The sermon delivered by Peter Allison discusses the first general assembly described in Acts 15, where apostles and elders came together to address a critical conflict concerning the inclusion of Gentile believers in the early Christian church. The assembly debated whether Gentiles needed to adhere to Jewish laws, particularly circumcision, to be saved. Peter argued that God made no distinction between Jews and Gentiles, purifying their hearts by faith. James played a significant role by summarizing the discussions, aligning them with Scripture, and proposing a resolution that emphasized abstaining from certain practices while not imposing the full burden of Jewish law on Gentiles. The resolution highlighted the importance of unity, acknowledging common ground, and ensuring doctrinal consistency with Scripture, ultimately reinforcing the identity of believers as 'Christians' rather than Jews or Gentiles. The decision was communicated through a letter and affirmed by chosen men, leading to rejoicing in Antioch over the encouragement of unity and clarity in doctrine.

Acts 15 is an account of the first general assembly. We pick up this account in verse 6, where the deliberations of this assembly begin. Hear God's word. Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to the men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

So God who knows the heart acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they." Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul, declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles. And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, listen to me. Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name.

And with this the words of the prophets agree just as it is written, After this I will return and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen down, I will rebuild its ruins and I will set it up, so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord who does all these things. Known to God from eternity are all His works. Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are attorney to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled and from blood, from Moses as had throughout many generations, and those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath. Then it pleased the apostles and elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, who was also named Bar-Sabas and Silas, leading men among the brethren." And they wrote this letter by them, the apostles, the elders, and the brethren. "'To the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia.

Greetings, since we have heard that some of you, 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 such commandment. It seemed good to us being assembled with one accord to send chosen men with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas who will also report the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things, that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. And if you keep yourself from these, you will do well.

Farewell. So when they were sent off, they came to Antioch, and when they had gathered the multitude together, they delivered the letter. And when they read it, they rejoiced over its encouragement. Now Judas and Silas, themselves being prophets, also exhorted and strengthened the brethren with many words. And after they had stayed there for a time they were sent back with greetings from the brethren to the Apostles However, it seemed good to Silas to remain there Paul and Barnabas also remained in Antioch Teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also.

May God incline our hearts to perform His statutes forever. Heavenly Father, please seal to our hearts your word that we have heard. And give us faith as we hear your word, that we might be doers of it and not hearers only. Sanctify us and preserve my sinful lips from error. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, they came together to consider a matter, an issue. Last week, we looked in a little bit of detail at what this issue was and why this issue was an issue, why it was such a big issue. And we used the additional detail in Galatians to provide some more context to this passage, to see how great of a change this was in many ways. A change that was not explicitly revealed in the Old Testament. It's called a mystery because it wasn't explicitly revealed.

There was new revelation that was required, but it is, as we will see, consistent with the Scriptures. It's not inconsistent with them. We saw also last week how this was a very divisive issue. Very serious. It was a Gospel issue.

And Paul even went so far in Galatians, which was written just prior to this assembly to the churches in Galatia that he had just visited on his first journey. It was written to them to address this issue, and in there he uses quite strong language. He's even calling them false brethren that were teaching these things. So this week we want to look though at how this conflict was addressed and what we can learn from how they addressed this conflict in the church because as we saw, we said last week that we need to be able to expect these kind of divisions in the church, these kind of conflict. The church has seen this conflict since it was first established when God called Abraham out of Er of Chaldees.

There has been conflict in the church. But how do we address it? What is the biblical process for dealing with conflict? Some conflict can be avoided and ought to be avoided when it deals with things that are not foundational doctrines. But other times we must have conflict.

It would be wrong not to resist, or it would be wrong to avoid conflict when it concerns doctrinal matters of great importance, when it concerns the gospel and other important doctrines of scripture. So we want to look then at how this conflict was addressed. And then next week, Lord willing, we will look at the doctrine itself that was established, particularly the Tabernacle of David and these laws that were given to the Gentiles for them to keep. But how did they address this conflict? It's rather simple, almost so simple, some aspects of it that we maybe read right past it, but the first thing we see is that they came together.

