I was listening to a talk recently from a pastor who was talking about the early church and the challenges they had as the gospel began to spread. He talked about how in the beginning nearly all the followers of “The Way” were basically people continuing to follow Judaism with the knowledge and recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. There were Jewish customs and traditions they had grown up with and they would have continued to follow those customs as they always had done.

However as the gospel spread, people who weren’t Jewish heard the word and accepted it, they too became followers of Jesus. The problem was these people didn’t know the Jewish stories and customs. They may have had no awareness of Abraham, the exile and rescue from Egypt, the wilderness, the Promised land, the story of the kings, the Babylonian exile and the return. They may have had no awareness of the Jewish law and commandments

But they had an awareness of Jesus and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

When these people started to integrate into the early church I’m sure the Jews were shocked at their lack of knowledge and we know that they were offended at these ‘Gentiles’ failure to observe their customs. In some places as Gentiles were turning to Christ they were being ’forced’ to embrace the Jewish customs. Can you imagine just accepting Jesus and a week later being told it was time to be circumcised!! These new converts were causing a challenge for the Jews who only knew one way to follow God – the way they always had! No one seemed to agree on what to do.

This was the reason that the Council of Jerusalem was called in Acts 19. At the council they heard reports about what had been happening to the Gentiles who had been turning to Jesus. People were amazed at what had been happening and this led to James standing up to declare the following

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. Acts 15:19-20

This would have been huge at the time but it meant the gospel opened up to many who would never have heard it. It opened the gospel to the Gentiles in a way that meant they didn’t need to become Jews.

I wonder what it means for us today?

We’re most likely not dealing with the Jew/Gentile tension like they were but whether its gender, racial, or socio economic, each of us are probably dealing on some level with minority cultures and majority cultures within the church. Which leads me to ask the following questions

Is our view of following Jesus actually more tied up in cultural norms than the gospel?

Are we trying to convert people into a majority culture or bring them into a relationship with Jesus?

I sometimes worry that we are trying to put new wine into old wineskins of behaviour. Are we asking people who didn’t grow up with our values to hold to all those values? Are all of those customs biblical?

I’m really wrestling with this one. I don’t want to water down holiness but I equally don’t want to place a burden on someone that is ill fitting. I haven’t got the time to fully explore it all here but I think its worth us all fully thinking and praying this one through.