July 12, 2026
"Godly Accommodation" (Acts 16:1-5)
Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church Scripture: Acts 16:1–5
Hear now the word of the lord from Acts 16, verses 1 through 5. Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. 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.
As they went on through their way, or 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. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and they increased in numbers daily. This is the word of the Lord.
Please be seated. And as you're taking your seats, let's join our hearts together now in prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the church. We thank you for the Gospel. We thank you for the Spirit of Christ, whom Christ has poured out richly from heaven, having received him from you and Father, as the Spirit of God indwells us today, we pray that you would give us minds to understand, hearts to understand, and eyes to see and ears to hear all that is contained in the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Savior.
It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.
Well, we have been studying several passages that touch on and deal with the question of the ongoing applicability, the ongoing administration of the Old Testament rite of circumcision. And as we read this, I think there's always a tendency to look at these passages and to just feel deeply that these are so distant from us. These seem like they don't have anything to do with our lives today. The questions were settled so long ago. What could these possibly have to do with us?
Well, as I was working on this sermon, I had a unique week of ministry. I began on Monday where we had a unique week in the life of the church with vacation Bible school. And there were over 100 children running around here. And it wasn't always perfectly decent and in good order, but the children had a wonderful time and they heard about Jesus. Then on Tuesday, I was in a hospital room where the diagnosis was very bad.
I've been in difficult hospital rooms before. That was top tier difficult. Continued in other hospital rooms and in waiting rooms for surgeries at continued with a lot of vbs this week it continued with evangelism on the streets of downtown Chicago and here on the streets of Ridge Road. Here In Lansing Friday night, along the way at the conclusion of vbs, I was, with a great blessing and glee of the children, given a pie in the face. This was a wild week of ministry.
I cannot really remember one where the highs were so high and the lows were so low.
As we think about the growth and expansion of the church, we see so many things going on in the book of Acts that may not immediately look like our lives. But as we start to think about how they relate, how they connect, we actually see that these questions are the same questions that we are dealing with today. We see the explosion of the Gospel by the unstoppable power of the Holy Spirit, poured out from heaven by Jesus Christ, who is reigning at the right hand of the Father. And we see this unstoppable force moving forward. And yet the Gospel moves forward in ways that are not chaos.
They are not mindless and irrational unstoppable power, but somehow controlled by the power of the Spirit. And on the same time, we have also seen a number of passages where the church has grown in its decency and good order. But we see that the church is always vibrant, always living, never stale, never stagnant. And in this short passage, I think we're seeing both sides of that coin. We're seeing the unstoppable force of the Gospel and the willingness of the church to be fools for Christ for the sake of reaching people with the Gospel.
And we are also seeing the church being the well regulated kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are seeing a rejection of external and outward over formalities. And we are seeing an embrace and the expansion of internal and spiritual growth. Now, as we think about this passage, and again, the role of circumcision in this passage, our theme today, I want to draw directly from another passage in Scripture, Galatians 5, 6. In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything.
In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. Now, we're going to have to unpack the relationship of that to this passage. We're going to have to unpack the theological significance of that verse. We're going to have to unpack the practical value. But that's going to be our theme and that's what I want to develop as we look through this passage today.
So just two parts to our sermon. First, that uncircumcision counts for nothing in verses one through three, and then second, that circumcision counts for Nothing in verses 4 through 5.
1. Uncircumcision Counts for Nothing (Acts 16:1-3)
So in the first part of this passage in verses 1 through 3, uncircumcision counts for nothing. Again, we're going to unpack what I mean when I say that, what Paul meant when he wrote that in Galatians 5, 6. But let's remember what has happened that led right into this in verses 39 through 41. Remember, we came to the conclusion of a dynamic duo in ministry, Paul and Barnabas, who had evangelized so much on their first missionary journey of Paul. And as they gear up to go back out again to fight the good fight as the eternal King leads onward again, there was a difference, a disagreement.