Conflict tends to divide. It tends to separate. It tends to make people go into their own little camps and build walls around them, high walls, so they can't see the other people that they're in conflict with. They came together in verse 6. They came together to discuss this matter.

They called an assembly or a council of elders from churches in different countries. These are two leading church centers at this time. One in Jerusalem and one in Antioch. The Jerusalem church was led by Peter and James and other apostles and elders, and they preached primarily to the Jews. In Galatians 2, verse 8, it says, For he who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised, for the Lord worked through Peter, especially to the circumcised, worked also effectively in me, that is Paul, for the Gentiles.

So the Jerusalem church was ministering primarily to those who were circumcised, to the Jews. The church in Antioch, which sent a contingent of elders led by Paul and Barnabas, with Paul being a Jewish apostle, sent chiefly to the Gentiles. And that was the big difference between these two churches. The Antioch Church was filled with Gentiles and Jews. The Jerusalem church seemed to have mostly Jews.

I mean, it was there in the middle of Judea, which was where the Jews were. And so representatives then from these two leading churches, and I say churches, there would have been probably a number of churches in Jerusalem and Antioch, Had sent elders under Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem. Remember, it was in Antioch where the disciples were first called Christian. Remember in chapter 11? See, they had dealt with this issue all the way back then, which was probably some three years earlier to this assembly.

And they had come up with a new term to refer to believers. Not Jews and Gentiles, but Christians. The Gentiles who believed did not become Jews. And so the church stopped referring to each other as Jews and Hellenists. Remember, that's how the church is described in Acts 6.

They were the Hellenist widows. In Antioch, they were first called Christians. They stopped calling each other Jews and Hellenists and started calling calling themselves and their fellow believers Christians, followers of Christ. Because that was their identity. When people ask them what religion they professed, the answer in Antioch was, I am a Christian, not I am a Jew.

They were Christ followers. That's what defined them. They didn't stop being Jews and Greeks or Hellenists or Gentiles. But they became, first of all, Christians. But what happened is this predominantly Jewish church in Jerusalem had sent people up to Antioch who were teaching that everyone must be circumcised and keep the Mosaic law if they wanted to join the church.

And many Jews were drawn into this practice once these people came up from Jerusalem out of a hypocritical desire to be well thought of by these well-called aggressive Jews who were pushing this idea that everybody had to be circumcised and the Gentiles coming into the church, if they were going to be considered a part of the church, then they had to be circumcised and keep the law. Many of the Jews that were up there, including Peter, Paul says, and even Barnabas, were carried away with this hypocrisy out of a desire, a wrong desire, to be thought of, well thought of, by the Jewish Christians. They didn't want to face the ridicule or the ire of their friends in Jerusalem. And So when these people came up, they changed their practice and started not associating with the Gentiles. And there was a division in the church.

And that's Often the case with racism. People on both sides of a question don't reach out to the other side for fear of being rejected by their peers. They may not believe in that division themselves, but they're afraid of being rejected by their peers, those who are like them. And so they're silent. There were also potentials for misunderstanding between the leadership at Antioch and the leadership in Jerusalem.

Why was Jerusalem sending up these representatives teaching these things, and really undermining the ministry of Paul and Barnabas? And so in the face of these conflicts, in the face of these potential misunderstandings, they came together at great effort and cost to discuss this matter. It says that the apostles and the elders came together also. They came together as equals in an orderly assembly. The apostles do not handle this with their apostolic authority to speak authoritatively on matters.

Paul does that sometimes, but that was not what was done in this situation. Paul did address this matter apostolically when he had written the letter to the Galatian churches just prior to this. He does address it with his authority as an apostle, and he opens that letter by affirming his authority as an apostle, and His right as an apostle. But that is not how this issue was addressed. The apostles didn't just let the Galatian letter stand as the answer to this issue.

They gave us as the church an example to follow when we would have disputes and not have apostolic authority to handle such matters. Thirdly, they considered, I should say, in coming together, Thirdly, they considered, in coming together, they considered this matter publicly. They didn't hash this out behind closed doors and then make a pronouncement. But this debate was apparently public. And that's an important point, especially in dealing with doctrinal conflict, doctrinal matters.

