names. They knew who was leading it. And do you mean they hadn't written it down and filed it with the state of Rome? I mean, what, what do you mean when you say they didn't have members? What I see is that these guys were attached to it.
But look at this. Do you notice that that specifically gifted and enabled people who are related in the area of direction were gathered together? Prophets and teachers. Didn't you want to be in one of these meetings one time in your Christian experience? I mean, seriously. Today, you say you want to go to be a missionary, and they send you for psychological testing, and then they then they have meetings. And where is the prayer meeting where people go, "Hey, God, who do you want us to send?" Where is that prayer meeting? Because just one time in my career, I want to be in that room. I hunger for the call of God on somebody's life that is so clear. "Set apart for me."
The thing is that they sent them off. Do you know what Paul and Barnabas did when they got finished the mission journey? Does everybody know what happens at the end of 14? They come back and give an account of what they did. In other words, they felt accountable, not to worldwide kingdom building, but to a local church. What we've done now is we've created a second tier of mission organizations, and people don't feel responsible to the local church anymore. They want our money, but they don't actually tell us what's going on. There are some missionaries, the only time I hear from them is when they have a request for more funds. Don't be that person. Keep people aware of what's going on. It's for crying out loud, we live in the age of Facebook and social media. It should be so hard to tell me from the other side of the world what just happened. I can get on in Jerusalem and Rome. I don't have any problem. Honestly, people in St. Petersburg regularly read my blog. It's not that hard.
Okay, let me offer some tests of direction here because one of the things I keep saying is, you want the call of God, take a look at the direction. There's a truth test that I see in 4 and 5. Am I doing what I'm committed to doing? It says they went. They were called to go, and they went. 3B and 4B and 5A. They went. They reached Salamis. They were called and told to go, and they went. The second thing I notice is that there's a purpose test. Is what I'm doing in harmony with what God said? Did God say to do this? So it says they began to proclaim the Word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. Why? Why did they start with Jews? Well, there was to the Jews first, and also to the Greek. Now, there's a reasonable reason why you would start with the Jews anyway. Why? To them, it's gonna make more sense. They're the only people looking for a Messiah. Were people who are looking for a Messiah? The rest of them didn't even know they were supposed to be. So you go to people who have a sense of atonement, a sense of sinfulness, a sense of biblical value.
I guess what I would do here is when you see them going, I want you to see something that happens in verses 6 through 12. If you're gonna maintain your direction, you're gonna need a couple of things to help you maintain. You know, I don't know if you've ever steered a boat, but when you steer a boat, you can't just like turn it and have it go like that. You can't make a left turn like you would, you know, in a car. It takes a wider kind of swipe. So sometimes you have to correct and keep correcting to maintain your direction. Think about this. In verse 6, it says, "When they've gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus, who was who was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the magician, for so his name is translated, was opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, who also was known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him and said, 'You are full of all deceit and fraud. You son of the devil. You enemy of righteousness. Will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? Now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time.' And immediately a mist and a darkness fell on him, and he went about seeking those who would lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul believed when he saw what was happening, being amazed at the teaching of the Lord."
Okay, Paul's first message after he's brought out to be a missionary. How would you characterize his first outing? It's interesting. Yeah, blindness was his preferred method, right? Yeah, you want I've been blind, you're gonna be blind. Boom. Hah. Does it sound like he's tender and soft or hard and kind of really? Why? How many of you are offended at his method of ministry? Does it seem offensive to you? You know, "You're full of deceit. You're a fraud. You're a son of the devil. You enemy of righteousness." I mean, seriously, this is pretty heavy stuff. I think I've gone 30-some years in ministry, and I've never really had to get quite that heavy with anybody. Although, you know, the days are young. So my question is, why is this here? Why does Paul, by the way, jump so hard down Elymas' throat? Can we all agree he did? Like, Elymas was not feeling good about himself after that exchange. He was also feeling pretty blind.
But beside that, look at what's happening in the passage. The the issue is this: you have to know your enemy is gonna try to sabotage your purposes. And I'm not talking about Elymas, I'm talking about the devil. And he's trying to turn the proconsul from the faith. In a direct confrontation over the message of Jesus Christ, the church is not called to play nice. Now, that's gonna bother some of you because we are living in a time where whenever anybody gets snippy at us, we just have to get more tender and soft. I take you to what Paul did and ask the question, "Does God authorize what he did?" Because Dennis is going to ask me, "Just because Paul did that, how do you know that's what we should do?" And I'm going to ask the question, "Does it say that the Spirit of God used it?" Whoa, used it? Or doesn't? Does it say that he didn't? Was this a good thing in the life of the proconsul? If Paul would have played nice and said nice things about Elymas and tried to tolerate him side by side in the kingdom, this guy would have been lost eternally.
