BibleProject - Who's In? – Family of God E7

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

God wants people from all nations to be a part of his family, but Jesus’ mission was focused on Israel. So how did the Gospel message move out from Israel to the rest of the world? Join Tim and Jon as they unpack the arrival of the Spirit and Jesus’ commissioning of his disciples.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (0:00–15:30)Part two (15:30–28:30)Part three (28:30–35:50)Part four (35:50–end)Show Music “Defender Instrumental” by TentsMusic by Chilldrone“Anecdotes” by Makzo“Cartilage” by MobyShow produced by Dan Gummel. Show notes by Lindsey Ponder.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

This is John Collins at Bible Project. We have a few episodes left in this ongoing series exploring the theme of the family of God in the Bible. How God created all of humanity as his children, how we are all one human family and all of our wonderful diversity. However, we don't trust each other. We don't fully value each other's unique contributions of being God's image, and we find ourselves in violent opposition to each other. Yet, the vision of the Bible is that every tribe, tongue and nation, will unite to bring their unique gifts together as the image of the Bible is that every tribe tongue and nation will unite to bring their

unique gifts together as the image of God. It's easy to lose track of this theme in the Bible, and one reason is because a large part of the story of the Bible is how God chose one family, the family of Israel, to be called apart from the nations. Now their calling is to bring blessing to the nations, but they're given practices to help them be set apart from the nations. Practices like circumcision, kosher food laws, and Sabbath observance. Now after Jesus came and fulfilled the covenant of God in Israel, he asks his disciples to go out and make disciples of all the nations.

And so the question on the table is, do the nations need to follow these Jewish practices to be in God's family? And this wasn't an easy answer to figure out. Let's try and sympathetically imagine ourselves into this scenario. We're a part of a, over a millennium old, religious, ethnic, cultural group,

whose identity has been shaped by a certain set of markers. And now I'm being told by the leaders of this new subgroup of our Messianic movement, that those markers are not necessary for all of these new people who want to join the family. Today we're going to look at the dream Peter has and the debate that sprung up amongst the disciples of Jesus about how the nations get folded into the family. Today we're going to look at the dream Peter has and the debate that's sprung up amongst the disciples of Jesus about how the nations get folded into the family of God. Thanks for joining us. Here we go.

We're talking about the family of God. It's a theme in the Bible about, I suppose, who are God's children? Yeah. Who belongs in God's family. Who belongs in God's family? Yeah. Quick recap. God creates all humanity to be His image. Yep. And I guess another way you can say that is to be His family. Hey, there's a little rabbit hole in Genesis 5 that answers that.

Oh. That equates being in the image of God is to be the child of God. Okay. It's the call of all humanity in all of our diversity, but it is human nature to become tribal, to not trust each other, to be violent to each other, and that's Genesis 1 through 11, just. Yep, the fracturing of the family community.

God chooses one couple to form a family that will be a chosen family, not better than any of the families, but chosen for a task, which is to bring the blessing back to all the nations. And this is the story of Israel. It's a whole story of the Hebrew Bible, and it's easy to forget that in a way, it's a subplot. Yes, that's right. To the bigger plot, which is all of humanity being the image of God. How is that going to happen? Well, one family is going to do all sorts of things. Have a seed, and that's a funny biblical term. Yeah, yeah. Produce a lineage. Produce a lineage in which there will be some ruler, a king, who will deal with evil,

who will rule with righteousness. There's also going to be a place where God's presence is, and all the nations can kind of stream up and learn from it. This is the temple. This is Jerusalem. We have this hope that that's going to happen. Jesus comes and we see Jesus saying right off the bat to his fellow Israelites, this is our calling. We're supposed to be the city on the hill. We're supposed to be the light in the darkness. This is our thing. We've got to do this.

And here's the ethic and here's what it looks like. And he goes and he's got this almost laser focus on Israel. On the people of Israel and making sure that Israel actually can stand up to their calling, which is to be the nation that will bring the blessing. Ultimately, Jesus does for Israel what Israel couldn't do, which is be the faithful Israelite. Yeah. And to be that ruler and the way that he did that is, and this is not what this conversation is about, but the way that he did that was with this backwards, just sacrificing himself, his... Allowing his siblings to kill him. I see.

Yeah. And that was his enthronement. Actually provoking them to kill him. Yeah, right. That that was his enthronement actually provoking them to kill Yeah, right that's a whole other thing But and through his death and resurrection was proven to truly be that that King the Messiah Seed Coming from Israel and so now in I guess in a sense The vocation of Israel has been solved because Jesus has done it. Yeah, or at least stage one of the solving the problem.