Several times over the past 24 years that I've been on sessions there have been times of conflict when the congregation can be divided to a greater or lesser degree. And it's been, in those times, I've seen it's been a great help for people to know that they can come to session meetings and listen to debate on issues. And interestingly, generally once people find out that they can come a few times, they soon find other places they'd rather be. But it's helpful. It's helpful in addressing the conflict that is done publicly.

And trials of doctrinal matters are in most churches today, most Presbyterian churches, biblical churches, are required to be done openly and publicly. There's no star chambers. There are to be no private backroom meetings, but these things are to be addressed publicly where all can hear. And we see that there were many people here when the multitude kept silent. And it refers to the brethren that were in agreement with this.

So this was done publicly. And in verse 7 we see that in their coming together all of the parties were allowed to speak. It says, there when there had been much dispute. In other words, there was a lengthy period of debate on this issue so that everybody that wanted to speak was able to speak. The apostles could have saved a lot of time just by coming to that assembly and declaring by revelation what should be taught and what should be practiced.

But they don't. They allow all these different factions with Some with very bad ideas. They had their day. They had their opportunity to speak. And so, there is much debate.

And it was only after all these different parties had a chance to have their day in court. It was only after that that the Apostles spoke. You see, if there is a conflict, shutting up and walking away is not generally the right answer. In a conflict, and this applies in any conflict, in the home, in a marriage, as well as in the church, it's important for each side to have an opportunity to be heard. People want their views to be heard and to be considered.

And when they don't feel like they're being heard or being considered, they will often give up or go away, go their own way. But we also see that in coming together, not only did everyone have an opportunity to speak, but equally important, they listened to one another. They really listened to one another. They would have their opportunity to speak, and then they kept silent and listened to the other speak. It says that a couple times.

It says In verse 12, then all the multitude kept silent. This is after there had been much debate. Now the multitude is keeping silent, and they listened to Paul and Barnabas. And then it says when they were silent, after they had become silent, then James spoke. So they are listening to one another.

In conflict, it's very important to understand where people are coming from. What is the issue that is driving people? Because the issue is often not apparent. I remember a number of years ago when I was running a school, some mother in the school had arranged for a class to go on an excursion in one of these big stretch limousines. I used to call them silly cars.

You know they hold like 20 people or something. She had arranged for this class to go but there was this one boy in the class that didn't want to go in that limousine. He was not going to go in that limousine. He was determined not to go in that limousine. And this mother was distraught because she wanted this whole class to go for whatever reason.

So she came down to my office and said, you know, there's this little Johnny down here that doesn't want to go. Would you go talk to him? I got some of these requests. So I thought, OK, I'll go talk to him. The first thing I did was to ask him what his concern was.

And what I realized was that this little boy had an impression that very bad things happened in these kind of limousines. And he was probably right about that. He was probably well instructed at home on this point. Maybe they even called the cars silly cars like I did to my children. But he didn't want to go, he was unwilling to go.

But once I explained to him that nothing bad would happen there, it was just a car and he could ride in it, and that it would be the same people that were with his class, then he was very willing to go. And of course that mother was just astounded. She wondered what I said to him that changed his mind. Well, I just listened to what his concern was, and then was able to address the concern. And so many times in the middle of a conflict, people aren't listening to each other, and they begin to make assumptions about what the other side is thinking or believing, and they're usually not favorable assumptions.

Or the parties will begin to try and find a solution before they understand what the sticking points are. It's important to understand what the sticking points are, what the real concern is, if this is done. It's usually not that thing itself. And Unless we are willing to listen to the other side and try to understand what that is, it's unlikely we can find an acceptable solution. We also see in resolving this conflict that they finished speaking.

Verse 13. They finished after they had become silent. Sometimes in conflict over important matters, people want to keep talking and talking and talking and talking, even if they are no longer adding anything that hasn't already been said. You know, it's this tendency just to talk more. If I just say it again, the same thing, we have to look for understanding of what the issue is, but there comes a point when we've said what we understand, that we have to be silent.