Barnabas ended up separating from Paul, taking with him John, Mark, and heading into Cyprus, where, whereas Paul took Silas and went into Syria and Cilicia. Well, now in verses one through three, we see that they had moved beyond Syria and Cilicia into new regions, Derbe and Lystra. And when they are there, we read about a disciple, a very good reputation. Verse 2. He was spoken of well by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.
Now we read about this young man named Timothy, and we realize that Timothy is someone that Paul sees a lot of gifting. He's well spoken of good reputation and character. And we realized, though, that for Paul to take him, which Paul wanted to do, there were some hurdles there. There were some things that would have been barriers in his life to keep him from reaching Jews, particularly with the Gospel of Jesus, namely, that while he was the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, his father was a Greek. And probably because of his Greek father, we read that Timothy had not been circumcised previously.
Now, as the son of a Jewish mother, he could have been counted as a Jew. But yet, because he was not circumcised, he was kind of in no man's land. The Gentiles would have looked at this half Jew as a Jew, but the Jews would not have recognized him as a Jew because of the fact that he was not circumcised. So he was kind of in no man's land. It would have been hard for him to reach the Jews as an uncircumcised half Jew.
But it also would have been hard for him to reach Gentiles as being of half parentage, from a Jewish mother. So what is he going to do? Well, if you have been here, or if you are Familiar with Acts 15, what Paul does next is surprising, because in Acts 15, the big question that came up had to do with circumcision. And Paul insisted that new Gentile believers did not need to be circumcised. In fact, the teaching had been that unless you were circumcised, you.
You cannot be saved. And Paul rejected that tooth and nail. He taught against that. He insisted that they bring the question to Jerusalem for study and deliberation by the apostles and the elders. And at that Jerusalem council, the early church determined that no, it was not necessary for Gentiles to be circumcised.
And yet here we read that Paul, who wanted Timothy to accompany him, took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places. Now, if he had so much contended, if Paul had so much contended against the idea that you cannot be saved apart from circumcision, if that was anathema to him, then why does he now circumcise Timothy? It seems so shocking in light of the immediate preceding context that we had just read. Well, as an important counter consideration, it's helpful to look back at Galatians 2, 3, where Paul stated that in a very similar case with another man, a minister who functioned in very similar ways to Timothy, the man named Titus, that Paul refused to circumcise Titus. Now again, both of these would play similar roles in the early church.
They were evangelists, they were ministers, they were missionaries in various ways. And yet Titus was a Gentile, whereas Timothy was a half Jew. And this helps us to understand what it means in verse three where we read that Paul circumcised Timothy because of the Jews who were in those places. It wasn't that he was bowing to their theological pressure. It wasn't that he thought that Timothy needed this it in order to be saved.
He recognized that there would be lost opportunities for Timothy to preach the Gospel in these regions where Jews had settled in various places. If Timothy had not been circumcised, Timothy would be an offense. Timothy would be someone who would be considered to be cut off from any kind of contact with these Jews. And so to avoid hindrances, to avoid offense, not because of legalism, focusing on the externalities and outward appearances, but in order to gain standing for a hearing of the Gospel of Jesus, Paul took Timothy and he circumcised. Now here is where we see a principle that uncircumcision counts for nothing.
That is, Paul did not so prize Timothy's status as an uncircumcised man that he believed that Timothy would lose something by being circumcised. He certainly didn't think that Timothy gained something by way of salvation by being circumcised. But he recognized that in the Gospel, because of what Christ has done to fulfill all of the shadows, all of the ceremonies, all of the rites and rituals of the Old Testament ceremonial law, that circumcision no longer counts for anything, and uncircumcision doesn't count for anything. And so here we do not see a theological move to try to get Timothy to a higher standing with the Gospel. Here we see a practical recognition, an attempt to accommodate the offenses and the hindrances that could be a barrier to ministering to the Jews.
In First Corinthians 9, 20, Paul wrote this. He says, to the Jews, I became as a Jew in order to win Jews to those under the law. I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law. He distinguished. He says, I'm not under the law, but I was willing to observe certain externalities, not because I believe they helped me get closer to salvation by works that I was doing.
