Acts 11:1-18; Following

The Jewish believers were upset that Peter had associated with Gentiles. Their particular hangup was that he went into the home of non-Jews -- not that he had baptized them. There was a direct command against the former; the latter was still new to everyone. In his defense, Peter explained that God had communicated through visions, direct words of the Spirit and signs. His conclusion statement was basically "If God is doing this, who am I to stand in his way?" It came down to who was in control; who was running the church?

I admire Peter for his openness. He allowed God to be God and stayed in the role of follower. Through dreams, direct revelation and signs on top of his years of walking with Jesus, Peter was leadable. He was truly a follower.

We don't talk much about followership. We all want to change the world rather than let God change it using us. We see needs and respond; that's easy. Seeing God meet the needs and falling in line with what he is doing is a little more challenging. It might not make sense to everyone around us; it might not make sense to us. Yet Peter followed with total commitment because he could point to specific interventions by God and the overall outcome looked a lot like what Jesus had often done. I think that radical ideas proposed by those who have a "leading" void of specific interventions (direct voice, vision, signs) and the outcome of which does not necessarily look like one of Jesus' priorities, should be suspect. Yet radical ideas backed by specific interventions of the Spirit that lead to outcomes like those in the life of Jesus, need to be embraced.

I anticipate that the Spirit is much more active in guiding us today than we recognize. I also anticipate that the attribution of personal desires to the Spirit's leading is becoming more and more common, even when the Spirit probably has not done a thing. Hence the two ends of the pendulum swing, i.e., ignorance of Jesus with attribution to the Spirit for a license to do what I want versus an amazing depth of Biblical understanding resulting in an orthopraxy so strong that not even the Spirit could break us out of it. It seems that Peter found the middle ground where a rich understanding of the nature and goals of Jesus were married to a clear vision of the work of God in the world today.

Acts 4; Dilemma

"They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened." That would be a comical line if it were not so true. . . and I don't mean for them. I can recall many times in life that I have sat in on meetings where church leaders were concerned about something good that was breaking out but that was not being done in a way that seemed orthodox. A new work in a part of the city that the church had not specifically planned, outreach that several youth started that had grown amazingly quickly or social justice work that the church never planned.

In this story, the Jewish leaders were trying to figure out how to stop a new act of God. In my story, church leaders have often been faced with the same dilemma. When we define church too narrowly, God seems to break out in other places. When we limit his activity to that which we have figured out and anticipate, he always comes up with surprises.

As I get older, I think I like surprises less and less. Yet, I really don't want to be that guy who is left behind when God does something new. I don't want to be part of the crowd that speaks out against something good. These poor Jewish leaders looked bad as they tried to figure out how to stop miracles occurring. I don't want to be that kind of leader. I think that means saying goodbye to the false security of having God figured out.