It's as if the conflict could be resolved by getting in more words than the other side. And that's simply not the case. So each side, notice that each side ceases to speak when they are finished. And it's when they become silent. After having listened to all of the discussion and all the conversations that James proposes a solution.

Okay, because now he understood what the issues were. He let people talk. So it's very important then, the first lesson, it's very important that in conflict we come together. And secondly, we see that in this conflict, they considered the matter. They came together and they considered the matter.

There was discussion about the matter. They didn't come together to hear someone declare the answer, or to receive a new revelation. That example, while it may have solved that problem in that, they wouldn't be helpful for us. It's also interesting that they didn't come together here primarily to pray. I am certain that they prayed from many of the things that are said of James by early writers of church history.

But Luke's account never once mentions prayer. What we do see in their consideration of this matter, and again, I know that they prayed. I'm sure they prayed because of other passages of Scripture. But that wasn't the focus here. They were coming together to consider this matter.

And what they do do is they relate this to the works of God and to the Word of God. The works of God and the Word of God. You see, Peter recounts God's work in verses 7-12, nearly 15 years ago, where God showed Peter that the Gospel was going to the Gentiles. God saved Cornelius, baptizing him with the Holy Spirit as Peter was preaching to him. And so Peter concludes that the Gentiles are saved exactly like the Jews were saved by faith.

Of course, this is a statement that directly refutes the old dispensational idea that the Old Testament saints were saved by keeping the law unlike the Gentile believers in the church age. Peter clearly says here that the New Testament Gentiles were saved exactly the way the Jews were saved by faith. And so Peter's argument in discussing or recounting God's works is that God made no distinction between Gentile believers and Jewish believers. Therefore, neither should we." He's arguing from the example of God's works. That God worked these wonderful works in the Gentiles.

That God baptized them with the Holy Spirit, just like He baptized the Jewish believers with the Holy Spirit. So if God is not making a distinction between these two groups, then neither should they. And then Paul and Barnabas add to that in verse 12. God's work through them. The many miracles God's brought in Galatia and Cyprus.

Secondly, in considering this matter, they also appeal to the Scriptures. What is written? The Word of God is the final authority on all matters of faith and practice. And so they appeal to the Word of God. James says that the prophets agree with what was spoken by Peter about how God was not making a distinction between the Jews and the Gentile believers.

And James cites Amos 9, 11 and 12, On that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David which has fallen down and repair its damages. I will raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old. That they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the Gentiles who are called by my name." says the Lord who does this thing. So they say what is being said here at this assembly is consistent with the Scriptures. And James also appeals to Leviticus 17 and 18 for the requirements that should be imposed on the Gentiles.

And next week, Lord willing, we will consider in more detail the doctrinal aspects of this assembly and this decision. So I'm not going to talk more about it, but just note that as we look at the process, that they are appealing to the works of God and to the Scriptures as the final authority for resolving this debate. Now, it's James that is mentioned here as speaking at the end. Who is James? He's been mentioned once before.

But in our study of Acts, we've never really looked at James. We've looked at Peter, and we've looked at Paul. And we've noted how in the first part of Acts, Peter is prominent doing much of the speaking, while the work of Paul and his ministry to the Gentiles is the focus of the second half of this book. But James is present throughout this whole book. He's mentioned.

The Scriptures tell us that James was the next younger brother of Jesus, And that he was one of at least seven children in Joseph and Mary's family. Galatians 1.19 says, I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. And this visit would have been after James, this brother of the Apostle John, had already been executed. So the only James that he's referring to would have been this James, the brother who Paul says is the brother of Jesus. Now, Matthew 13 and Mark talk about, they list the names of Jesus' brothers.

The crowd says, is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?" Where did this man get these things? His sisters, his plos.

So there's at least two sisters. So there's five sons and at least Two sisters. There could have been more. We don't know. But there's at least two.

