Friday, February 4, 2011

God's "cracked pots."

Acts 15:1 (NLT)
While Paul and Barnabas were at Antioch of Syria, some men from Judea arrived and began to teach the believers: "Unless you are circumcised as required by the law of Moses, you cannot be saved."

- And here we are two thousand years later and some Christians still promote old covenant practices such as keeping the ten commandments, tithing, and myriad legalistic formulas to appease God in one way or another. So strange.

Acts 15:11 (NLT)
We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus."

- The core doctrine of salvation by God's grace is already clearly understood.

- Paul and Barnabus must have had a real "dust up." There is no recorded reconciliation between these two old friends.

Acts 15:39 (NLT)
Their disagreement was so sharp that they separated. Barnabas took John Mark with him and sailed for Cyprus.

- So again we see that the early church was no more "saintly" than we are today. Frictions, arguements and disputes still occur, yet somehow God accomplishes his work through us anyway.

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