Steve Conover: Thank you for joining us for the Friends of Israel Today. I'm Steve Conover, executive director here at the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. I'd like to encourage you all to visit foiradio.org. That's where you can connect with us. We have over a decade of content on the site and it features Chris Katulka's insightful teaching and various interview guests. Again, that's foiradio.org. Today, our teacher, Chris Katulka, begins a new three-part series, House Rules: When Gentiles Moved In, where we'll be learning about the instructions given to Gentile believers in Jesus. We're looking forward to that. 

But first in the news, during a soccer match between Israel and the Irish national teams, the Irish soccer team wore black armbands and declined to shake hands with Israeli players. This because of the war in Gaza. Ireland's coach faced criticism after he said, "We're not playing with genocide, we're playing against genocide." Well, I'll simply allow Israel's Football Association to speak for itself when they post it on social media, and this is a direct quote, "We have contributed to the world and humanity in countless fields, earning an impressive number of Nobel Prizes along the way. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a cure for stupidity, ignorance, and hypocrisy displayed by Ireland's team coach. We're not playing with ignorance, hypocrisy, and stupidity. We're playing against the coach who embodies them."

Chris Katulka: Imagine being invited into someone's home for the very first time, and the invitation is very genuine. You didn't earn it. You didn't purchase your place at the table. The family just welcomed you in, pulled out the chair and told you that you belong. But being welcomed into the house doesn't mean that there's no expectation about how you behave once you're inside. Maybe you have to take your shoes off at the door. Maybe it's a formal dinner and so you have to dress accordingly. Maybe there's some dietary restrictions. Every house has certain expectations. Every family has a way of life. You don't earn your invitation by keeping the house rules, but once you have become welcomed inside, you learn how to live as a part of the family. And that picture helps us understand one of the most important moments in the history of the early church because something unique was happening.

For the first time, large numbers of Gentiles were coming to faith in Israel's Messiah, Jesus. These were Gentiles that didn't grow up reading Moses or the prophets. They weren't raised in Jewish homes. They didn't know the ins and outs of Jewish life. Many of them came from cities filled with temples and idols and sacrifices and pagan festivals and immoral practices connected to a world of many gods. And yet through the preaching of the gospel, these Gentiles were believing that Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, had died for their sins and risen from the dead. And suddenly the early church faced an enormous question, "What do we do with all these Gentiles?" Well, welcome to our new series, House Rules When Gentiles Moved In. And over the next several weeks, we're going to go back to Acts 15 and the Jerusalem Council where the apostles wrestled with one of the defining questions of the early church.

What exactly is required of Gentiles who believe in Jesus? Do they have to become Jewish? Do men have to be circumcised? Do they have to take a part in the full measure of the entire mosaic law in order to belong to the people of God? Well, the apostle's answer is clear. I'll give it to you right now. It's no, Gentiles are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. They don't have to become Jewish in order to belong to the Messiah. But see, that didn't mean anything goes. Grace does not mean anything goes. The apostles gave these new Gentile believers in Jesus four instructions. In fact, Acts 15:20 says they should abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled and from blood. Now, later when the apostles put their decision into a letter, they repeated those instructions again saying abstained from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled and from sexual immorality.

Those are the house rules and we're going to explore those through this series. And what makes these four instructions interesting is that they didn't come out of nowhere. They actually kind of echo prohibitions that are actually found in the law, particularly in the book of Leviticus, Leviticus chapter 17 and 18, where certain requirements apply not only to Israelites, but also to a foreigner living among them in the land of Israel. The apostles are not telling Gentiles that they must become Jewish people and keep the entire mosaic law, but neither are they telling Gentiles that Israel's scriptures have nothing to teach them about holy living today. The law still revealed something about the character of the God they now worship and the kind of life appropriate for people living in fellowship with his people. The first house rule is actually pretty enormous. It's leave the idols behind.

