Should You Be Circumcised? That Sorta Depends...

The Growing Church of Jesus Christ

(Acts 16:1-5, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, September 30, 2012)

[16:1] Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra.

Barnabas and his young relative, John Mark, had gone by sea to Cyprus. Paul and his colleague Silas, a representative of the Jerusalem church, went overland with the blessing of the church in Antioch. They eventually came to the churches that Paul and Barnabas had planted in the inland region of Galatia on their first missionary journey.

Those churches were started with much suffering. Remember that Jews who were against the message of Jesus Christ had riled up the crowds against Paul and Barnabas in Lystra, as Acts 14:19 testifies, “But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.” If he was dead, he was soon alive again after the disciples gathered around him. He rose up, entered the city, and left the next day for the trek to Derbe. Amazing.

A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. [2] He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.

Lystra was the place where the pagan Gentiles initially had thought that Barnabas was Zeus and that Paul was Hermes. This was in the region of a pagan people called the Lycaonians, but there were also Jews there, as there were throughout the Gentile world.

One of those Jews was the mother of Timothy, a young man who would be like a son to Paul. This gospel companion would learn from Paul and continue on in the ministry after Paul was gone. While Timothy's mother and grandmother, Lois and Eunice, were Jewish, his father was not. Timothy had believed the word of the Lord and was part of the church at Lystra. He was also known in Iconium, and was well spoken of by the churches in both places.

[3] Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

Paul agreed with this assessment and wanted Timothy to join them as part of their missionary team as they traveled west. Knowing that their work would involve not only strengthening existing churches but also going into synagogues to announce to Jews that the Suffering Servant Messiah of the Old Testament had come, Paul circumcised his younger colleague.

This may surprise us, since we know that Paul strongly believed that it was not necessary for anyone to be circumcised in order to be a part of the church or to be a minister of the gospel. Why did he do this? The point is made here that the reason was missionary and not ethical. If Timothy had remained uncircumcised, that would have hindered the work of the whole team in going into synagogues and sitting down to eat together in Jewish homes. Paul was willing to make many sacrifices in order to gain a hearing for the message of Jesus, but he was completely unwilling to change the message itself. He believed that the message of salvation through Jesus was the gospel, and that this message was the “power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,” both Jews and non-Jews. As an uncircumcised young man in Lystra and Iconium, Timothy had served very well in the new Christian churches there. Now he was circumcised in order to be useful even in synagogues where people needed to hear the gospel of Jesus.

[4] As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.

Now with Timothy as a part of their team, Paul and Silas went on from Lystra to the other cities of Galatia. Everywhere they went, they brought not only the word of the Lord that they had preached before in Galatia, but also the decision of the council in Jerusalem that we have been considering from Acts 15.

They delivered this to all the churches “for observance.” The Jerusalem Council had settled that the message of Jesus would also be a way of life.

It is important for us to know something about Christian worship in the early churches. We learn about it from the letters of the New Testament. I would summarize it this way: 1. Take synagogue worship with its word-based reading and preaching, its singing, prayer, and giving. 2. Add the upper room with its Lord's Supper, 3. Stir in two divine ingredients and mix thoroughly: the reigning Son of God and the healing, renewing, transforming Holy Spirit. Then add one more thing: lots of non-Jews as full members in the body of the reigning Jewish King, the Head over the whole body. That was God's recipe for this Christian worship that was such a vibrant, life-bringing breath of fresh air in Galatia.

Now add the Jerusalem Council, and we have this wonderful word of restraint. Just because non-Jews were coming into these churches did not mean that they could expect that all their habits of worship were going to be thrown into this mixing bowl. Some ingredients were deliberately left out of the mix. Pagan sacrifices and sexual immorality would have destroyed the churches. The Jerusalem Council brought a needed word of decency, order, and loving concern for Jewish hearts.

God still loved the Jews. He would save them not through circumcision or the old habits of custom and Law, but through the message of Jesus Christ, and their ingrafting into a community of faith and holiness, of new life and the obedience of love. Timothy was a poster child for what the church was all about. His circumcision was an act of cross love and his assent to be a soldier in an army that would win hearts, minds, and lives by the power of heaven.

[5] So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.

The result of this ministry was the strengthening of the Galatian churches. Just as had happened in Syria and Cilicia, the message of the gospel and the restraint of a life that cared about the new body of Jews and non-Jews together under the headship of the King who died on the cross and rose from the tomb.

I am all in favor of growth if it is based on that King, that message, that worship, and that life. The growth that took place in Galatia was not only spiritual and moral. It was also numerical. And it was happening fast. They increased in numbers daily.

Where the church gets into trouble is when we will do anything to grow. Circumcise Timothy for the mission? Yes. Entice new potential converts with something that looks like pagan worship and sexual immorality? No. The church stands for something unchanging both in worship and in life. The recipe certainly did change from Old Covenant to New. Does it need to change in every age? Certainly we want to do what we can to help people to understand the good news of Christ. But the message does not change. The basic worship mix does not change. The power of the Holy Spirit does not change. The willing restraint of missionary love does not change.

1. What are some of the significant points of the life of Timothy from the Bible?

2. What was the ongoing impact of the council in Jerusalem described in Acts 15?

3. What was the condition of the churches in Galatia?

4. Is there some significance to the fact that the church was increasing in numbers daily?

OT Passage: Genesis 45:4-11, Exodus 1:5-12