Thing's Known From Long Ago
Things Known From Long Ago
In Acts 15, the early church faced a defining question: on what terms did Gentiles belong to the people of God? Jewish believers who had come to faith in Jesus were insisting that Gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. The debate threatened to fracture the movement. When James stood up to render a verdict, he did not offer a new policy. He went to the prophet Amos: "God will rebuild David's fallen tent… that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name" (Amos 9:11–12, quoted in Acts 15:16–17). Then he named what changed everything: "things known from long ago" (Acts 15:18). The inclusion of the Gentiles was not a revision to the plan. The four requirements James issued — abstaining from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality — did not originate with Moses. They reached back before Moses, before Abraham, before Israel existed as a nation, to the covenant God made with all humanity after the flood (Genesis 9). These were the shared practices that would allow Jewish and Gentile believers to worship together, be connected with each other's families, and share their lives and faith around a dinner table. God's commitment to redeem all people had been established long ago. Understanding this put Jews and Gentiles on the same footing.
That is the weight of "things known from long ago" (Acts 15:18). Ideas about identity, purpose, and meaning continually present themselves to us. However, they will be revised in five years and discarded in ten. That God loves and wants to restore all people into a life-giving relationship with himself is from long ago. God's design and answers are not recent. The answer the church carries is not new — and that is not a weakness. That is the whole point. You are not standing on a position developed in response to current events. You are standing on the one that was there before current events began.
The answer isn't new. It's as old as time.
Where have you felt pressure to trade the ancient for the current — and what would it mean to hold your ground on something settled long before the argument started?