Now to us, that might sound obvious. Of course, as Christians, we shouldn't worship idols. We hear the word idolatry and perhaps we imagine an ancient statue sitting in some dusty temple. We know Christians worship one God. We know Jesus is Lord. So when we read that Gentile believers were told to abstain from the pollution of idols, we might race past that to the next instruction. But for the first century Gentile, from a Greco-Roman world, this could be a radical, life altering demand. And to understand why, we need to go back to Acts chapter 15 where Paul and Barnabas had been preaching the gospel to the Gentiles and Gentiles were responding. In Acts 15:1, it tells us that certain men came from Judea and began teaching believers, unless you are circumcised according to the customs of Moses, you cannot be saved. Notice the issue here.

This wasn't merely a debate over Christian behavior. It was a debate over salvation. Must a Gentile become circumcised in order to be saved? For a Gentile man, circumcision represented far more than undergoing a physical procedure. It represented entry into a Jewish covenant identity. And the question facing the early church was whether Gentiles first had to become Jewish in order to become full members of the Messiah's community. Paulombardamas strongly disagreed and eventually the question was taken to Jerusalem where the apostles and elders gathered to consider this really important matter. The Apostle Peter actually stands up and reminds everyone of what God had already done among the Gentiles. God had sent Peter, if you remember, to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile. Gentiles heard the gospel, they believed, and God gave them the Holy Spirit. Peter's conclusion is really powerful. God made no distinction between us and them purifying their hearts by faith.

And then Peter asked why they would put a yoke upon the Gentile disciples that neither their fathers nor they have been able to bear. And then comes the really biblical center of this entire council. They say this, "We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been saved in the same manner as they." There it is right there, my friends. Tha's the gospel. Jew and Gentile are saved the same way by grace, through faith in Jesus the Messiah. The Gentile does not need to become Jewish before he can come to Jesus. He doesn't need circumcision as an entrance requirement. He doesn't need to transform himself culturally into a Jew so that God will accept him. The door has been opened by the Messiah, but then James speaks, the apostle James, and James recognizes that what is happening among the Gentiles is consistent with God's purposes revealed in the scriptures.

And he concludes, "Therefore, I judge," James said, "that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God." I love that phrase, Gentiles who are turning to God. That is exactly what's happening. But see, turning to the God of Israel meant turning from other gods. So James continues, "But that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled and from blood." See, there's no contradiction here. Grace opened the door, faith brought them in, but now that they were inside, they needed to understand something about the God whose household they had entered. They did not earn salvation by keeping these rules. They were being taught how people saved by grace should now live. And the first thing that these former pagans needed to understand was that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does not share his worship with other gods.

For a Jewish believer in Jesus, that was foundational. Every Jewish child grows up with a great confession of Deuteronomy 6:4:

“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” There is one God. Israel's scriptures repeatedly condemn idolatry, the prophets mock idols made by human hands. The commandment prohibits having other gods before the Lord and making images for worship. Israel's entire history testifies to the disastrous consequences of abandoning the Lord for the gods of the nations. Then Gentiles start walking through the door of the church and they came from a completely different world. The Greco-Roman world was saturated with paganism with multiple gods. There were gods associated with cities and households, occupations, fertility, agriculture, travel, healing, military victory, and even political powers. Temples were not isolated from ordinary life. Hagan worship was woven into the fabric of society. Sacrificial meals to false gods could be social occasions. Trade associations could have religious dimensions. Family traditions could involve household gods. Public celebrations could honor those gods as well.

See, religion was everywhere for them. So imagine hearing Paul preach the gospel and he tells you about the God of Israel. He tells you about Jesus, Israel's Messiah. He tells you Jesus died for your sins. He tells you God raised him from the dead and you believe. Now what happens to Apollo, the Greek God? Now what happens to Artemis in the pagan temple? What happens to Zeus on Mount Olympus? What happens to the household gods? What happens to your family participation in pagan festivals? What happens when your colleagues gather around a meal honoring a deity? What happens when your neighbors believe that honoring the local gods protects the city? For us, rejecting pagan gods might sound like Christianity 101, but for them, it could cost relationships, reputation, business opportunities, social acceptance. Following Jesus as a Gentile in the first century meant making a radical declaration.