Which was that Israel is not being obedient. Yeah, and is as fractured as. I'm faithful and as fractured. That's right. Here comes Jesus and saying, this is what it looks like. And we didn't talk at all about... Yeah, he starts the nucleus of a restored family of Abraham that relates to God according to the new covenant, the Ezekiel

and Jeremiah, and Isaiah all anticipated a new way of relating to their God. And so the Gospels are trying to say that the family of Abraham has been restored, the nucleus of it in the group that Jesus started. And then Jesus changes his focus. And in the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples, go out now to all the nations. Yeah. He told them before not to. Yes, that's right.

He said, don't only go to Israel when he had encounters with like the Canaanite women, he kind of like gave her hard time. Like, hey, I'm here for Israel. Yeah. Now it's this almost about face where he's going to tell, he's telling his disciples,

now go out to all the nations. Yeah. So like the fact that Now it's this almost about face where he's gonna tell, he's telling us the disciples, now go out to all the nations. Yeah. So it's like the fact that the Israel chapter has been solidified that he's come and done that. Yep. We can now bless the nations. Yeah.

It shouldn't be a surprise. In fact, in the Gospel Matthew, we saw kind of seed beds of like the fact that Jesus' mission was leaking out to the nations, even though he was focusing on Israel. But now we're at the part of the story where Israel gets to be the blessing to the nations. Yeah, yeah, totally.

Yeah, this restored Israel, the nucleus is going to expand to include people of all the tribes of Israel from all these different nations and welcome to the Book of Acts. So the main theme, one of the main themes of the Book of Acts is the Holy Spirit, is expanding the family of Abraham, which is the family of God, the family of the Messiah, and is inviting all these different nations in, and it creates tensions,

creates challenges that the leaders of this movement have to overcome. So let's just focus in. We'll do the same as we did in the last episode of Matthew, kind of just touch down and keep points here. In Acts chapter 1, the risen Jesus gives instructions. What they ask is, at this, the disciples ask him, the, hey, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Meaning. Well, exactly. He just spent 40 days with them. We're told speaking about

the Kingdom of God. And so what they're asking is like okay so we've got a little nucleus thing going here. So when does your kingdom launch out to everybody else? And what he says is hey listen don't worry about the timelines. That's not your responsibility. But you're about to receive the power of the spirit and you will become my witnesses, famous lines. But notice the three tiered typography or geography here. You're gonna be my witnesses starting here in Jerusalem. So Jerusalem becomes, especially at the holidays

for pilgrimage, epicenter for all of the diverse tribes of Israel. But it's the city of David at the center. So here in Jerusalem, but then going out to Judea and Samaria. And here Jesus is addressing the fractured tribes of Israel because the northern kingdom and the northern hill country, I mean, they split after the time of Solomon. So this family divide goes back almost a millennium from Jesus.

That's great. Yes, not crazy. So just the fact that he says both of them said something and then from the divided family of Israel out to all the nations to the remote parts of the earth. So there's the map. So he's got both the Jews around Jerusalem, the divided family of Israel, and all nations on the brain. Seven times seven days later. Pentecost, which means 50. So on the 50th day, after Passover weekend, is the celebration of Pentecost, which is the holiday where people would bring in the first fruits of their offerings to the temple. And so what Luke tells us is that there are Jews. So these are Jews, or maybe some converted Gentiles, but he

tells us, let's see, 15 different nations and language groups that these people come from. They're pilgriming from... Is that all right? They're on pilgrimage. They're on pilgrimage. Yeah. From all parts of the years.

Totally. So do you remember back in Matthew, this our previous conversation, how Matthew presented the wise men, the Christmas story, the wise men, bringing their gifts to Jesus. And he tells the story in such a way as to hyperlink it to that poem in Isaiah about the new Jerusalem exalted on Hill with the nations coming to it. So Jesus becomes the exalted new Jerusalem.

So there's something similar here where the people of Jesus, filled with the spirit of Jesus, become the place of pilgrimage for all of the restored people of God. So this is a famous story of Pentecost. We won't explore everything going on here, but there are a pepna prayer meeting that disciples are in. Wind comes and fire appears, which is temple imagery. The fire is, right? The fire. Wind is temple imagery. The fire is, right? The fire. Wind is just more. Oh, wind is Mount Sinai. And spirit. That's right. Yeah, wind's spirit.

That's right. But what's interesting is that what they find is when they start telling the story of Jesus, the phrase that they use is telling the mighty deeds of God, which means to retell the story of what God has done, which is Peter's going to do in a moment, which is to tell the story of Jesus. And what they find is whenever they're telling the story of Jesus under the power of the Spirit, the nation's unite into one language, one speech. Everyone hears it in their own language. Yes. People have long discerned here a reversal of Babylon.

