Today’s Reading: Acts 15:22-41

28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.
Acts 15:28-29

Keep talking. 

How often do we see differences of opinion causing division? All too frequently. We see this all the time across our society and in our own lives. It happens in churches, in clubs, in families, in towns: people separated from each other because of differences of opinions. It can be particularly fraught to try and settle differences of opinion when it comes to religion, for perhaps nothing so easily and quickly divides. 

In chapter 15 of Acts, we see a model for handling differences of opinion, even around religion. As we explored yesterday, the question has come up of whether Gentiles must be circumcised. The apostles with the difference of opinion bring the question to a council: a gathering of the most senior leaders of the church. They consult together, debate, and come to a conclusion. They then send word out across the entire church of their decision, as we see in the focus verse for today. 

For the next four hundred years, the church would settle divisions in just this way. Councils would form to answer the most difficult questions. An old joke says that a camel is a horse designed by committee, but somehow these early councils avoided designing camels. They gave us the creeds, such as the Nicene Creed, the Bible as we know it today, beautiful theologies of how Jesus could be simultaneously human and divine during his earthly life, and much more. 

And these councils maintained the unity of the church until 451, when the Council of Chalcedon resulted in the first schism and the formation of the Coptic Church. 

For me, both here in Acts and in our first four hundred years as a faith, I see a rule for handling differences of opinion: keep talking. These councils did not arrive at their understandings quickly, nor easily, and often they had to wait on the Holy Spirit. But, if the early councils could come to agreement on such consequential items as the make-up of the Bible and the nature of Jesus’s humanity and divinity, how much more can we do the same for lesser issues?

Think
Where do I need to keep talking?

Pray
Ask God to show you how to be a peacemaker. 

Do
Find a way to be a peacemaker today.

Think, Pray, Do. As we respond in faith to scripture, God moves in power through our minds, hearts, and bodies. We are the people of God. Thanks for reading today. Go in peace. Amen.

Think, Pray, Do devotionals by Ted Goshorn follow the suggested bible reading plan from his website and book, Prayer Changes Us. Find this Bible reading plan at tedgoshorn.org/biblereading. If you have found today’s devotion helpful, don’t forget to subscribe for daily emails at tedgoshorn.org and share with others that we may think, pray, and do faithfully.