Tag: circumcision

  • Circumcision < Saul's Extreme Cultural Cut of Timothy

    Circumcision < Saul's Extreme Cultural Cut of Timothy

    Why does circumcision of Timothy now seem to be a necessity if he is to continue with Paul and Silas on this second missionary journey?


    After parting ways with Barnabas, Paul has chosen Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. 

    And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

    Acts of the Apostles 15:41 ESV
    Lystra and Derbe in the Taurus Mountains of Turkey
    view of the Taurus mountains looking Southeast back toward roads from Syria

    Paul, on this second missionary journey began via a land route from the church in Antioch, rather than by sea and then proceeding north from Perga as he and Barnabas had traveled before after walking across Cypress to its coastal towns.

    Acts 16:

    Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra.

    A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.

    2 He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.

    Lystra, Derbe and Iconium in the Taurus mountains.

    3 Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.


    But wait! I thought that we had settled those issues of circumcision at the Council in Jerusalem?

    Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. – Acts 15:24-25 ESV

    Cultural clashes between Greeks and Jews

    In fact, Saul of Tarsus continues to preach Christ to the Jews at great cost as the apostle returns once more to their local synagogues along with others.

    Do you recall the issue which had led Paul and Barnabas to return to Jerusalem?

    Circumcision.


    Many gentiles had come to follow Christ and worshiped as brothers alongside converted Jews of The Way. Young Timothy is the son of one such believer.

    Saul of Tarsus had been equally zealous for the Mosaic traditions before his encounter with Christ some years ago.

    Joseph of Cypress (Barnabas) had sought out Saul in Tarsus where Paul had mostly stayed out of sight of zealous Judaizers for ten years. This is not dissimilar to Joseph bringing Mary and the child Jesus out of Egypt more than forty years before after the death of Herod’s grandfather.

    Yet Zealots for the Law and traditions had recently caused trouble on Saul’s first missionary journey with Barnabas.

    Apostles sent out into ever-changing political landscapes of Rome, Judea and a Hellenist world in between journeyed on frequently-shifting tectonic plates of clashing cultures.


    Some men had come down to Antioch from Judea saying,

    “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

    Acts 15:1b ESV

    This incident in Iconium, one of many, had threatened the apostles sent out by the Church.

    On his second missionary journey Paul seeks out these new believers once more, including a young man named Timothy who had been raised by his Jewish grandmother and mother.

    Lystra, Derbe and Iconium in the Taurus mountains.

    16:2 He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.

    Luke mentions [16:1] that Paul and Silas travel to Lystra and Derbe even before now mentioning ‘brothers‘ in Iconium. What had happened in Iconium last time?

    Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed.- Acts of the Apostles 14:1 ESV

    At Iconium as in Antioch Pisidia the apostles received a divided (and sometimes violent) reception to the Gospel.

    The Jews of Cilicia held to their Jewishness in opposition to rampant cultural sin in the customs and ceremonies of an idolatrous Hellenistic majority of their own towns. Saul of Tarsus returns to these Christian brothers trying to convince other Jewish brothers that Jesus is the Christ.


    How could these apostles of the risen Jesus reach even more Jews in theirs journeys?

    In order to do this the Apostle Paul and his company of men must seem most Jewish in order to proclaim Christ in their synagogues.

    BUT the issue of bringing Timothy to other towns is that his father is Greek and of course had not circumcised his son eight days after his birth — in the manner and custom of Hebrew fathers.


    Circumcision set (18th c.)

    חֲתַן דָּמִים לַמּוּלֹֽת׃

    Circumcision

    At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood” with reference to the circumcision.

    Exodus 4:26b – Proclamation of Zipporah after she completed this sign of the covenant of the LORD on Moses’ son.

    We read and the Hellenists read of the signs that the Lord God had confirmed His solemn promises to Abraham.

    And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

    ACTS of the Apostles 7:8 – from the preaching of Stephen to the Sanhedrin (most likely with Saul of Tarsus nearby)

    Let’s be clear that in the διαθήκη covenant of περιτομή circumcision that our solemn agreement cut with the LORD is paramount to any sign or evidence of the flesh.


    And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying,

    “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

    Gospel of Luke 22:20 – the words of the Lord Jesus to the Twelve at the meal of the last Passover

    WE are not Jews or Christians — true followers of the LORD (as was Moses) — true disciples of Jesus the Christ of the New Covenant — by signs of baptism, communion, ceremony or any other claim of grace separate from God’s covenant in Scripture.

    The Apostle Peter had also been confronted with this same issue after reporting back to the Church in Jerusalem of the signs of the Holy Spirit also given to the gentiles.

    Peter, John, Phillip, Paul, Barnabas and all the evangelists of the Gospel must continue to convince Jews as well as gentiles concerning God’s mercy and new covenant of the heart.

    Paul’s later letter begins by addressing circumcision.

    Epistle of Paul to the Romans

    For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

    Romans 1:16 ESV

    To the Jew FIRSTApostolic approach of taking the Gospel into all of the 1st century world.