That's what he rejected, though I myself was not under the law, but I became as one under the law. So that he might win those under the law. He was willing to accommodate what he did for the sake of seeing the Gospel reach further among these people. And again, this is why theologically, circumcision has been relegated to a status that is utterly unimportant. In Galatians 5, 6, Paul writes, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
No longer what is important are the outward and external rights, but only what is inward, what's spiritual. And so since Timothy was a half Jew, circumcising him was not a threat to the Gospel. He could be circumcised without submitting himself to the laws, but as a Gentile who would be seeking to become a Jew in order to come to Christ, that's not his status. He had a different status as one with a Jewish mother. The question that we had seen back in Acts 15 was whether Gentiles had to be circumcised to be saved.
And we'll deal more with that in the next section. That would put them under the law, submitting them to the law. And Paul was not willing to do that. The principle is cultural accommodation, where accommodation does not undermine the Gospel. And therefore Timothy's uncircumcision gained him nothing.
It didn't count for anything. Now, here's what I want to ask you to apply this by thinking about what you need to do to accommodate yourself to reach people with the gospel. Now, again, in the context of everything we read in Acts 15, given Paul's stance against the necessity of circumcision for Gentiles, this seems like a bold move to take Timothy and circumcise it. And certainly it was bold for Timothy, who was willing to receive painful circumcision as an adult. But they knew that if they didn't do this, if they didn't accommodate Jewish sensibilities in this way, that open doors, doors that would me otherwise be open, would be closed in them, they would not be able to reach the Jews with the Gospel.
Now, again, this is where you sort of have to think through how this applies. But you can see exactly how this relates to our lives. Now, to be clear, there are some places that we shouldn't be. There are some company that we shouldn't keep. There are some practices that we should not, cannot compromise.
But there are also so many areas of accommodation that we might be too stubborn, too lazy, too fearful to take those steps in order to put ourselves in a position to reach people where they are with the gospel of Jesus. Let me give you an example. I confess this to my shame, but I am a father who has often been asked to play games that, between you and me, I have no desire to play. These are not games that I find amusing. These are not games that stimulate me in ways that I enjoy.
And I am the chief of excuses. Making my list of excuses can be very long. I'm too tired, I'm too busy. Mom needs my help. Oh, I can go on and on, but it helps me when I think through.
The games are not really the point. It's the bonding with my children. And when I, you know, when I am tired at the end of the day, when I am busy and my children ask to play a card game or play baseball or something like that, I realize, and I do enjoy baseball card games, but these games are not for me. These are ways to bond with my children whom I love. And when I think about my love for my children, that that kind of thing becomes very easy.
It overcomes sort of things that I wouldn't like if I were alone on a Friday night, just go out and do. These are not things that I would do, but they are ways for me to connect with my children in important ways. So if you think about your relationship to unbelievers, you know, family members, people in your workplaces, your neighbors in the neighborhood, what are places that you could appropriately accommodate yourself to for the sake of unbelievers. We're going to a season where there are block parties. I'm saying cruise night looking at cars is something that I would never choose to do.
But there are people there who need the Gospel of Jesus. Could you open your home to invite someone who maybe isn't your best friend and maybe isn't someone you would hang out with on your own terms? Even as a church, how do we accommodate unbelievers to reach them where they are? We don't accommodate the message, and even the methods have biblical limits. This isn't just do whatever you want, but things like vbs, things like cruise night, being a fool for Christ in street evangelism.
These are great opportunities to get past our own comfort zones, to bring the gospel directly to people who need it. So how might you accommodate your life to unbelievers? This week, the second section deals with another aspect of this. The question is still related to circumcision, but it's a different side of this. If in the first part we saw Timothy being a fool for Christ and willing to embrace circumcision not for the sake of his soul, not for the sake of his salvation, but for the sake of being able to reach others with the Gospel.
