as I read this chapter, right before I get to one of my most thought about passages ( Saul/Paul’s conflict over John Mark ), I think of circumcision: what is and isn’t; what it was in history and what it means in our present.
from these ‘brain droppings’ I form questions: essential questions, concerning what circumcision means to mean and why is important?
but before me, there were others, in Peter’s Jerusalem for whom the question of gentile circumcision was an essential life principle: who is in the eternal kingdom? and how, most importantly how, do we enter His Kingdom?
I enter, we approach and abide, His presence by heart circumcision, by heart faith. Hear Peter,
“This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.
The apostles and elders met to consider this question. After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.
Praise Him that He knows the heart… and yet He still loves…
Us… you…
me
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