Right. And for sure, that's on the brain. Yes. People have long discerned here a reversal of Babylon. Right. And for sure, that's on the brain. On the brain. Also, he names 15 places where people are there from. He's using the ethnographic map of Genesis 10 here. Oh. He's naming places that are all located on the ethno map. The map of ethnoes, ethno map, the map of ethnos, ethnoi, of nations from Genesis 10, partheons, mead, eelamites, Mesopotamia,

Judea, Capitoseia, Pontus, Asia, Frigia, Pimpilia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, Rome, and then Jews and prophets, Prostalites, Creedons and Arabs. So, now these are all Jews on pilgrimage. Right. From different places. Exactly. They speak different languages. Cross-alites, Creetans and Arabs. So, now these were all Jews on pilgrimage. Right. From different places. Exactly.

They speak different languages. Yes, during the feast of first fruits. Why is that interesting? Oh, is in a way they become the first fruits of the nucleus of the next tier of the restored Israel. Got it. Yeah, totally. The archeologist of ancient Jerusalem tell us

that anywhere from half a million, up to close to a million people would come to Jerusalem for these feasts, I mean. Wow. And there's already a couple hundred thousand people there, but it's like the place would just be a zoo. Just crazy. Yeah. And this is bringing harvest, so that's nice.

Like with all the animals, that must have been even. You imagine. Crazy air. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So when people ask what all this means Peter gets up and he retails the story of Jesus and it culminates with Peter saying, you his siblings, you killed your brother. You killed the anointed one from our family that got and he's talking about the leaders of Israel the anointed one from our family. He's talking about the leaders of Israel that represent the people. So we killed our own brother, but God vindicated him by raising him from the dead.

And then he goes on to talk about, and he exalted Jesus as Lord and King. That was their question. When are you restoring the kingdom to Israel? And Peter's answer is, it's happening. Here it is. And the family of Abraham is being unified on the next outer tier of all these different tribes of the diaspora coming together. And then Luke starts adding up numbers. Thousands were added to their number. 3000 that day. Thousands. Many were added. And so the portrait, next following chapters of Acts, is about this growing, reunified restored family of Abraham,

the Messianic family of Abraham. Yeah. Because these are all Jews. Because we're all Jews, yeah. And then what Luke will note is in Acts chapter 8 and following some of those disciples are going to go out to Samaria. And these are a strain.

A millennium, 1,000 year-long estranged family of Abraham. And the Samaritans, many Samaritans, receive the news and are brought into the family. And he's just, he's working it out. But the biggest divide to overcome is just straight up non-usrelines. Because of Samaritan, they still have some of the legacy of being Torah observers maybe? Well, actually, I mean, in many ways you could say they were estranged siblings, which sometimes that's even more severe. Yeah, right.

And outsiders. It was pretty vicious. Jesus capitalizes on this in the parable of the Samaritan, where he knows that that would be somebody who's fiercely pated. And you make some the hero of that story. But the Samaritan, where he knows that that would be somebody who's fiercely pated and you make some the hero of that story. The Samaritan's e-cosure? They have their own, yeah, the Samaritan's had developed their own offshoot of the observances. And so there was a lot shared, but there was a lot different to a different calendar and so on. And Luke doesn't focus there. He tells the story

of the story of Jesus goes north to the Samaritan and some people join the family, but where he spends the majority of his time is the moment that the family of Abraham crosses the Israelite non-Israelite divide. And it's a story about a Roman centurion, is that becomes the representative story here. The story's so cool. Cornelius. Cornelius. So there was a man. Cessaria. Remember going to Cessaria? When did you...

Oh, was that in the North? No, it was on the coast. On the coast? Was that like our second day? Yeah, I might have been first. First day. When... Jetlag day?

Yeah. Beautiful. Harbor. Really cool. Yeah. Archaeology sites. Yeah, that's right. Anyway, so there was a guy there, a Roman centurion.

So he's not just a non-Israelite. He's like a Roman military. But he honors the God of Israel. He's a God for your. Yeah. He's devout. He fears the God of Israel. In fact, he even donates money to support the poor among the Jewish people around him. That's probably pretty rare for a Roman centurion to do. Oh, that's interesting. You know, I don't know the answer off the top of my head. There were many Greeks and Romans who were attracted to the beliefs and way of life, the Jewish people, but how many Romans and positions of power were? I don't know the answer to that question. But he's an on Jew who is his either probably didn't grow up in Cessario, who's probably put there

as a job. Yeah, he's there as a Centurion in the cohort. He's there on assignment. Yeah. So you kind of get a picture of him while they're converting. Correct. Yeah, that's right. He's there with his family, so he's stationed there.

Yeah. So he has this daytime dream of his and is told to see him send a messenger to go look for this guy you've never met his name is Shim-On called Peter. Simon called Peter. Meanwhile, Simon called Peter is up praying. Notice Cornelius were told prayed to God continually and now here's Peter. Up on the roof, they had flat roofs, praying at the hour prayer, and man he was hungry, because it's late in the day, and he wanted to eat something. So they're making food, it's like the smell of the humus and the tabooly devil. And he fell into an altered state of consciousness.

