Stuff to Avoid

"You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangles animals, and from sexual immorality." Acts 15:29

The Council at Jerusalem decided to send a letter to all the churches to make sure that everybody agreed on the “short list” of what inexperienced, new believes should avoid. They said in the preceding verse that anything else would be burdensome, unnecessary and not good for the church. OK…a short list, we like that, right. Let’s check it off one by one.

1. No food sacrificed to idols---We don’t have a problem here, right?
2. No blood---Got it, I am good too, so far, right?
3. No meat from strangled animals---OK (I know this has to do with the sacrificing and staying away from any sacrificing, now that we have redemption in Jesus).
4. No sexual immorality! Uh oh…hold the phone, what does this mean? Why is it on the list of such obvious stuff to avoid? Is it that important? I mean, well the other three are so easy today and, anyways, that was 2,000 years ago, and things have changed, right? Not so fast. Slow down here. Is sexual morality a requirement of the past? If so, let’s bring back that blood stuff. After all, it is on this old list too. Sexual immorality refers to fornication (sex outside of marriage), adultery (sex with people who are married, but not to you), homosexuality (sex with people of the same gender), bestiality (sex with animals) and sexual perversion (pornography and inappropriate sexual behavior).

For the Gentiles, the list was not easy. You see, they could buy sacrificial items out of the back of the temple, and there was temple prostitution as well. For us, #4 about sexual immorality is by far the hardest rule. We have slipped so far into the world’s definition of sexual morality. Right now, everything goes it seems, and only the most extreme immorality is even questionable. But all of it made the short list in the early church, and it’s still on the list today, by the way, no matter who says it is okay, or what percentage of people think it is okay. The majority can be wrong. Something to consider, according to His word.

In His Service,
Pastor Fred

Tweet