I was witnessing to someone in Philadelphia on a street when two guys who were Jehovah's Witnesses came up and decided they were going to stop and try to bend the guy's ear to their perspective. And I just stopped and said, "You need to stop now because you do not believe that Jesus Christ is the is God the Son, eternal Son of God. From Him, you do not believe that. And if you say that you do, you are not being genuine with what your group believes. So I'm going to finish talking to this person about the One who said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.' And if you want to try to come back around tomorrow and explain how you have another way and another truth and another life, and you can get there some other way, you can you can try and do that, but not right now." And I know that they felt I was being rude. They were trying to steal that man's soul away. People, when they don't have Jesus, are so offended, and they don't sometimes they just don't even understand what it is they're doing. This guy was trying to steal away the soul of a person, and Paul wasn't gonna have any part of it. Notice what he says, "You're perverting the right ways of the Lord." Yeah, you know, you are a spiritual pervert, and I'm not letting you get him get away with it. I'm not doing that.
By the time you get down to the end of this story, it's interesting because the guy comes to faith, and the other guy ends up blind because of what happens. And then it says, it says, "Now going on to Perga, they arrived at Pisidian Antioch on the Sabbath day and they went into the synagogue, sat down. And after reading of the Law and the Prophets, the synagogue officials sent to them, saying, 'Brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say it.'" This was something was done as part of the service. You know that we have this thing in the wedding, "If anyone has an objection, speak now or forever hold your peace." Well, back in the day, they would say, "Okay, if anybody has a next word of exhortation that there is from out of town, please share it." Because this is one of the ways people got news. They didn't know what was going on elsewhere. So they had to kind of open open up the floor. Paul stood up and motioning with his hand said, "Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen." And then he goes through and he offers a very carefully sculpted message.
Now, here's the thing. You can't simply focus on the benefits of a walk with God without the commitment to infinite to intimacy with God in His Word. If you're going to trade obedience for conformity, you can. But if you really want God to be at work in people's lives, you're gonna have to move past the benefits into an intimate walk with God. So he starts off and he says, "By the way, God called and God sent us. And I want you to know that God selected our people. God gave us a history. God blessed our people in verse 17 and led them out of Egypt, and He made them prosper, and He liberated them." And not only did He do that, but in verse 18, "He was patient with our conduct in the wilderness." And in verse 19, "He overthrew the seven nations in Canaan and gave us a land for our people." And then "He guided us and gave them judges until Samuel." And then "He gave us our request for a king in verse 21." And then "When a king with a heart to know God, He communed with him, and He brought the Messiah from David's line." And that's what 23 to 25 is about. So I would probably mark alongside of 23 to 25, "Messiah, Messiah from David's line."
Now, what's interesting is what he says in verse 26: "Brethren, sons of Abraham's family, and those among you who fear God." By the way, that's proselytes, those are God-fearers. "To us, the message of salvation has been sent. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him. And though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pontius Pilate to that He would be executed." He says, "And we have consistently blown it in our history, and we've blown it on this one. We hear that the leaders in Jerusalem." Do you remember I told you in Matthew, Jesus turned not on the Jewish nation, but on the leaders of them. This is an endorsement of that same strategy. The leaders in Jerusalem blew it. They killed Jesus. And it says in verse 29, "When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross, laid Him in the tomb. God raised Him from the dead." And "for many days He appeared to those of us who came with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people. And we preached to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus."
And what you see is this is the heart message of the mission journey. Let's let's be clear. The message of the mission journey is the gospel. The message of the mission journey was that God sent Jesus, that Jesus died in our place, that the gospel is exactly what is boxed off in these verses. Why is that important? Because you need to know that you're not sent around the world to somehow become a philanthropy organization or a soup kitchen. You are sent there with the message of the gospel. And if you go there simply as a relief organization and you don't do the gospel, those people are lost. They may have better soup on their way to hell, but they're still heading for hell. And that's a problem. The message of the gospel is outlined here.
Now, how does the outreach become effective? I want you to drop the chapter 14 for a minute. God is looking for a certain kind of person for outreach. Don't don't get caught up in my many words. Stop for a second. Take a breath. And just look at the first seven verses of chapter 14 because there are some effective qualities, qualities of effective outreach here. And the first one in verse 14 is, "You have to be observant about opportunities." Observant about opportunities. In Iconium, Paul and Barnabas found a gathering of those who appeared to be spiritually sensitive. I know that because of verse 1. And I also know that because of verse 1. So it says, "In Iconium, they entered a synagogue of the Jews together and spoke in such a manner that a large number of people believed, both of Jews and of Greeks." Now, what's interesting is they were pointed in their approach. That is, initially, they saw success with many that were persuaded by their message. But look at verse 2. They weren't naive. You can get excited without getting naive. Verse 2 says, "But the Jews who disbelieved stirred up the minds of the Gentiles and embittered them against the brethren." They're not unaware that there's opposition.