Just from the smell of the food. The mess of the humus smells really Yeah. The mess of that hummus. The mess smelled really good. Yeah. Tasty smell in hummus. Oh man. Hummus is food of the gods, seriously. Yeah, when you go to Israel, Palestine, man, I know you like,

hummus that much. Oh, because it's not as good here, I just don't see you crushing hummus. Yeah, you have to go Israel, Palestine. Oh yeah, I have a, mmm, it looks like a Palestinian grandmother. Make you a plate of hummus. Oh yeah, I have a, like a Palestinian grandmother, make you a playative home. Oh my gosh, it's just amazing. Anyway, I don't know if that's why Peter fell into a trance. But he did smell it. He sees the sky opening. He sees this great sheet

of blanket lowered by four corners. The four corners of the land or four corners of the earth is often a common image for universality. And he sees all of these images of creatures of Genesis 1, these four-footed animals and birds. And he's told, you know, go eat one. You're hungry. Go eat one. And what he sees is there's some ritually impure animals in there, non-cocher.

So what's interesting is this whole story is about the inclusion of non-Israelite. But his dream is about being told to eat some things. Uncocher animals. Uncocer animals. And just to be clear, this is part of the Torah. Correct. That's right. Which was for Israel's covenant agreement.

Yeah. Was there a very strict type of diet? Yes. What they can and cannot eat. Yeah. In certain animals were considered ritually impure. Lots of theories. This is in the Leviticus, chapter 11, and did

wrong me. 14, I think. And lots of theories, lots of different interpretations as to why. The most common one is that these are creatures who mix categories. So creatures who are amphibians, they are on land and sea. Don't eat them. Don't eat them. Creatures that are live in the air, but they eat land creatures.

Birds of prey, don't do it. So that explains a lot of them, but not all, like the pig. Pig was probably because the Philistines loved pigs. Worship time or something. But by the time Peter is on the scene, this is centuries old custom. But they probably did some sort of ritual worship with them. It's unclear. What is clear is there pig bones everywhere at Philistine archaeological sites and very almost no pig bones that ancient

is for light sites. So Peter is like, no, I'm not going to eat anything that's not kosher. And the voice says, what God has made pure don't consider unholy. And this happened three times and then the dream was over. Now, what we know is that Peter didn't stop eating kosher. He kept eating kosher because this is brought up in other places in the New Testament. This dream is clearly symbolic. The animals, kosher and non-cosher animals are an analogy that illuminates what's about to happen

between Israelite and non-Israelite. That makes sense. Yeah, I think so, so that because if you're an Israelite, you consider non-Israelite unclean. Well, that's interesting. Jews had different opinions on this. So more, the thing about being impure is when you come into contact with forces of death, things that symbolize death. And actually becoming impure is not simple. Not simple.

And we have a whole series on this from a long time ago on holiness maybe. Yeah. Boy, it's reaching back there. It's reaching back, back in the archives. Yeah, totally. I mean, we have videos about it, but I think we talked about in the podcast, but there's a difference between impurity and sin. Okay.

Touching a dead body isn't sinful, but it makes you impure. But it makes you impure. What was wrong was waltzing into the temple precincts before into holy space when you're in a ritually impure state. Yeah, correct. So take a bath, do the whole thing. Correct. Now, the kosher animals were a little bit different

because if these animals were impure, you were just not supposed to eat them. Yeah. And if then if you did, the people debated what exactly the consequences should be, anywhere from lenient to severe. What I want to note here is Peter didn't stop being kosher. This is not in abolishing of the kosher food loss.

This dream about God undoing the impurity of non- kosher foods is a symbol of what God is doing in the narrative, which is reversing Peter's perception, reversing the Jews' perceptions of these non-Israelites. So you're saying, in the same way in the dream, God's saying, you saw these animals as unclean, but now, once you see them as clean,

in the same way, what's happened on the ground, in Ciceria, and all over, is that people who were not in the club God saying can be in the club correct. Yeah, and one is an image of the other. Yeah Oh now with that said One of the reasons why there wasn't a congeniality Was because of the kosher law that was one of the things that set them apart. That's right. Yeah That's why a Jew would not go to eat with a Gentile.

Correct. Partly. Yeah, there would have been one of the reasons. They're just not going to eat the same food. Because I guess what I'm saying is God could have said, He could have said, hey, change his expectation about anything on the sheet. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I mean, kosher food laws, circumcision, Sabbath observance were in this century, Peter century, the things that in Greco-Roman culture set is relights apart. Purposefully, I mean, that was their purpose, right? Exactly their purpose. That's why God gave these parts of the covenant was for them to be set apart.

