This week Benjamin Chua walked through the story of Paul’s return to Jerusalem in Acts 21:17-25. Almost immediately after entering Jerusalem, Paul learns the church there is fiercely enthusiastic for the law, not Jesus. For the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem their belief wasn’t rooted in the foundational story of God’s covenant family culminating in Jesus and looking ahead to the fullness of His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, but in a rigid, backwards-looking interpretation of the law, in which they used Jesus to rubber-stamp their rule-following theology. The church is to be a community cradled in the love of God, with love for one another. This is what Paul fought for and it’s what we should fight for, too.
*The music at the end of the sermon is “3 Hours of Soaking in His Presence” by William Augusto. The full song can be found here.