And when you get to verse 3, they're very responsive in their presentation. They met the opposition face-to-face and took a lot of time to clarify. Go down to verse 3. "Therefore they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was testifying to the word of His grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands." What were the signs and wonders? And why did God put them in their hands? A sign, the word "semeion" literally means, "right here, right here, right here." People are gonna believe and respond when they see the power of God. And you can't conjure up the power of God. And God does it in a way that he, that you, it's obvious you didn't do it. Um, in other words, they did everything they could, and then God had to show up and do what only He could. What's interesting is that they're reliant on the work of God in the audience, and they're sensitive to the reactions of people. But the people of the city were divided. Some sided with the Jews, some of the Apostles. And what's interesting is how they're persistent. And they're calling it says, "And when an attempt was made by both the Jews and the Gentiles, the Gentiles and the Jews with their rulers to mistreat and to stone them, they became aware of it, fled the cities of Laconian, Lystra, and Derbe, and the surrounding region. And they're there, they continued to preach the gospel."
So look, one of the effective realities is you've got to keep your eyes on what the opposition is doing, and you have to know when to make a run. Don't walk to the nearest exit. Retreat. I think what's interesting here is that if you move through all of chapter 14, you will find that there are some really good principles of outreach. I need to get you to chapter 15 because now we have a big struggle. In chapter 15, we get to the struggle to follow together. Amos 3:3 says, "Can two walk together except they agree?" In truth, the answer is what? No. Not for long. They can walk only for a time, and then when they really disagree, some vital points of agreement have to be understood for any group to remain together. Today, we look into 15, and you'll look at this, this group of people, and that we're trying to put something together.
Now, I want to talk about the key to settling disputes. First of all, is it necessary for there to be an argument in a church? Is there ever a time when it's necessary between believers to actually have an argument? My answer is yes. In verse 1, this is when it's necessary. "Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.'" Stop there. The question is, what is the gospel? Is the gospel, "Accept Jesus as your Savior and be circumcised, and then you can be saved?" That's the question. So contention is necessary when it's no longer clear how a person can be saved. If you're going to the heart of the message of the church, you can't accommodate two salvations. You can only have one gospel message. So when it comes to the core of the gospel, you've got to take a stand. When it comes to the core of the Word of God, you've got to. Let me give you an example. Is there a reason to contend and argue if people don't agree that the Bible is the Word of God? I'm not talking about in the world, but to men in the church. If you have a group of people that say, "I think the Bible's great tradition, but I don't think it's actually God's Word." What do you think that, that's an argument that a church should have? How many of you think, "Yes, I would argue that point. That's worth an argument." What about if, what about if it means people might be hurt and not like us because we might have to tell them they're wrong? How about the divinity of Jesus Christ? Is that worth fighting for? How about how about that a person who does not see change in their life as a result of Jesus Christ may not actually know Jesus Christ? They may know, but not know. Is that worth arguing? See, I think when it comes down to key doctrines of the faith, leaders are commanded to take a position, to study the Word. But here's the thing. We need to do it not in an argumentative way, but in a godly way. We make the argument. I was in several rooms where this happened, and it's one of the most thrilling things to be a part of if you're a Christian leader, to see men love and respect. Not like Congress, where they get up and say, "Well, my problem with a great leader of the state of Texas," you know, they say all these flowery words, and then basically they trash the other guy. But people who honestly look across the table and say, "I love my brother, but I do not agree. I see these verses, and I cannot shake them off. I do not understand how what you're saying fits into this."