Correct. Yeah, that's right. So, in other words, and again, to say it again, this dream, just because I've heard this so many times, and I think I've probably said it in the past. In this dream, you've got to not abolishing the kosher food customs for Jewish people to observe. And we know that Peter didn't take it this way,

and neither did the Apostle Paul later on, because he still commends that if there are observant Jews or Gentiles who want to follow the kosher food laws, like in the book of Romans, he says, go for it. But he also says, don't feel obliged to. But he what he says is, they are no longer the criteria for determining who's in the family or not. And that's what God is trying to undo here.

So then, but then what would be the purpose of adhering to the food laws then? Oh, if that's one of the ways that you express your honor and devotion to God, which many Jewish people and non-History lights did and still do. So the point is, is not that kosher food law was good for a time, but now it's bad.

It's, you have a custom that's God given to set Israel apart. That custom is no longer the means of distinguishing who's a part of the family of God. I think that's what the dream is about. And so, Peter's really flipped, right? He's just his mind. He's totally flipped inside out by this. He's perplexed. And he goes to this guy's house.

And I'm abbreviating here. But he goes into the house and he sees that, like, oh my gosh, here's this like, you know, God-fearing non-his-relight. And what he says is, I understand that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation, the person who fears him and does what is right, is welcome to be invited

into his family. And so Peter starts telling the story of Jesus and Cornelius is like, sign me up. And while Peter's still speaking, the pentacost that happened in Jerusalem on all those Jews now happens here. The gift of the Holy Spirit comes, they start speaking in tongues and telling the same thing that happened in Jerusalem. So you can see it looks planted this story as the symbolic story of now the thing that happened for the family of Israel is now going up to the nation's symbolized by Cornelius and his household. And so they're baptized, they sign up, and there you go.

Hooray! Hooray, it's done. Hooray! Everything is right. Well, Hooray, or it's begun. It's begun. Next stage is begun. Until there's problems.

Until the culture clash. Yes. So let's try and sympathetically imagine ourselves into this scenario. We're a part of a, over a millennium old religious, ethnic, cultural group whose identity has been shaped by a certain set of markers. Yeah. And there's this shakedown of events concerning this agitator, Jesus, and then his followers are telling the story, amazing things are happening, they're gathering thousands and thousands of followers. And then you hear, like, the unspeakable, that they are inviting non-Israelites into calling them like members of our people,

inviting them in to become a part of our family, just right there. So there on its face, you might say, that's the purpose. And there's all sorts of people being grafted into the family of Israel over time. That's right, that's right. So, you know, I guess, good on them.

I think where the rub really happens is when they don't require them to act Jewish in their food, in their diets, and in the circumcision, and in Sabbath, particularly. Then it's like, well, then what are you guys doing? You're watering this down then. You're making this something that it's not. The totally.

And the way that Luke tells the story is that this is something that the leaders of the Jesus movement discovered. In other words, it wasn't a hatch plan. No, it wasn't all clear to them how this was all going to work out. They discovered it through, in other words, these new people coming into the family forced them to reconsider their conceptions of the family of God. And this all comes to a culmination in Acts 15. So, Paul's been introduced into the story here, or Saul, Saul of Tarsus.

But the city of Antioch becomes the home base for all these Gentiles. Leaders being sent out to share the message of Jesus with non-Israelite. But some, we're told at the beginning of Acts 15, some men came down from Judea and began teaching the siblings. Now listen, you can't be rescued by Jesus unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses. It's my paraphrase. Yeah. It's the Jewish Messiah. Just read your Bible. It's my paraphrase. Yeah. Statue of Messiah. Just read your Bible. It's family of Abraham. Yeah. Ishmael. Moses, Moses was almost killed because.

Totally. Yeah, that's right. He hadn't circumcised his... Yeah, that's right. So that's something? Within... Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's just within the Hebrew Bible. It's a big deal. It's a big deal.

And within reason, memory for these people, the Maccabees, I mean, think of the mother who laid down her life with her seven sons in the story of the Maccabees because they wouldn't eat uncosure foods and break the Sabbath and reverse their circumcision. That important. The blood of the martyrs in this soil has taken place over circumcision and you're gonna make this optional. Yeah. If you want to be a part of the family of Abraham, do what we've always done.

That's their argument. And they have the Bible on their side. Yeah, the every century. Reason history and charged culture war. Yeah. Foundry lines. So Paul and Barnabas had great division and debate with them. And the siblings all determined that they should all go up to Jerusalem and have a Bible study and a council

meeting. So this is not small, small change here. Right. Right. This is at the heart of what it means to be in the family. Totally. Totally. So what they do is they all go back and there's all kinds of people there. There's some Pharisees, so very strict, politically, religiously conservative Jews, who get up and they give their point of view. And what they say is the Bible, tradition, custom.

