Acts 15:12-17: a reflection

12All the multitude kept silence, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul reporting what signs and wonders God had done among the nations through them. 13After they were silent, James answered, “Brothers, listen to me. 14Simeon has reported how God first visited the nations to take out of them a people for his name. 15This agrees with the words of the prophets. As it is written, 16‘After these things I will return. I will again build the tabernacle of David, which has fallen. I will again build its ruins. I will set it up 17that the rest of men may seek after the Lord: all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who does all these things.’

At the Jerusalem council, after Paul and Barnabas report what God has done among the Gentiles, James sums up the significance: God first visited the Gentiles, he says, to take from them a people for his name. And he shows that this fulfills the prophets, who foretold that God would rebuild David's fallen tent so that the rest of humanity, all the Gentiles called by his name, might seek the Lord. The inclusion of the nations was not an afterthought; it was God's plan all along, written in the prophets.

Notice the phrase James uses: a people for his name, taken from the nations. God's purpose was always wider than one nation; he intended, from the beginning, to gather a people to himself from every nation, all the peoples the covenant people had thought were outside. What some in the church saw as a surprising, even troubling development, the flooding in of Gentiles, James shows to be the very thing the prophets had promised. God's welcome was always meant to reach the outsider.

That is worth holding both as comfort and as challenge. As comfort: if you are one who might have seemed outside, God's plan all along was to take a people for his name from every nation, including yours, including you. His welcome reaches to you. And as challenge: God's heart is wide, reaching to peoples and persons we might be tempted to think are outside the circle. Do not draw the boundaries of God's welcome more narrowly than he does. He gathers a people for his name from every nation. Rejoice that his welcome reaches the outsider, and let your heart be as wide as his.

Lord, James showed that your plan all along, foretold by the prophets, was to take a people for your name from every nation, that all might seek you. Thank you that your welcome was always meant to reach the outsider, including me. And keep me from drawing the boundaries of your welcome more narrowly than you do. Give me a heart as wide as yours, rejoicing that you gather a people from every nation. Let me never treat as outside those you long to bring in.