Acts 15:11 “No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

The importance of this meeting in Church history cannot be overstated. Having been in a lot of church meetings, I can imagine the scene very easily. Tensions and emotions had risen quite high by the point Peter made this vitally important pronouncement. As he said in verse seven, God had chosen him as “point man” in sharing the Gospel with Gentiles, and he and Paul were on exactly the same page here. Paul later famously restated Peter’s declaration in Ephesians 2:8-9, and it is something that needs to be renewed in every spiritual generation. The moment we think that our actions can in any way earn salvation for us, we are putting ourselves into the place of God. Christ alone is the Savior! God does have stuff He wants us to do, as Paul said in Ephesians 2:10, but that is after we are saved for eternal life. Yesterday I watched a video of Ray Comfort talking with several people in the US about salvation and the Gospel, and it was remarkable how they all tried to make salvation about being “good people,” even though every one of them had had church exposure, at least. That shows that American churches aren’t really communicating the Gospel! What makes this so prevalent is that we all want to take credit for our salvation so that we can take pride in it. Pride is precisely what caused Lucifer’s downfall! Salvation requires a level of humility that some people reject. The “Judaizers” in this conference wanted to take pride in the things they considered made them Jewish, and Peter is here proclaiming that every human being is on level ground when it comes to salvation. The Judaizers didn’t like that!

Since I’ve always been a Gentile this might not seem so pertinent to me, but as an MK in Japan I saw missionaries who seemed to attach cultural elements to salvation, requiring Japanese to behave in certain ways. Whereas it is true that there are elements of popular Japanese culture that violate Biblical principles, there are elements of American culture that do the same! Culture, religion, and faith are all different, but they certainly tend to bleed into each other. There are many Japanese who can’t imagine how they could be fully Japanese without participating in Buddhism and Shinto, and they have a great fear of becoming “un-Japanese.” At the same time, many missionaries feel, at least subconsciously, that “The American way is the Biblical way.” Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn’t! As a “Third Culture Kid” I have an advantage in seeing the flaws in both cultures, but that puts me at risk of thinking I’m always right, perhaps even more than monocultural people do. We’re back to the necessity of humility, and that’s where I stumble all too often. I rejoice when God manages to use me and speak through me, but any truth that comes from my lips originates in Him, not me, so I am to be grateful, and neither proud nor presumptuous.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Having hit 75 I garner a lot of respect simply from age, but that number just means I haven’t died yet! Help me be genuinely humble before You, accurately transmitting what You have said and are saying, so that Your truth through me may indeed set people free, (John 8:32) for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!