Then all of these Israelites who have been out seeing non-disrelights, like Cornelius come into the family. And they start telling their stories. So Peter tells a story of Cornelius and we're told that Paul and Barnabas start saying like, dude, we went to all these other places. And it's crazy, man, these, we went to all these other places.

And it's crazy, man. These non-is-relates love Jesus and are following Him, living by the sermon on the mount. It's amazing. And the Holy Spirit did stuff in their midst just like He did with us on Pentecost. So Jacob gets up, or He's translated James here. This is the brother of Jesus, or half brother of Jesus, Jacob. And so he says, brothers. So Simian just related how God first concerned himself about taking from among the Gentiles of people for his name. And you know, I was just reading the book of the 12 this morning.

This was my paraphrase. The book of the 12 prophets. And you know what's written in the words of the prophets. And he quotes from this poem at the end of the book of Amos, Old Testament prophet. He's quoting from a speech of God that says, after these things, and this is after the destruction of Israel and exile, God says I'm going to rebuild the tent of David that has collapsed. I'll restore its ruins, rebuild it so that the remainder of humanity may seek the Lord and all the nations that are called by my name.

Says the Lord who made these things known from long ago. Therefore, it's my judgment that, you know, we should not trouble these Gentiles, these non-Israelites who are turning to God. We should write to them that, you know, they should stay away from food-sacrifice to idols. They shouldn't sleep with somebody they're not married to, and they shouldn't eat blood of animals that have been strangled, that haven't been dealt with, in proper kosher way. Because Moses, from time past, has in every city where he's preached been read aloud, and he's read in synagogues every Sabbath. So it's compromised.

It is a compromise. It's a compromise. Yeah, you know, we talked about this at some point and we didn't really get to the bottom of it. The compromise strikes me as suspicious. Yeah. Because this is about circumcision. So it's like, okay, we're not going to have him do this. They're not going to do circumcision. Which is significant. But we still would like them to do this kosher thing. Yeah, yeah, which is what's the specific kosher practice, which is to make sure that the blood is drained. Is drained. Correct. And that, and you know, you can maybe understand like, life's in the blood, and this is really important symbol. Yep. And what's interesting is when you get a window back on this with Paul's

letter, you find out what he's been teaching, the non-Israeli it's in Corinth. And what he tells them is food that's been sacrificed to the idols is totally fine to eat. Don't go in to the temples and eat it as a part of a worship ritual, but it's totally fine to eat it. So even this compromise... Yeah, Paul doesn't follow. Paul doesn't follow that. But so what's interesting is it's showing about them making a concession. Yeah. But even then it's not the full deal. Yeah.

That other of the apostles are where they're going to take it. Hmm. That interesting. It is interesting. The Luke is interested in this portrait of the challenge. Yeah, this is happening in real time. Yes. How is this going to happen as we wrestle through this? Yeah, yeah, totally.

Peter gets a vision. They got to get together and talk about it. They come up with a compromise. It's a compromise that, the apostle Paul is going to even backpedal on a bit. His conviction is that there should be no cultural boundary line that keeps a non-Israel light from coming into the family. Right.

It's by trusting and following Jesus alone. That's what constitutes membership in the family of Abraham, which we'll get to in our next step of our conversation. But what I'm interested in, yeah, what we're focusing on, the Book of Acts doesn't present this as a neat, foregone conclusion. Yeah, right. The inclusion of...

And it doesn't have some neat story that just kind of like ties it all up really good, nice. Yeah, that's right. So let's look at the pattern. The pattern in Acts is the Holy Spirit who's sent by Jesus, and he said in chapter 1, and the Father, is going to come in your midst and surprising things start to happen. That's Pentecost, that's the Samaritans, that's Cornelius, and so on. And what those surprising things are is they challenge people's conceptions about who's included in God's family.

And it keeps getting wider and wider, not so wide or ambiguous that there's no like call to actually follow Jesus. There is. But the point is, is that the amount of barriers in addition to just trusting and following Jesus, the Holy Spirit keeps just overwriting them. And it's very uncomfortable for these people. And Luke is turning up the volume on that discomfort.

Yes. To be empathetic, you've grown up and for generations upon generations, this has been how you show your allegiance to the God of to your God and to the and to the your people and Now there's this kink which is the family's gotten bigger How do these guys show their allegiance? Mm-hmm, and then how do we live together if we're not doing it the same way. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's yep. Yeah, it's together if we're not doing it the same way. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's, yep, yeah. It's hard enough marrying into another family

when you're the same country and whatever. Yep, that's right. So, let me just add one more, tweak here. Do you remember this multiple conversations ago? Do you remember the story where circumcision was introduced? Yeah, I was going to ask you about going back to that because, because Abraham, after God renews the covenant with him, right?