Those gods are not my gods anymore. We're going to take a quick break and when we return, we're going to see how even the Apostle Paul saw how radical it was for a Gentile pagan to abandon his false gods and embrace the God of Israel through Jesus alone. So stick around.

Steve Conover: If you follow the news these days, you may feel the world seems out of control.

Chris Katulka: It certainly could feel that way because uncertain times leave many people asking where have we come from and why are we here and where are we going? And really, what on earth is God doing?

Steve Conover: Well, thankfully the Bible has the answers.

Chris Katulka: It certainly does. And actually Dr. Renald Showers' What on Earth is God Doing? is one of our most popular books here at the Friends of Israel. In a compact and easy to read format, it traces God's plan from creation all the way to eternity. You'll learn about the war Satan is waging against God and how that conflict has shaped history and where the world is ultimately heading.

Steve Conover: It's such a great book. If you're looking for answers and want to understand God's plan for the world, order your copy of What on Earth Is God Doing at foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org.

Chris Katulka: Welcome back everyone. We started a series, we're in it right now, House Rules: When Gentiles Moved In, where we're looking at God's grace, reaching out to the Gentile world as Paul is ministering throughout the world, sharing the good news of Jesus, the Messiah, and the forgiveness that's found in him. However, when those pagans turned to the God of Israel, they weren't asked to add Jesus to the shelf of pagan gods. They were asked to abandon those gods and follow the one true God. Now that's radical for them. In fact, Paul describes this transformation beautifully in one Thessalonians chapter one. He reminds the Thessalonian believers how they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven. That's Jesus' second coming. That is a conversion in a sentence. Turn to God, turn from idols, serve the living and true God and wait for his Son.

And notice that Paul doesn't present faith in Jesus as simply adding another God to the Gentile religious shelf. That would've been actually accepted in Roman culture. Sure, the Romans would say, "Add Jesus to your shelf of gods." What's one more God? That would've been no problem. But according to the apostles, Jesus is not one more deity. The God of Israel is not to be added to Zeus, Artemis, Apollo, or even Caesar. Following Jesus demands exclusive allegiance. You turn from idols to the living God. And this is where Acts 15 connects so naturally to the law because see, in Leviticus, Moses repeatedly warns Israel against idolatrous worship. And in Leviticus 17, it is especially interesting because its instructions repeatedly include both native Israelites and the stranger living among them. That's the Gentile. That doesn't mean that the apostles replacing Gentile believers under mosaic law. Acts 15 explicitly rejects the idea that Gentiles must become Jewish in order to belong, but the apostles could look into Israel's scriptures and see principles for how Gentiles living in fellowship with the people of God were expected to behave.

That's important. The apostles didn't say, "You are Gentiles so the Hebrew scriptures have nothing to say to you." And did they say, "You must become Jewish people?" No. Instead, the apostles recognized that these Gentiles have been welcomed by grace into fellowship with Jewish believers in Israel's Messiah, and fellowship required a dramatic break from pagan worship. Imagine the challenge this presented inside the early church. On one side of the room is a Jewish believer in Jesus and from childhood, he had confessed that the Lord is God alone. He knows the commandments against idolatry. His people's history is filled with warnings about what happened when Israel worshiped Bael, Asherah, Molek, and the gods of the nations. Now sitting beside him is a Gentile believer, and six months ago, that man may have been sacrificing in a pagan temple. His family may still be worshiping false gods. His friends may still invite him to meals connected with pagan worship.

His entire social world may assume the existence of many gods. And now these two men are brothers in the Messiah. How does that fellowship work? Well, the apostles say in effect the Gentile does not have to become Jewish, but the Gentile cannot bring his idols with him. That is the first house rule. And there's something actually beautiful about it because it's not merely a restriction. It's an invitation to know the true God. The Gentiles are being invited into the story of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who created heaven and earth, the God who called Abraham, the God who delivered Israel from Egypt, the God who spoke through Moses and the prophets, the God who promised a Messiah, a king. And now through Jesus, the Messiah, Gentiles have been brought near. Pagans abandoning their idols for Jesus was absolutely radical 2,000 years ago.