    Paul mentions the culture of so many idolaters among whom the Jews and Christians live. This idolatry is a legitimate concern, more so than a sign of circumcision.


    Romans 1:22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

    24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!

    Amen.


    These Hellenists to whom the LORD made the Jews a light living among them are citizens of many towns to which Paul now will bring this Greek disciple named Timothy.

    BUT the Jews have been rightly cautious about now allowing the leaven of their idol worship come near the worship of the Living God — most especially at their own Passover feasts.

    2023 Google Earth view of Greece, next stop on Paul's second missionary Journey in Acts 16.
    Note: Konya (Iconium near Derbe & Lystra) in foreground – source: Google Earth AD2023

    For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.
    So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

    Paul’s letter to the Romans 2:25-26 ESV

    Festivals of Pagan Idolatry

    I have only to mention recent, current and highly anticipated pagan festivals of the 21st century to paint a glace of the idolatry of first century — idol worship including parades, drinking, ritual sex, raucous celebrations and porneia in the public places — which Jews and Christians recognize as abhorrent to Almighty God.


    The Hellenes to which Paul, Silas and Timothy would soon travel lived NOT in a unified Greece under Roman occupation similar to the religiously-united Judea of the Jews throughout the Empire, but in numerous culturally divergent city-states conquered separately by Roman centurions advancing from ports of the Mediterranean and Aegean seas.

    Idolatries of the Hellenes worshipping gods of each city, similar to god idols of Roman myths allowed for a tolerant Roman peace. Romans simply viewed idol worship as harmless and practical public parties of a cultural nature, even a religious duty.

    These frequent festivals sometimes celebrated each year may have been out of obligation, but culturally they generally were celebrations influential men of the city used to maintain their hold on the women, boys, slaves and money they controlled.

    Remember, in most of the Roman Empire and most Hellenist cities MOST men served other men of means in charge of various aspects of their everyday lives. Many captive slaves worked for local land owners and the Roman army as well, including young boys who served their masters in ways NOT acceptable to any faithful Jew.

    On the further mission beyond Derbe, Lystra and Iconium (modern-day Kona, Turkiye) Silas and Saul of Tarsus would certainly NOT want any fellow Jew to mistake this faithful young man and disciple, Timothy, as a Greek (because of his uncircumcision by his non-Jewish Greek father) as some Jews who traveled like Saul already knew.


    Acts 16 continued (with Timothy)..

    4 As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.


    Acts 15 Decisions of the Council in Jerusalem (last year)
    .. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements:
     that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. 
    If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. 
    
    Farewell.”

    So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.

    Acts of the Apostles 16:5 ESV

    ACTS of the apostles Silas, Paul and Timothy .. To Be Continued…


  • A.D. 49 – the Council at Jerusalem

    A.D. 49 – the Council at Jerusalem

    Acts 15

    – a council of the Apostles in Jerusalem


    map of route between Jerusalem and Antioch where apostles sent missionaries into all the world of the gentiles
    between the Church at Antioch & the Council at Jerusalem

    Arrival of Paul and Barnabas from the Church at Antioch Syria

    When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. 

    Historical context:

    In A.D. 49, nearly two decades after the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Christ Jesus, the Church has grown greatly by the power of the Holy Spirit.

    • Claudius had assassinated Caligula in Rome and is now Caesar of the Empire.
    • Herod Antipas, who had ruled Galilee and Perea was exiled and died ten years ago in A.D. 39
    • Herod [Marcus Julius] Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great, raised in Rome and appointed Ethnarch of Idumea, Judea and Samaria, had died in Caesarea Marittima, Roman port of access to Judea and beyond.
    King Herod Agrippa I Acts 12:19 .. he examined the guards and ordered that they be led away to execution. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and was spending time there.
    • A.D. 44, in addition to imprisoning Peter, Herod Agrippa had executed the Apostle James in Jerusalem and then traveled bank to Caesarea where he died.
    • Herod Agrippa II now governs Syria, Galilee and Perea
    • A.D. 49 The Emperor Claudius has just expelled the Jews from Rome (but not Christians)

    “Claudius saw the Jews as troublemakers who undermined his right to rule, and he expelled them from Rome. Gentile Christians, however, were not expelled from Rome, which amplified Jewish-gentile animosity in the early Roman church.

    Rose Guide to the Book of Acts, p.45

    A Council of Leaders addressing issues of Culture

     But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”

    The Apostles and Elders of the church in Jerusalem had dealt with these issues. Peter has previously addressed the role of the Holy Spirit in accepting gentiles — even Romans of the army enforcing their government of Jerusalem in Roman Syria.

    The Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection, strained to enforce Mosaic LAW among the Jews throughout the Roman Empire long before the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of the Christ prophesied throughout Scripture.

    The political JEWISH party of the Pharisees chose what they believed was a defining issue of Jewish Law to present to their fellow leaders at this council in Jerusalem.