Well, so Abraham and Sarah oppressed their Egyptian slave. Yeah. He had sex with her and produced this child of their own plan. And what God says is, I'm going to bless that son, make him a well, well, make him 12 tribes. So be like a pre Israel Israel, false tribes, but he's not the chosen one. But what God does is both judge and deliver the future of Abraham's family. Remember the sign of superstition? Is both a divine judgment on the part of Abraham's body that he just used to oppress their Egyptian slaves, cutting it off. But then also, it's marking it

as the part of Abraham's body that contains the future of the family. The future of this family belongs to God. And what God tells Abraham is to then circumcise Ishmael to show that he's a part of your family. So circumcision was initially created for the inclusion of the non-chosen line into the family of Abraham. And ironically what circumcision became by this point was a way of keeping, right, of showing the clear boundary line between his relapse and non-Israelite. I suppose it always did both. Well, that's a good point.

Getting circumcised didn't make Ishmael a part of the line of Isaac or Jacob and so on. But it was a way of including, showing that I'm with Abraham. Yes. I'm a part of the Abraham team. So if you're not circumcised, you're not a part of the Abraham team. Correct. So it not circumcised, you're not a part of the Abraham team.

Correct. Yeah. So it kind of does both things, as it shows who's in and out, creates the boundary line. But also you're saying in the story itself, it shows how that sign is used to include. Correct. The origin of the sign is to include

a non-chosen lineage within the family of Abraham. Yeah, that's interesting. And by the time that they're having this debate in Jerusalem in Acts chapter 15, circumcision has come to symbolize the isolation of Abraham's family among the nations, the difference, essentially, it would become a boundary line. So the question is, do we still have to do that thing? Yeah. And very easily you could argue, yeah, why wouldn't you? Yeah. He had Ishmael do

it. He wasn't in Israelite. Well, he wasn't sorry. Yeah. Israelites come from Jacob. That was his name. It was not born yet. So that's signature, but he was the son of Abraham, but he wasn't in the line of the seed. And it wasn't required of him to get circumcised, but he was allowed to do it. So here's more people who are now identifying their legions with Abraham's family. And the seed of Abraham's Messiah, Jesus.

And so, yes, get circumcised. That's the sign. That's what you do. You could see that logic. In fact, that seems the most logical. Yeah, that's right. Narratively. But the Holy Spirit is pushing in a different direction.

That's surprising. And I guess that's just the thing I, just as the years And I guess that's just the thing I just as the years go by, that's just the thing that keeps enduring sticks with me. But also like pokes into me of the book of Acts is saying there are moments when the Holy Spirit wants to challenge the preconceptions of God's people. This is more than a preconception. What do you mean by preconception? Oh, circumcision is the marker of identification with Abraham's family. It's a preconception that they have. But based off of the scriptures.

Yes, that's exactly my point. That's exactly my point. So you could say the Holy Spirit is making them rethink what was previously revealed in scripture. Well, the Apostle Paul is going to show how this was actually anticipated by the logic of the story of Genesis, but we're not there yet. Okay. So, just Luke's argument in the book of Acts is the Holy Spirit does work in the lives of these non-Israelites.

It's surprising. I didn't think that God would work among these people. And they want to follow Jesus as much as we do. It's happening. And so then it just forces this culture clash. And I'm not trying to infer anything here. I'm just trying to just say this is the portrait in the book of Luke. And it's been sitting there for 2000 years and it's not comfortable. It wasn't comfortable for them.

And so I'm just trying to think of what does it mean to respond faithfully to this portrait of the work of the spirit? I think that the different traditions of the church have had a very difficult time keeping this kind of openness to the spirit. And it's challenging because on the flip side, it's that, well, look at the scriptures. Isn't it fairly clear? But it was not clear.

What you're saying here is, even though it's clear in the scriptures, there was stuff happening on the ground where the same spirit animating them, showing that they're part of the family is now happening to non-Israelites. And so they have to deal with that. They're like, well God's spirit is in them, working. And they are following Jesus with us. So what gives? If God's spirits in them, but they're not circumcised, what gives? So they decide, I guess it doesn't matter, you don't have to get circumcised. Or what they decide is it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. That's what he says.

That's what James says. And then notice he goes back and he goes to his Bible and he says, there's this part of the book of Amos that stuck out to me And that part of the book of Amos doesn't mention circumcision, right? But what it mentions is all these Gentiles who are seeking the Lord and who are called by the name and included in the tent the family your household of David right the anointed one and he says, man, you know what? This is what the story's been all about. This is what's happening.

