Acts 11:1-18 | the Church Will Criticize You. Don't Criticize It.Sample

Let’s pick up the storyline.

Some Gentiles have just received the Holy Spirit (Acts 10). Peter embraces them and baptizes them. The word gets out, and other believers start to criticize Peter because they are not circumcised. That is, they have not first become Jews and have not gone through all the Mosaic regulations to become ceremonially clean that God once prescribed. Peter explains what happened—how God gave him a vision that redefines what it means to be spiritually clean, and how God poured the Holy Spirit out on these Gentiles. After hearing this, Acts says the church responds and has no further objections, but instead praises God for the way he is working among the Gentiles.

This is how it’s supposed to work. But this is not how it often happens.

Too often the church (or people in the church) will just criticize you. Period. Sometimes it’s for seeking to be obedient to something you sense God has called you to do. Other times it’s for doing a new thing that doesn’t show proper conformity to the patterns or traditions that have long been embraced. Many times, it has nothing to do with clear-cut sin and obedience, but revolves around the way you look, act, or fail to culturally conform to a particular congregation. Some people in the church will criticize you simply because they are afraid of new things. (And sometimes it’s the opposite of all of this—for not being new enough, radical enough, “Spirit-led” enough, or for being too conformist to past traditions and ways.) In too many churches, the hills to die on have less to do with anything scriptural and more to do with personal preferences.

Often it reveals that those who are most vocal in their objections often have limited or distorted understandings of the fundamental beliefs undergirding Christianity and what a growing relationship with God actually looks like.

This will happen.

Maybe you’ve been there. Maybe you’re experiencing it now.

What do you do when the church is criticizing you?

This week’s plan is for those of you seeking to respond to God, but finding the church to be less of an ally and more of an antagonist as you do. We’ll explore some passages, insights, and ways to respond when we find ourselves like Peter—sensing scrutiny or facing criticism from within.

Today, read Peter’s story when he found himself in that place. Recount a time when this has happened to you. How did you respond? How should you have? And how about them? What should have been done differently? It may still be painful, but trust that doing so is part of the healing process.