2. Circumcision Counts for Nothing (Acts 16:4-5)
In the second section we read Paul and Timothy going to these places, telling Gentiles they do not need to be circumcised. First we saw a circumcision. Now we are seeing Paul going and continuing about preaching, you don't need to be circumcised. And here's where we come to the second section, that circumcision counts for nothing in verses four through five. Now, if you remember back in Acts chapter 15, verse 36, the whole conversation that had led to Paul and Barnabas splitting up because they disagreed about how to go about doing this mission Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark.
Paul didn't think that was a good idea. You can read that passage and review it. But the goal back in 1536 was Paul saying, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. They are going among churches that they have already reached, presumably in the context of what they do, because they want to make sure that this divisive teaching isn't stirring up trouble in this church in the way that it stirred up trouble in the church in Antioch, that people weren't also in these churches declaring that unless you are circumcised, you cannot be saved. And so we read in verse four, as they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them, they handed over to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.
Now, there's a lot of language there that's really important. The first word that I want to point over is this word delivered. This idea of handing over, it's the idea of passing down traditions.
This word is going to be very important tonight as we discuss what Paul talks about when he says, I delivered to you the traditions that were delivered to me regarding the Lord's Supper. We're going to talk tonight about the Lord's Supper and our continuing study of the Heidelberg Catechism. Please come tonight. That's going to be a study, a wonderful study that we think maybe more deeply as we have a communion season coming up, the beginning of August. That's a good way of beginning to prepare your heart for that.
But same word here. They delivered to them, they handed over as a tradition to them for observance. They delivered them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. Now, this language of decisions, this is a word that often means something like decrees. So probably the most famous place where you know this is that every Christmas you read from Luke, chapter two, verse one, that in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be numbered, accounted for in a census.
Well, that same word here for a decree is the word that's here. This was not what Presbyterians sometimes call pious advice. Here's something, maybe take it, maybe don't think about it. I don't know. Do whatever you want.
That's not this kind of a thing. This is a decision, a decree. Although the sense here is not quite a decree, which we'll talk about in a moment, but a sense of something that's binding, something that is supposed to lead and guide the church in their practices. Now, I mentioned just a moment ago that it's not quite a decree because a decree would flow from one person, from that emperor, from Caesar Augustus. And the word comes up again in Acts, chapter 17, verse 7, talking about the decrees of the emperor.
But in this case, these decisions and decisions is a good word here. These decisions had been reached, or very literally, these decisions had been judged. They'd been judged by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. Now, the idea here of judging these issues, this is language that shapes the Presbyterian understanding of the function of church courts. Now, if your eyes just totally glazed over as I mentioned church government again.
Hang with me for a moment if you're excited about pies in the face. This is the other part of this, right? Like this is. This is the other piece of thinking through the decent and good orderly nature of the church. We believe the Scriptures.
And this is one of the places where we'd see this language employed that the Scriptures empowers courts of the church. Not legislatures, not kingships in the church. It's not the legislative branch, not the executive branch. This is the judicial branch that the Scriptures set courts to oversee individual churches. That's the function that the session has here or a region of churches.
That's the presbytery or the entire denomination at the General assembly that was just held a couple of weeks ago in Louisville, Kentucky, that Don Coy and I attended on behalf of this church. And in these courts, again, the goal is not to prescribe law, to write law. There is only one lawgiver for the church of Jesus Christ, and that is the King Christ himself. But as judges, it's to try to take the laws that are on the books written down in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and to apply them into individual cases. We don't just do whatever we want to do.
The elders are not given just a blank shack to lead however they see fit. We are called to judge. And again, that's that word here. The decisions that had been judged by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem to judge. Does this particular case align with the facts, align with what our King Jesus has laid down for us in the Scriptures?
Now, the issue here that was judged, again, that's Acts, chapter 15, is that it would undermine, undercut, in fact destroy the Gospel of grace, of Jesus Christ Christ, if the church continued to preach and proclaim that circumcision was necessary. Because what that would mean for Gentiles is that you cannot be saved unless you first become a Jew. You cannot be saved except by adding your own work to complete or to qualify for what Jesus Christ has done for you. It demeans and diminishes the perfect finished work of Christ that we confessed earlier. Earlier with the Nicene Creed.