So verse 1, then all those words to say one thing. There's a time when contention is necessary. Do we all agree to that? Because if we don't, the rest of the pastors is going to say, "It sounds stupid. They're contending over stuff, and you don't even agree that we should." All right. If that's the case, what is the process to dealing with serious disagreements? Two through five is a process. What's the process in verse 2? First, face to face. Present your case to one another. The point is not ego. It's getting to the heart of the truth and finding ground to stand together. They want to bond together. They want to find a way to stand together. But there may not be a way if some people don't agree to the scriptures and how they should be understood. So it says, "When Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them." Meaning Paul didn't stop. Listen, this is the Paul that told the other guy he was a devil. Okay? He's Paul's not laying down for any of this. Can I just remind you that in the first missionary journey, they went out as Barnabas and Saul till they got in trouble, then it was Paul and Barnabas. You know why? Because the man's strength came out hard when they got in trouble. So he's sitting there, and "the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some of the others should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue." Now, this is important. So if no agreement was found, they agreed to arbitration of an authority. In other words, we're gonna send both parties to a third party that's gonna arbitrate the difference and tell us what they see in here. This is a great method to settle issues. In verse 3, "Each side should go to arbitration, to go to somebody else, and should should have it examined." If they can't meet, and then in verse 4, "Let both sides have their say without a sense that there's a stacked deck in the room." Listen to verse 4: "When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they were reported all that God had done with them." Now, that means everybody got to speak before there was a judgment given. One of the problems we have in churches is we can emerge, we can emotionally jump the gun and not let people present their case. Even if you don't agree with it, listen to it. You might actually hear something you didn't know. And then verse 5 says that "they allowed the arbiters to meet privately and discuss the matter in deliberation, free of the crowds and the complainants." That is, "some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed stood up, saying, 'It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the law of Moses.'" And "the apostles and elders came together to look into this matter." In other words, they didn't just settle it in the room. They got alone and examined the claims. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said, "Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe." That I believe is a fulfillment of Matthew 16 and Mark 11. "And God, who knows the heart, testified to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did us also. And He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith."
So he says, "Look, guys, I, I want you to look at the evidence of what we have in verses 7 through 12. Look at what God did. The evidence says that God gave the Spirit to these people. That's not something we did. That's something He did." By the way, why are they so careful to point out that the Spirit fell on them? Luke asked about this earlier, rather than that Peter gave them the Spirit? Because the only pattern they had up to that time was that apostles were giving it to people. They made clear in their account that "we didn't give it to them. God dropped it on them. We saw it. We didn't do it." And Peter, John were running around giving the Spirit to people in the first case. In the second case, Peter standing there, absolutely dumbfounded that it happened. But he says, "The fact that it happened showed God's hand at work." One of the things that Abby's gonna go away with from just her time here is she's gonna go, "If I thought God called me to go to Japan, I found out that He really did by Him supplying the funds." Why? Because He did what I couldn't. And that's what's gonna. So you get there, and let's say you get sick. Let's say you get there, and you're not feeling well. Let's say you get there, and you don't like the people. Whatever. You're gonna know God put you there. It's not gonna be, "I wonder if I manipulated my way into this." You didn't have the ability to manipulate your way into this. Therefore, you can relax and know God is sending you. That's part of the blessing of saying, "God did a God thing." Hello. "I was in the room. We didn't bring the Spirit. We didn't do anything to Him. I never touched those people. Spirit came down." "What would you want us to do?" I love that line of reasoning.
Now look at verse 12. "All the people kept silent. They were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles." If you want to see a miracle, it's verse 12. A room full of arguing Jewish leaders all keeping silent. If that's not a miracle in the Bible, I don't know what a miracle is. They're all sitting there, and they're dumbfounded because God is about to move. What I love is that first thing they do is they listen to all the evidence. The second thing they do in verses 13 to 18 is they relate any experiences to the filter of the Word of God. They don't just say, "Well, if that's what you experienced, then it must be true." People do this stuff in churches. "Well, if you felt that, then it must have happened." No. They actually go. James answers and says, "Brothers, listen to me. Simeon, Simon, Peter has related how God first concerned Himself about the taking from among the Gentiles of people for His name. Now with this, the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written: 'After these things I will return. I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen. I will rebuild its ruins. I will restore it, so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by My name,' says the Lord, 'who makes these things known from long ago.'" He stops off and right in the middle of this, he decides he's going to say, "You know what? I am the Scriptures." There's a reason for us to actually believe this is the case. The interesting thing is he picks out some verses that I would never have picked out for this cause, but he picks out these verses, and he starts saying, "Look, I see in Amos 9, and I see in Deuteronomy 28, and I see in Jeremiah 14 these statements, and I think that there's a biblical case to be made for what they're saying." Why is that important? Because it wasn't the emotion. It was an intricate, deep study of the scriptures that led James to get on board. I think that's a great thing. Now, I'm not saying even reading his whole line of reasoning that I understand what it was he was saying. I gotta tell you, I think what's happened here is Luke filtered down pieces of things James said, squashed them together, and I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense, to be honest with you. I think he says, "James went on and on and brought verse after verse after verse to say to us, 'By the way, this is in the scripture.'" And he said, "Let me just clip out some of the verses." But his cut and paste is not all that effective. Here's what I'm trying to say. I think at the end of the day, James said, "Look, not only do I accept the fact that you had these experiences, but I think they came in harmony with the Word of God."
