The Fourth Wall - Day 13

Acts 15-Jerusalem council

28 “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements: 29 You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell.”
30 The messengers went at once to Antioch, where they called a general meeting of the believers and delivered the letter. 31 And there was great joy throughout the church that day as they read this encouraging message.
32 Then Judas and Silas, both being prophets, spoke at length to the believers, encouraging and strengthening their faith. 33 They stayed for a while, and then the believers sent them back to the church in Jerusalem with a blessing of peace. 35 Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch. They and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord there.

So, it is resolved. And it came to a great resolution because those in the church were willing to look past that fourth wall and see what God was doing. When you realize there is something more than what you have previously experienced, you begin to realize there is nothing impossible for God.

But the Jerusalem council teaches us a few other things as well. It teaches us that people can and do change. I have found this to be true as well. While change is difficult, and it seems like it rarely happens with people, there are those who are willing to listen to reason, those who are willing to see what is really going on in the world, and those who believe the information they can find, and it even changes their minds.

Evangelism in the church has often been thought of as convincing people by making sure you have the best argument. We are rapidly approaching a world and have even entered into a reality where the best argument doesn’t always win. This is sometimes due to the overwhelming amount of information that we are supposed to consume in order to make an opinion. Honestly, it becomes overwhelming, and then it becomes a pursuit that we no longer undertake. We lean back into what we think we know or those sources we are comfortable with. This has massive implications for the world. Who you believe in, who you vote for, and what you believe to be true about the world and reality. All of these things depend on your ability to discern through much information.

The same is true of your biblical work as well. There are many sources, and not all are saying the same things. Your hermeneutic needs to be thought about and understood. You have to become consistent, and you need to find sources you trust but know why you trust them.

This is just the same process you have to take with all the information you are getting from the world today. You have to make sure you can vet your information so you can make a great decision rather than an uninformed decision. It will not be easy, and it is getting harder, but we were hoping you could take this seriously, or our whole world is in jeopardy.

1. Where do you get the information that helps you make informed decisions? 
2. How can you learn to vet your sources better than you do, both for Scripture and for other sources? 
3. How can the church help?