But, and again, this is not pious advice. Take it or leave it. These are delivered for observance as decisions, resolutions, determinations, judgments of these elders that there were Gentile practices that did need to change. And they address common Gentile practices that touch on aspects of idolatry, namely, the eating of blood, strangling animals rather than slitting their throats to keep as much blood in the animals as possible as a process of trying to steal the lifeblood from these animals and their pagan practices. And also it prohibited sexual immorality.
The Gentiles in these days, as the Gentiles in our days, are given over to all manner of wicked sexual immorality. And the Church. But the Jerusalem Council says, you can't continue to be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. You cannot follow the passions, the ways of your ignorance. When you were formerly Gentiles, living however you wanted to live.
You don't have to become Jewish, but you must live as the Scriptures declare. They judged the Gospel question about whether circumcision was required, and the answer was no. And they judged the law question about how the law, the moral law of God applied to Gentiles in their lives. And the result of this, again, the result of this is not only that they were able to continue evangelizing, but it's through this order, through these determinations and judgment, as the Gospel continued, as they kept the church decent and in good order. Then in verse five we read, so the churches were strengthened in the faith.
If everything is all motion and chaos all the time, there's no real strength in that. Here these determinations strengthen them in their faith. They understood the Gospel better, they understood their lives better, and they increased in numbers daily. And this was a boon to reaching new people with the Gospel of Jesus, because they saw a church that loved the lost, and they saw a church that was a well regulated, decent and good order church, an outpost of the kingdom of God. How do we apply this?
Well, in Christ Jesus I want to return to our theme, Galatians 5, 6. In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. And again, that's a maybe a distant principle for us. That's not even on my mind. Of course, it doesn't count for anything.
But what that's saying is these external, outward formal regulations are not the point of Christianity. All of those foreshadowed something about our Savior Christ Jesus, that he himself would be born a Jew under the law, circumcised on the eighth day, that he himself would shed his own blood for the remission of sins. And when Jesus Christ came into the world and those vague shadows were fulfilled in the substance which belongs to Christ, all of those ceremonial laws were put away forever. Not because they were bad, but because they were brought to their completion and abrogated, set aside as having been completed.
And so what we are seeing here in this passage, with both sides of dealing with how to apply the circumcision question, we are seeing a fundamental dealing with the question of the mission of the church, the explosive missional nature and the ongoing order that is necessary to give structure. If your body were just muscles, muscles help you to, to move and to act. But if your body were all muscles and no bones, you would just fall into a lump of jello. On the other hand, if you were just skin and bones without muscles, you don't have the strength to move forward. You need both the strength and the structure.
And we're seeing both sides of that in this passage here. Now, I think every person in one way or another probably leans to one side or another. People, churches do denominations tend to gravitate toward one side or another. Missional people tend not to like rules. Those rules are just getting in the way.
Let's just reach people for Jesus. But order people tend to not like bold methods, to just sort of sit back as a curmudgeon and say, that doesn't seem decent in an order. Order for me, I'm a curmudgeon guy. That's my drift toward order. Every time I am a rule follower, I can be far too suspicious.
I recognize this about myself. That's why I need more than just me and leading the church. I'm so thankful for ruling elders and working alongside deacons who shine light on things that I don't see. I'm thankful for conversations with many of you who bring out aspects of things that I don't see on my own. And this has been so challenging for me recently.
I've been challenged. Not hard, like in the sense of like motivating to get out there and to get the gospel of Jesus to people where they are again. It's been encouraging me to do more evangelism. It's been encouraging me to talk to people with boldness. It's been encouraging me to submit to a pie in the face during vbs.
And this is healthy. It's a thrill to be all things to all people for the sake of leading some to know Jesus Christ. There's just no better joy to this. Because of my bent. I kind of always have a built in rubric of okay, that'll work or that's too far.