So there's at least a family of seven. Seven children. The Apostle John, secondly, indicates that his brothers, Jesus' brothers, did not believe in Him prior to the resurrection. In other words, they were not His disciples. John says in John 7, that His brothers were giving Him a hard time, mocking Him, saying, depart from here and go into Judea, that your disciples may see the works you are doing, for no one does anything in secret when he wants to be known openly.

And if you do these things, show yourself to the world." And then John says, "...for even his brothers did not believe in him." And they're sort of saying, look, if you want to be this prophet, which he's, and this person, then you've got to go do your stuff in public. And they're, because they don't believe in him. In fact, Mark says that they thought he was out of his mind. He was a lunatic. And Jesus confirms their unbelief with his reply in John 7 where he says to his brothers, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil.

The world cannot hate you. Why could the world not hate his brothers? Because they were of the world at that point. They were not believers. But James and the brothers are converted after the resurrection.

And James was present with the believers that were meeting in the temple in the days before Pentecost in Acts 1-14. It says, they all continue with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. That would be one of whom would be Jude, who wrote the letter Jude that bears that name. James, his other brother, wrote the epistle of James. Now compared to Peter or Paul or even Barnabas, Paul's co-labor, James is only mentioned a couple times in Acts, but from those times it is evident that James was a leader in the church at Jerusalem.

In Acts 12, after being delivered from prison, Peter tells the church that was praying for him at Mark's mother's house, He mentioned, he motioned to them to keep silent. He described what had happened, how he'd been delivered from prison. And then he said, go tell these things to James and the brethren. That's the way he's used James there, indicates that James is a leader of some sort. Tell James and the Brethren.

Paul says that when he went to Jerusalem, he met with those who were reputed as pillars in the church, who were of reputation. And one of those people that he met with, as we've seen, is James. And he's also mentioned in Acts 21, when Paul visits Jerusalem after his third missionary journey Says Paul met with James and the elders and they were encouraging him to be reconciled with the people who were Misrepresenting him and his beliefs about Jews and Gentiles. And so on the following day, Paul went into James and all the elders were present. You notice how James is listed by name and all the elders, indicating in some way that he is a leader in this church at Jerusalem.

And here in Acts, James takes a leadership role in summarizing all the discussion. He's acting like a moderator. When all the discussion has been completed, the apostles have spoken, he then summarizes what's been said, shows that it's consistent with the Scripture, and then proposes a resolution. That's the job of a moderator. James talks in his book, about the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man as much avail.

And many early writers in the New Testament church speak about James being a man of prayer. In some ways, they made a hero out of him inappropriately. But he apparently was a man of great prayer, such that some have said his knees were like calloused like a camel's knees from the time he spent in prayer. And there are other kinds of mentions of him by name in a number of different ways that would support this idea that he was a righteous man, a man of prayer. He was respected, highly respected by the Jews and by the Gentiles in his day.

A lot more could be said about James, but it's apparent he's also a humble man in that he doesn't take the lead. He didn't try to steer this meeting. He's content to in many ways operate in the background and not thrust himself into the limelight. We don't read about him being a big preacher like Peter was in that day, but he was there. He was there praying with the disciples in the temple before Pentecost.

And he is with this Jerusalem church right through the persecution. He was not an apostle, but he was a prophet. But when all the church was scattered, it says except the apostles, He did not. He apparently stayed in Jerusalem and he's still there when Paul comes back to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey. He's still in a leadership role in the church there.

So this is the James here, taking a leadership role, serving the interests of the assembly. He's serving their interests by listening to what they're saying, taking into account all the different perspectives and what people are looking for, and he finds common ground. And I think that's the third thing we need to see in this passage about this process. They come together, they consider the matter, and they seek to find common ground. Having come together and considered the matter, They didn't just leave it there, but they wanted to put into action something that would actually bring a resolution.

Something that is both faithful to the Scriptures and the Word of God, and that meets the needs of each side in this conflict. Has to be faithful to the Scriptures. It's of no value if it compromises the doctrines of the Scripture. Now there are some things that we can yield on. And the classic example that everybody goes to is alcohol, for example.

