Scripture Daily

Context No. 586 of 4322 · Acts

Context · Reflection

Acts 15:24-29: in context

24Because we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, ‘You must be circumcised and keep the law,’ to whom we gave no commandment; 25it seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose out men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who themselves will also tell you the same things by word of mouth. 28For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay no greater burden on you than these necessary things: 29that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality, from which if you keep yourselves, it will be well with you. Farewell.”

This is the letter the Jerusalem council sent to the Gentile believers, and it settles a fierce controversy with remarkable gentleness. Some had been going out and troubling the new converts, telling them they had to be circumcised and keep the whole law of Moses, unsettling their souls, the letter says, with demands the apostles had never authorized. The council could have piled requirement upon requirement. Instead, guided by the Spirit, they choose the opposite. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, they write, to lay on you no greater burden than these necessary things, and then they name only a short list. The instinct of the whole letter is to lighten the load, not to add to it.

That instinct is worth noticing, because it runs against a very natural religious tendency. Nothing is easier than to keep adding rules, expectations, and burdens onto people in the name of faithfulness, to make the way in narrower and the load heavier, especially for those newest and most eager to please. The troublers were doing exactly that, unsettling souls with a weight of requirements. The council, listening to the Spirit, deliberately refused to add more than was necessary, distinguishing the essentials from everything else and setting the rest down. They cared more about not crushing these young believers than about imposing every possible demand.

That searches how I treat others, and myself, in matters of faith and conscience. It is easy for me to become a piler-on of burdens, holding people to a long list of expectations God never actually required, weighing down the struggling and the new with my own additions, or doing the same to myself until faith feels like an unbearable load. The council's Spirit-led instinct was to lay no greater burden than necessary. Where am I burdening others, or myself, with a weight of requirements God never imposed, and would the Spirit have me lighten the load rather than add to it?

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