THE SEND: Luke & ActsSample

The real Gospel bears real fruit.

Acts 15 tells the story of one of the most important meetings in history. The question they were wrestling with was this: What do new believers have to do to be saved?

For centuries, if you wanted to be part of the people of God, you had to get circumcised (you can read more about this in Genesis 17:9-14). So now, some men were teaching that in order to be saved, Gentile believers had to get circumcised (Acts 15:1, 5). These men weren’t saying that new believers should stop following Jesus but that obeying the law of Moses would complete what Jesus started.

But Peter, Barnabas, Paul, and James recognised how dangerous this idea was. Because the heart of the Gospel isn’t law-keeping. It’s faith in Jesus. Peter puts it clearly: “We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 15:11). James looks at all that God is doing among the Gentiles and confirms that it was always God’s plan (he quotes from Amos 9:11-12 to prove it).

Acts 15 is so important because it shows the church fighting for the purity of the Gospel. (If you want to go deeper, Paul unpacks this further in his letter to the Galatians!) Rather than placing a heavy burden on new believers (Acts 15:10, 19), the church declared that people were saved by grace through faith. At the same time, they wisely told Gentile believers to avoid things that would cause division with Jewish believers (Acts 15:20). This wasn’t to earn salvation but to protect unity.

Then, in Acts 16, we see how fruitful the real Gospel is. God gives Paul a vision of a man from Macedonia crying out for his people to have a chance to hear the Gospel. Almost immediately, Paul, Silas, and Luke meet some of these desperate people.

They met Lydia, a woman who worshipped God but didn’t know the Gospel. Her life and the life of her whole household are changed (Acts 16:11-15). Later, when they are arrested for their preaching, something crazy happens. And I’m not talking about an earthquake, broken chains, and open prison doors (Acts 16:26-27). The miracle is that Paul and Silas stayed in an unlocked prison. Why? Because they knew that the eternal freedom of the jailer and his family was worth more than their temporary freedom from prison.

This is the real Gospel. It’s worth fighting to keep it pure. And it’s worth staying in prison to see others made free.

How is God calling you to fight for and share the Gospel?