And perhaps maybe it's not as distant from us as we might actually think. We may not have a statue of Zeus sitting in our backyard. We probably don't pour out our drink offerings to Artemis before we go to work, but our culture still offers rival objects of devotion. Money can demand allegiance. Power can demand allegiance. Sexuality can become an ultimate authority. Success can become a God. Politics, possessions, pleasure, reputation. Even ourselves can occupy the place that belongs to God. The form of the idol changes, but the temptation does not. The first century Gentile had to learn that following Jesus meant leaving the pagan altar behind. And you know what? So do we. And that's where our new series begins. House rules when Gentiles moved in. The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 threw the doors wide open to Gentile believers because God himself had already welcomed them in through faith in Jesus, but grace did not mean that pagan life could simply be carried out unchanged into the body of Christ.

But the first rule comes first for a reason, leave the idols behind because becoming a follower of Jesus is not simply adding Jesus to everything else we already worship, it's turning from those idols to serve the living and true God. There is one God and he alone is worthy of worship.

Steve Conover: Now, Apples of Gold, a dramatic reading from the life and ministry of Holocaust survivor Zvi Kalisher.

Mike Kellogg: My watch stopped running recently, so I took it to a watchman in the ultra Orthodox section of Jerusalem. Two Hasidic men entered the watchmaker's shop with me and started to speak about their study of the Talmud in the yeshiva. One of the men told the watchmaker, "Even if you are on vacation, you must study the great rabbi's books." I listened to them for a long time and then I decided to enter the conversation. "If you are so faithful to God, "I commented," You should know that study alone will not get you into heaven. You must bow down on your knees and pray to God. "Even after such a brief statement, they all rose against me. "What are we Christians that we should bow down?" I replied, "Was Daniel a Christian when he bowed down three times a day before God? Many times in the Bible, our great prophets bowed down before the Lord." David wrote in Psalm 95: six, "Oh come, let us worship and bow down.

Let us kneel before the Lord our maker." Was David a Christian? "And what about you, Anyan Kippur, you bowed down many times and cry," Adonai, Adonai, if as you say, only Christians bow down to pray, then you were just like them. "Never, they shouted. One of the men said," Our rabbi would be able to answer you. "I asked," How is it that you have studied all your lives and yet you cannot give correct answers about your faith? "These men displayed all the outward signs of being religious, but they were empty inside. Then they asked," Why do you try to act so religious? We can tell you or not, yet you want us to do what you say? "I replied," I have never said you should do as I say. God has told us to obey the law of the Lord and not to follow other gods, but you are wasting your life studying the writings and traditions of men.

"The watchmaker then said," This reminds me of an occasion a few years ago when a man came into my shop and spoke just like you. He was a missionary. Are you one of them? "I told him," I believe in the living God, Messiah Ben David. You sing about him every Sabbath, but you do not believe in him in your heart. "Did you know the words Messiah and Christ mean the same thing? At this, they all jumped around as if they had been bitten by a snake and they said," This can never be. We will ask our rabbi. "I replied," I'll be waiting for his answer. You never know how the Lord will use such a situation, and he has said in Isaiah 55:11 that his word will not return to him void. I pray these men will remember our conversation and turn to the Bible the true word of God.

Steve Conover: Thank you for joining us for today's episode of The Friends of Israel Today. Again, you can order What on Earth is God Doing? You can find out more about that book at foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org. Join us next week. Chris continues our series on House Rules: When the Gentiles moved in. As we close, I'd like to thank our radio team, host and teacher Chris Katulka, executive producer, Lisa Small, associate producer, Sarah Fern, engineer Bob Beebe, program editor, Jeremy Strong. Apples of Gold was voiced by the late Mike Kellogg, and I'm Steve Conover, executive director of The Friends of Israel. The Friends of Israel Today is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry: Passion for God's Word, Compassion for God's Chosen People.