It's our right as people, as believers, to drink alcohol. But that's something we should be willing to yield to avoid conflict, to be able to fellowship with other people. And there are many other things in that category. And I think you've all received that little one-page diagram of how we divide out things that are core doctrinal matters from things that are peripheral that we can disagree on and yet still respect each other and still practice these things without causing offense because they are secondary matters. And there's a lot of things in that category related to dress or head coverings or other things that we may have serious convictions about, but we may differ on those.

We can accept that. So they come together, they find a common ground. The Jews were concerned about the Scriptures being broken by allowing Gentiles to come into the church without becoming Jews first and keeping the ceremonial law. And they were also possibly concerned by the distaste of Jews eating and fellowshipping with people who didn't eat the foods they ate or lived the way they lived, or weren't circumcised the way they were. And we saw how some of those were legitimate serious issues.

The Gentiles on the other hand were thinking of the burden that would be imposed on new converts and the stigma they would have to endure if they had to get circumcised and live under the ceremonial law in order to become Christians. And that's a legitimate concern. And so James, after listening to both sides, proposes a solution that seeks to address all the concerns of both sides. It addressed the concern of the Jews by stating that here are things that Gentiles should be expected to keep. And those four things are listed.

They should abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. And they say Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath. So these are things that Moses has, these are Moses' commands and they've been preached to the Jews. So the Jews ought to be happy about this. This is something that is in the Mosaic law that James is saying the Gentiles should follow.

Now, on the other hand, they upheld Paul against the Judaizers, and said, there is nothing else that is required. They are not required to be circumcised. They are not required to keep the ceremonial law. This is all that they need to do. And so they address that.

Now, not everyone has got everything that they wanted. This council does not condemn the Judaizers as heretics. There's no pronouncement there. But I think Paul may have wanted that. By the way, he addressed them in Galatians.

But he didn't get that. The assembly did not do that. They didn't go that far. It was sufficient for them to declare the truth in this case. Now sometimes that is necessary.

And the Scriptures do declare people heretics in places. But it wasn't done here. But it did correct the abuses of these people. It didn't compromise the Gospel or any key doctrine. And it also did confirm that the people who came from James had no authority to say what they did.

What they did say. In other words, it validated Paul again. So these people had come up and they pretended to be from James. And James says in this letter, it affirms that no, these people were not directed to say this. They did that on their own.

So it did provide a strong rebuke to those who had come up to trouble the church in Antioch. And it was written down. It was written down. It wasn't left orally. It was written down, and in chapter 16 verse 4, it was written down as a decree for all the churches to keep.

You see, this was a presbytery. This functioned as a presbytery with authority over these churches. This was not just an association of people with no authority. This assembly presumed to speak authoritatively for all the churches in Christendom. Now they also recognized that Paul was not maybe the right person to bring this message back.

He's being vindicated mostly in this. So they don't say in him and Barnabas back here, you take the answer back. Because he'd have to come back and say, yeah, I was right. No, they send Judas and Silas who are going to affirm verbally what the letter is saying. So they sent it in the letter.

They didn't just leave it verbal. They wrote it down. And they committed it to paper. And then When they brought this message back to the church at Antioch, they sent people with them, significant people, prophets, to affirm what was read, what was in the letter. And you see, when the church at Antioch came, and they gathered together and delivered the letter.

They read the letter to the congregation and they rejoiced over its encouragement. That's the resolution of conflict. This congregation that had been divided, that had been dealing with all these matters, they read the resolution, and because it found common ground on all sides, the church was able to rejoice about it. So Next week, Lord willing, we will look in more detail at what it is that they did, what they declared in its doctrine. But we'll save that to next week, Lord willing.

Let us pray. Father, Your Word is sufficient in every area to address our every need, to address all that we need to know about how to live godly in this present age, so that we are thoroughly equipped for every good work And so that we know how to conduct ourselves in the house of God in your house Lord may we Learn from the wisdom of your word and may you enable us to apply it in our lives to your glory through Jesus Christ. Amen.