Avoid

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

AVOID

Acts 15:22-29

 22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, two men who were leaders among the brothers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:

The apostles and elders, your brothers,

To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

Greetings.

24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell.

NIV

It seems right to keep this format, as it is in a form of a letter from and to specific people. There is a great debate among the theologians of the past concerning the four activities prohibited by the Apostles, and the Holy Spirit. The dispute arises in that are these prohibited activities still for the church today. We can be certain this is for us, at least in the sense of sexual immorality as there is far more teaching on this topic than just here and it surely seems sexual immorality is not acceptable among people who claim to be Christians. To this it would seem all Christians agree, although we are also witness to some falling from this standard, as we all are but men and woman, human and thus not able to abstain from every sin. Yet here are four that it seems because the Holy Spirit is used here to confirm this is not just a rule of men, but of God. This issue about eating blood, food sacrificed to idols, and meat that is strangled do seem a bit more cultural than eternal, yet the Holy Spirit has confirmed those activities as being improper for believers in Christ. It would seem we do not have any meat in our stores that has been sacrificed to idols, at least that we know of. It would also seem right to think we do not have any meat in our stores where the animals were strangled to death, or that were torn apart by some beast and we came upon the animal and ate of it ourselves with the blood of the animal still within. It was God who told Noah he could now eat meat, but with these restrictions. It would seem today we have meat prepared for us to cook, that meets the requirements or is not included in the offensive activities stated here. So other than the sexual immorality part what can we learn from all this? Perhaps the greatest lesson we could glean from all this is the fact that any instruction we receive from the written or spoken word of men, should have the confirmation of the Holy Spirit if we are to take those words to heart. This is one of the reasons the Spirit has given us the gift of discerning spirits, so we might know that which we read or hear is from men or from God. Here we are, witness, that the Apostles spoke and invoked the Spirit of which we must believe. But other men speak, invoking the Spirit, just to give their words credence, so we must be aware and thus the gift for us to be able to discern between that which comes from the mouth of men, and that which comes from the mouth of God. Yet we are still left with the words, which we would do well to avoid these things. There are behaviors we would do well to avoid. There are thoughts we would do well to avoid. There are attitudes we would do well to avoid.