    Saul of Tarsus — Paul — had been zealous for the Law as a Pharisee and understood detailed application of the Law of Moses; but he and Barnabas had also been persecuted in Asia for their proclamation of grace through the blood of Christ in accepting gentiles into the worship of God Almighty, Father of our Lord Jesus who became the redemption for the sins of Jews and gentiles alike.

    The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 

    Church doctrine a line in the sand. - How will a leader or council of leaders choose what the Church will teach?
    How will a leader or council of leaders decide what the Church will teach?

    Illuminating the Authority of Church Councils

    (from the Greek) συνέδριον

    We gentile Christians may not quickly make the connection of the importance and authority of this meeting from the Hebrew traditions of Jerusalem.

    I didn’t.

    Transliteration
    synedrion (Key)

    The KJV translates Strong’s G4892 in the following manner: council (22x).

    • any assembly (esp. of magistrates, judges, ambassadors), whether convened to deliberate or pass judgment
    • any session or assembly or people deliberating or adjudicating
      • the Sanhedrin, the great council at Jerusalem, consisting of the seventy one members, viz. scribes, elders, prominent members of the high priestly families and the high priest, the president of the assembly.
      • a smaller tribunal or council which every Jewish town had for the decision of less important cases.

    Obviously this group is NOT the seventy members of the Jewish Sanhedrin which condemned the Lord Jesus and now still decide religious issues twenty years later in similar gatherings of leadership on behalf of the Temple.

    The council of Jerusalem is a smaller group of Christian men with authority over the Church anointed by the Holy Spirit.

    Luke does NOT call this key meeting of Christian leadership in Jerusalem a synedrion or council (though it is).

    Many Bible translations accurately add a heading to ACTS of the Apostles 15:

    The Jerusalem Council [ESV], The Council at Jerusalem [NIV], The Council in Jerusalem [NASB]


    Circumcision – Not Really the Issue

    Recall that Peter, Paul and many leaders of the Church must address MANY issues at odds between the opposing cultures of the Jews and the Greeks, Romans — any gentiles seeking to worship the Lord God.

    Is the issue food?

    Who should worship the Lord?

    Where? When? What will our corporate worship gathering look like each week?


    How will gatherings of worshipers of different cultures agree as a ‘church’ to follow and teach only certain rules or doctrine?

    As a reminder to my fellow gentile Christians, a quick look at circumcision:
    
    περιτέμνω - Lexicon :: Strong's G4059 - peritemnō
    - cut off one's prepuce (used of that well known rite by which not only the male children of the Israelites, on the eighth day after birth, but subsequently also "proselytes of righteousness" were consecrated to Jehovah and introduced into the number of his people)
    
    - since by the rite of circumcision a man was separated from the unclean world and dedicated to God, the word is transferred to denote the extinguishing of lusts and the removal of sins
    

    10:12 וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ כִּי אִם־לְיִרְאָה אֶת־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לָלֶכֶת בְּכָל־דְּרָכָיו וּלְאַהֲבָה אֹתוֹ וְלַֽעֲבֹד אֶת־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל־נַפְשֶֽׁךָ׃

    “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.. Deuteronomy 10:12 ESV


    10:16 וּמַלְתֶּם אֵת עָרְלַת לְבַבְכֶם וְעָרְפְּכֶם לֹא תַקְשׁוּ עֽוֹד׃

    Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

    Deuteronomy 10:16 ESV – the word of the Lord through Moses

    The issue presented to the council is not the actual symbolic act OR the Law of Moses OR one culture being cleansed to become as the flesh of another. Circumcision is NOT the issue, but the underlying stubbornness of the hearts of believers and worshipers to agree.


    Peter’s Leadership of the Council at Jerusalem

    The church at Jerusalem is now being led by James son of Joseph and Mary.

    It has its own elders as well as deacons anointed by the Holy Spirit to serve under the Twelve (which now includes Mathias).

    Peter understands that in these times of persecution other Apostles will also be killed as was the James the greater by Herod and other leaders such at Stephen.

    We learned during the first mission trip of Paul and Barnabas how they modeled leadership of the the local churches after the church at Antioch Syria, not actually the church in Jerusalem where this council has gathered.

    Antioch Syria where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians became a model for church leadership in Asia and Greece.

    Simon Peter’s Instruction to the Council

    ACTS 15:7 And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them,

    “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

    10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?

    But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

    12 And all the assembly fell silent..


    Here is true leadership by the Apostle, even though technically Peter has no active role in leadership in Antioch, any of the Asian churches or even the Apostle’s own local gathering in Jerusalem.

    What else could this diverse group of leaders do? They fell silent, withholding their former opinions and cultural differences concerning worship.

    NO, circumcision was not really the issue — other than the circumcision of their own hearts which the Apostle has just cut to the quick.

    Therefore the council now listens to the evidence presented to them (which Luke has already outlined from the recent first mission of Paul and Barnabas) with ears to hear.


    .. and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.


    A Pastor’s Response

    NEXT we will take a look at the leadership of Jerusalem’s Pastor James after Paul and Barnabas finished speaking.

    ACTS of the Jerusalem Council TO BE CONTINUED, God-willing…