We should be glad this is happening. That's not make it more difficult. So he's highlighting there's a part of his scriptures that he wouldn't have read or thought about this way earlier, but now he sees like, oh yes, this is what it's been all about. And this is the dynamic of, this is this is what it's been all about and it's this is the dynamic of The dynamic of what that work in Acts chapter 15 But you could still read Amos passage and then say great and now go get circumcised. So now they all need to get circumcised

That's correct. So something happened. Yes, where they putting on this all together Yeah, and they go well it seems like what the spirit is doing is letting us know and they go, well, it seems like what the Spirit is doing is letting us know the circumcision is not on the table anymore. And that leap, how they got there, I don't fully understand. Oh, I see. It's that these non-circumcised followers,

people are giving their allegiance to Jesus and the Holy Spirit is doing in them and through them. The same thing he did with all of us who are circumcised. It's the Holy Spirit. And so he says, them, the same thing he did with all of us, who were circumcised. It's the Holy Spirit. And so he says it seemed, well, they write a letter. Here's what they do in Acts 15, they write a letter.

And in this letter, they said, we've heard some of our number to whom we gave no instruction. We didn't go tell them, say go tell those non-Israelites to get circumcised, but that's what they did. And so they've disturbed you, and unsettled you, saying, you're not really on the Jesus team. And so it seemed good to us. We've come of one mind, he says, to select people,

to send with you, with Barnabas and Paul. It seemed good. I'm going down a few verses to the Holy Spirit and us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials. And then they named those things. That's the conclusion that they draw. That's what they hear the Spirit saying to them. Well, they're allowed there apostles. Yeah. I'm trying to push myself to not give it easy solution here. I want to sit with the same discomfort that they sat with. Yeah. And I'm feeling that discomfort very clearly. So you could say this way, there are moments when what is circumcision represent? It's a cultural custom that tethers, identity of God's family to one particular cultural custom. That of a

people group called the Israelites who live in this place in this time. And that's what the Holy Spirit is bridging over in the story. And so what are we being taught here? We're being taught, there will be moments when God's people are tempted to identify the family of God with my particular national or ethnic family. And the moment that happens, we need to be very careful that we're not mistaken our

kingdom for gods, or my tribe, for gods tribe, and to be open to the fact when the Holy Spirit wants to blow the doors on that. And often that'll happen by God doing surprising things among people that I wouldn't have thought that he would show up and do work in. Yeah. So that seems to me, this is a very extremely relevant principle

about how the Spirit works, because man, that temptation to take how my particular community or family or tradition has practiced the way of Jesus, we've developed these traditions and that's how you're supposed to do it. I mean, this is like the stuff of church splits in a way. Yes. Anyway.

Right. Well, then the question's become what's the guardrails in? Correct. That's right. But you have to take seriously here that God is actively working. That's right. Yep. here that God is actively working. That's right. You would spirit in a way that made them have to, what's the phrase you used? Second guess, their preconceptions.

Yeah, that's right. Even though those preconceptions were rooted in the reading of the Bible. And in their custom. And so this whole set of complexities is going to be thrust upon Paul the Apostle, and Paul the Apostle is going to establish some guardrails, so to speak, that represent, you know, what the Spirit is saying through him and his co-workers to those churches, because it's not just a free-for-all, a legence to Jesus really translates into certain practices in a way of life. But that way of life on this trajectory doesn't involve circumcision.

That cultural practice anymore. And so what we're going to do next is dive into some passages in the letters of Paul because he was commissioned as the apostle to the nations and what he has to say about the identity of the family of God has incredible relevance for our own day. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. We are coming into the final stretches of this theme study on the family of God. Next week we are going to look at the Book of Romans and what the Apostle Paul has to say

about being in the family of God. Paul was writing this letter to bring, actually to bring unity to a set of fractured house churches in Rome. And so in the early chapters of the letter, what he's trying to show is that all along God's purpose has been to build one family of Abraham out of all the nations. And that issue of circumcision, it was a big deal in acts. This is the front-line issue on the ground for Paul. We're also preparing for a question and response episode at the end of this series. We'd love to hear from you. So if you have a question to submit, you can send it to us.

Info at bibleproject.com. Try to keep it to 20 or 30 seconds. Don't forget to tell us your name, where you're from, and transcribe your question and your email for us as well. That would be amazing. Today's show was produced by Dan Gummel, our theme music from the band Tents and Lindsay Ponder on the show notes.

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Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. My name is Alex Williams. I'm here with my parents. I heard her first read about the Bible project through my dad because we used to read the Bible before bed. And then we were like, we should we should find some videos about the Bible. And he's like, well, I found this new YouTube channel called the Bible Project. And we were we first watched the first video and we were like, wow, this is interesting. So then we started watching it every night. Oh yeah, you guys watch it every night? Yeah, we usually watch a video before bed to get a mindset for the Bible and make for the next day and stuff. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We are a crowdfunded project by people like me, find free videos, study notes, podcasts, and more at thebibeproject.com. You man? you