But maybe some of you drift more toward the missional side of things. You're not rule followers, you don't like rules. And I want you to notice how the deliberative decision judged by the courts of the church tend to strengthen and to increase numbers within the church. And I think the Reason for this. Speaking as a curmudgeon, I think very often it is hard to think through all the implications of ideas that pop up.
Hey, let's do this, let's do that, let's go here, let's do that. A decision may seem easy, it may seem straightforward, it may seem obvious. But then another elder, in some of these deliberative assemblies where we're trying to judge questions, another elder stands up and speaks about something and brings out a point that I hadn't considered. And in listening to other brothers, just like we see the early church, the apostles and elders listening to one another, in listening, my mind is changed, happens all the time by the clarity that another brother is able to bring out from the scripture by reminding us about one aspect of the well regulated kingdom that Jesus has commanded for us to live in. This is why the whole church is better.
This is why decisions are better. Because of deliberations and judgments by courts of the church. Not just one man calling the shots, not a bishop somewhere ruling the day, but by deliberative decisions in the courts of the church. Now I'll tell you the extreme that I go to. Again, you don't have to be this much of a curmudgeon, but every year I try to read through the decisions of the Standing Judicial Commission of the pca.
I had a formal pastor who said that those are the plumbers of the denomination who handle the sewage and the waste of the worst things that happen in the life of the church. Because if a case is too hard in a local context, it goes up to the Presbyterian, and if it's too hard there, it goes up to the SJC or the Standing Judicial Commission. And they deal with the worst of the worst. And we're so thankful for those men who labor hard to judge the cases, to judge the hardest things, to make sure that those difficult cases are dealt with well, in proper good order. And it's like reading Supreme Court decisions.
I don't really read many of those, but when I read about the life of the church, I learn so much from those hard cases. I usually almost always learn something. I hadn't thought about that, or maybe something else will come up shortly thereafter. And it's, oh, I just read about that. I would have gone this direction, but after reading about the determinations, the judgments of the church, it helps for wisdom for how we conduct ourselves here.
What we're seeing here in this passage is that there is a great blessing when a church has both of these voices active, when there is a driving unstoppable missionary zeal to reach the lost. And when we are held and structured and harnessed in, it's like when you jump off a cliff with a bungee cord. You want to make sure that rope is going to be enough structure to hold you up. When you have both parts, parts to that, it is a thrilling experience.
And this is not just something we're making up, it's something we see here. Even in the way this question of circumcision was handled in the early church, it's not distant, it's not absent from our consideration. Rightly understood, this applies directly to the details of what we deal with day in and day out in the life of the church here. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we do pray that you would give us wisdom to handle these questions, to deal with these issues. We pray that by your spirit you would give us a zeal to reach the lost, to do whatever it takes to get in contact with those who do not know our Lord and Savior. And we pray also for thoughtfulness to guide and structure what we are doing, to think through all the issues, to think through all the sides and the aspects of what you have commanded in your scriptures. And I pray that he would be a healthy, strong, increasing church. By your spirit and Father, as we have talked about the lost and prayed for the lost, I want to pray again, even this morning, if there are any who realize they don't know Jesus Christ, the one who died for their sins and rose for them from the dead on the third day, that even now you would lead that sinner to salvation by trust in him.
So we pray all this in Christ's name, Amen.
other sermons in this series
Oct 4
2026
"Preparation and Fulfillment" (Acts 19:1-7)
Preacher: Rev. Jacob Gerber Scripture: Acts 19:1–7 Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church
Sep 20
2026
"Many Gifts among Many Members" (Acts 18:18-28)
Preacher: Rev. Jacob Gerber Scripture: Acts 18:18–28 Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church
Sep 13
2026
"My Grace Is Sufficient for You" (2 Corinthians 12: 1-10)
Preacher: Rev. Jacob Gerber Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:1–10 Series: Acts: God's Vision For His Church