Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Continued Growth

Below is the daily Bible reading I am doing for the West Side church. Please feel free to follow along.

Our growth in knowledge and understanding must never come to an end. That is very evident in today’s reading (Acts 15). Paul and Barnabas had been taking the message of the gospel to men and women who were Gentiles. One sign that a man was a Jew was his circumcision. Gentile men would not have been circumcised, and many Jewish-Christians believed that these men need to be. Because of this a council is called in Jerusalem to discuss it.

At this council you have the elders of the church in Jerusalem, the Apostles still left in Jerusalem, and even some converted men from the class of Pharisee. Here they discuss whether it is necessary for a Gentile man to be circumcised to follow Christ. After much discussion they conclude that it is not a requirement.

I think this account gives us great insight into the fact that our growth and knowledge of Scripture and God’s will never comes to a conclusion. Our lives are a constant evolution of learning and growing. If through the course of this year we were going to study Paul’s writing in order of composition, we would see a very evident evolution in Paul’s theology. Does his theology change, no, but he does grow deeper in his understanding.

So are you growing in your knowledge and understanding of who God is? Do you desire to grow deeper and understand him better? If not, why? What books, other than the Bible are you using to help you understand God a little better?

1 comment:

Michael Dawson said...

Thank you for your comment.

I do believe that you are making a mute point. The use of Jewish-Christian in the passage was to state a person born a Jew, which is heritage, who has converted to following Christ.

As a follower of Christ I certainly have a different theology than you, and believe my use of the term Jewish-Christian was proper. I do sincerely appreciate the points you brought out about the difference in Judaism and Christianity. The understanding of the Messiah has been a dividing line between these two antithetical religions, and I imagine will continue to be.