The third thing I noticed in verses 19 to 21 is even in the council, there had to be some trust in some of the character of godly leaders. So it says, "Therefore, it is my judgment, we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write that they do the following four things: Number one, that they abstain from things contaminated by idols. And number two, from fornication. And number three, from what? Things that are strangled. And number four, from blood." Now, that's not as careful as you and I might need. But you need to understand that each one of those things has is packed with a number of other things that go with it. In other words, when they abstain from things contaminated by idols, does that mean that they can't eat meat offered to idols? You want to say no, but later on, you're gonna find out that some of them do and think that that's okay. Probably what he has in view there is they can't participate in any of their idolatrous things, including they can't have sex at the temple anymore. They can't be involved in any of the things that go with any of the the temple practices in Corinth and things like that. So I think it's bigger than just what he's saying. I think also things strangled. There was a specific time of the year where there was a holiday in which they strangled the animals. So they can't be involved in that holiday and in that pursuit.
What is the instruction? What are the four things that are given? Because we're going to follow these up. They're going to become important. I'll get rid of the "we" sections. All right. Here's my question. What are the things that they're not allowed to do as Gentiles? There are four of them. Okay. One of them has something to do with idolatry. Okay. What's the second one? Fornication. And so it has to do with sexuality. What's the third one? Strangulation. And that has to do with, I'm gonna use the term holidays. It's actually something a little bit similar to that. It's the idea of certain kinds of guild meetings in which this was done. And what's the fourth one? Eating. Let's just say ingesting blood. Okay. Now, here's what he says. There are four things that we're passing out there. They don't have to become circumcised because circumcision was a symbol for the Jewish people. They don't have to be Jews. We continue to circumcise Jewish people. Continue to circumcise even Jewish people that knew Jesus. How do I know that? How do I know that Jewish people that Paul never told Jewish people to stop circumcising? It's in Acts 21. Listen to Acts 21, verse, verse 19. Verse 18: "And the next day Paul went in with us to James, that's the pastor of the Jerusalem church, and all the elders that were present. And he greeted them, and he began to relate one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through His ministry. And when they heard it, they began glorifying God. And they said to him, 'You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law.'" So it says, "And they have been told about you." This is what they've heard. They've heard that you are teaching all the what? Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs. You have been accused of telling Jews not to get circumcised. And it says, "What is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. Therefore, do this that we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Take them, purify yourself among them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads, and all will know that there is nothing to the things which they have been told about you." In other words, do this to prove it's not true. You haven't taught that.
Okay, I think there's an awful lot of people in the church today that think that's exactly what he taught. "You all need to buy a ham, get a Christmas drink, and join us." It's not what he was teaching. He was teaching the Gentiles actually needed to get out of the idolatrous system and the sexuality that went with it, and the certain guild meetings and holidays, and that they were never, ever, ever to be ingesting blood in blood, blood meats, and things that go along with some parts of the Roman world that they were to get away from those things because those things were given even before the law. God had said all the way back in Genesis 9, "Don't eat blood." Be long before the law existed. So these things had to be true of them. Now, having said that, how did the, how did the people come to a conclusion on in Acts 15 on what the judgment was going to be? Tell me, how did this really work? All of them were arguing, and they presented their positions, and then James gets up and he says, "I think this is how scripture should be understood." And at the end of that, how was it? He floats the idea, or the, the letter. "The following things need to be written to them in verse 20." And these are the four things. And then he says, "For Moses, for many ancient generations, has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath." Then it seemed good to the apostles and elders with the whole church to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Barnabas and Saul, Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men from among the brethren. And they sent this letter by them. And the letter said, "The apostles and brethren who are elders to the brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia who are from the Gentiles, greetings. Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction have disturbed you with their words, unsettling your souls, it seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Saul, our Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we have sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will also report the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from the things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication. If you keep yourselves free from these things, you will do well. Farewell."
How did they come to that place? Well, James submitted what they should do, but all of them agreed to it. They left the room in agreement with a letter that says, "We are of one mind." That's important. They came in with many ideas. They left with one. Can I just suggest that some guys had to be wrong for that to happen? They had to decide that their position was wrong. And this is what at the end of chapter 15 it says, that he left after Paul, Paul and Barnabas, after some days said, "Let us return and went back to the cities that they had established the gospel." And the second missionary journey begins at the end of chapter 15 and pushes all the way through chapter 18. I don't have you.