Act, Understand, Cooperate
 Acts 15:7-9
After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.

Luke spent a long time preparing us for this chapter. From chapter 10 on, Peter, Barnabas, Paul and others have been keeping company with pagans and announcing the Good News to them.

The reader has learned in many different ways this behavior, so alarming to the other Jews, is in fact nothing but obedience to God. God is the One who is acting; God has set these men on this road and has stirred faith in non-Jews.

Questions arose from the Jews: how does this fit together with the history of our people, with our “religion”? But in the end, all these objections had little weight before Peter’s single question: “Who was I to keep God from acting?”

When they gathered in Jerusalem, it was not to decide what God had the right to do. That is not what we/they are asked to do. Our role is to discern how God is acting and to accept His action and plan.

What is revealed in Acts is God wants to enter into a relationship with all human beings. Salvation must reach the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). The reader discovers in Christ there exists a potential for all humanity to know God.

Do we think we know in advance all Christ is capable of taking on?

Do we know in advance what it means for the Gospel to be preached to every creature?

The answer of Acts is clearly “NO.” The disciples were led to take steps, like Peter’s visit to Cornelius in chapter 10, the importance and meaning of which they only realized much later.

God leads, opens up new ways, holds together what we have thought was incompatible, and it is only later an awareness of what took place is given.

Have you ever had an experience which opened you to God before you could explain the meaning of what you had experienced?

What does it change to believe God is directing the life of His people?

What does this require on the part of God’s co-workers?

Adapted from the Taize web-site