http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Judges+6.25-40 ) and Acts 15.6-21 (
http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Acts+15.6-21 ).
Our Lord works in amazing ways. He calls people like us to himself.
Look at the amazement of the apostles assembled in Acts 15. Can God
really save Gentiles without their conversion to Judaism? Based on
the testimony of Peter and Paul and the exegesis of James it would
seem that God can and does do this. How are we going to react? See
how the council at Jerusalem reacted by affirming that God indeed
saves Gentiles just like he saves Jews, apart from obedience to the
Mosaic Law. The apostles do tell the Gentile Christians to avoid some
practices which would be so offensive to every Jew in the world that
they would be immediately alienated. But they affirm for Jewish and
Gentile Christians alike that people from every nation can be
believers.
How are we going to react when God works in ways which make us
uncomfortable? How about our reaction when we see that the same Holy
Spirit is working in people who are in radically different church
traditions from ours? How about when we see the Lord saving the rich,
the poor, the educated, the uneducated, people outside of our cultural
group? How do we respond? Actually, that is an irrelevant question.
It doesn't matter so much how we do respond. How should we respond?
That's what matters. And Scripture is quite clear. We respond by
bringing glory and praise to the Lord who is able to do all things
according to his will by his spirit to reconcile the world to himself
in Christ.
Give thanks to the Lord, who works outside the boundaries we have
constructed for him.
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