By Neibert David
Segregation and separation are nothing new in the Body of Christ. It can be found in the beginning – in the formation of the Church in the book of Acts or The Acts of the Apostles. A principle governing life that Pastor A.R. Bernard says is: “present at the inception of any human institution are the seeds of its own destruction”. Although the Church is not the idea of any human being, for Jesus Christ said: “I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18b), the Church is made up of human beings.
Jesus Christ is not building and will not build His Church separate and apart from human beings. Human beings or people are integral to the building of the Lord’s Church. Archbishop Kirby Clements, Sr. says: “Church is people; not quantity but quality of people”. Therefore, the issues that are found in the human heart will affect the quality of the Church that God is building.
Segregation and separation, although found in the inception of the Church in Acts, are not the will or plan of God for His Church. Jesus in His prayer says: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” (John 17:20) In this prayer, Jesus clearly states that His desire is for the believers, who will come after the apostles, to be one. His desire is oneness and unity in His Body, the Body of Christ beginning with the apostles. And the prayers of Jesus will be answered!
The Acts of the Apostles documents the beginnings of the Church of God. It documents how the early church behaved and took dominion for God. Acts 4:32 notes: “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.” The prayer that Jesus prayed was beginning to be answered.
But immediately we see the attack of Satan against the unity that was in its infancy in the Church. Acts 5:3 records Apostle Peter asking a believer – Ananias: “how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirt and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?”
It turns out that Ananias and his wife Sapphira had of their own accord sold land and was going to give the proceeds to the Church. However, they decided not to give the entire proceeds to the Church but only a specified amount. But, they agreed that they would tell the Church that the specified amount was what they received when they sold the land. In other words, they planned on and agreed to deceive the Church and the leaders of the Church.
Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit was seen as an integral part of the early Church, therefore Apostle Peter asked Ananias, and later Sapphira, why would they lie to the Holy Spirit. The issue here was not that they kept part of the money for themselves (the land and the money belonged to them – they were free to give as much or as little as they liked!), the issue was that they lied saying they only received a fraction of what they did receive. Apostle Peter said: “You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” (Acts 5:4b) Ananias and Sapphira were sowing seeds of deception and disunity in the early church. God swiftly judged their actions, and they died immediately (Acts 5:1-11). Thank God that judgment may not come so swiftly in our time!
Then Satan came at a more opportune time and in a more subtle way to bring division or to exploit the divisions that were already present in the hearts of the believers. Acts 6:1 notes that there were complaints against the Hebrews because the Grecian “widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.”
The Hellenistic or Grecian (born in the Greco-Roman world – and spoke Greek) widows were not being served like the Hebrew (Hebraic – born in Palestine – and spoke Aramaic) widows. The Hebraic widows were being preferred or favored over their fellow believers in the distribution of food. In other words, a preference or distinction was being made between the widows due to cultural differences (Palestine vs Greco-Roman).
Instead of repenting and making it clear to the believers that segregation and ill treatment of other believers were wrong, the apostles chose to remove themselves from the situation. They chose to give the ministry to “seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them.” (Acts 6:3)
Instead of dealing with the issue at hand, which was the preferential treatment of one cultural believer over another (Palestinian over Greco-Roman), the apostle buried their heads in the sand regarding this issue. They chose to “give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” (Act 6:4) Instead of dealing directly with the situation and with the condition of their own human hearts, they chose to ‘pass the football’.
Could the leaders have repented for overlooking the Hellenistic widows in the distribution of food? Could they have led the people into a time of repentance regarding this issue? Would a time of repentance, at this point in the history of the Church, have led believers to be more openminded towards believers from other cultures? Would a time of repentance, at this point in history, have forged and fostered a culture in the Church of acceptance of believers from different ethnicities and cultures?
By passing the football, the leaders neglected to deal with the issue of cultural preference and discrimination at the inception of the Church. And in the 22nd Century the Church of God has still not grappled with this issue. Yet, I believe that the power of God was present at that time to heal their hearts and deal with the issue if only they had submitted the situation to the Holy Spirit!
In Acts 10, we see that the issue of cultural separation was not dealt with because upon his arrival, Apostle Peter announces to Cornelius and his household guests: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile.” (Acts 10:28) Yet, the Holy Spirit had told him to go with the men that came to take him to Cornelius “doubting nothing”. (Acts 10:20 – NKJV)
As Acts 10:28 showed, Apostle Peter was still carrying in his heart the prejudice of his cultural eliteness. Despite this prejudice and his heart lacking the necessary transformation, Apostle Peter completes the mission that God gave to him with the household of Cornelius. Sometimes we can mistakenly think that all is well in our hearts when God uses us to bring glory to Himself!
Apostle Peter was not the only one who thought this way! Upon his return to Jerusalem, he is greeted with the accusation from the leaders and believers who were originally of Jewish descent that: “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.” (Act 11:3) In so doing the issue has now branched from cultural preferences between Jews (Palestinians vs Greco-Roman) to now Jews vs Gentiles. Again, I believe that the power of God was present to heal their hearts and to deal with this issue of prejudice right at the inception of Church!
Apostle Peter goes on to defend his actions by rehearsing his interaction with the Holy Spirit when he fell into a trance. (Acts 10:11-20) God had shown him during this time that “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” (Acts 10:15) God showed this to Apostle Peter three times.
But as Apostle Peter ministered at Cornelius’ home, “the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision (meaning Jews) who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.” (Acts 10:44-45) The believers who were originally Jews were shocked to witness that the gift of Holy Spirit was now given to the Gentiles. God in His wisdom and sovereignty was now expanding the definition of who He considered “His people”.
Before we move too quickly to judge the Apostles, the leaders, and the early Jewish believers, we must understand that this was a total paradigm shift for them. It may have been too much for them to surmount as they were already being called heretics by the Jews of their day. They were already being called a cult. They were being persecuted (Acts 6:8-8:3) for their belief that Jesus Christ was the long-awaited Messiah. Now, a shift to embrace the Gentile believers as one with them may have been too much for them as mere human beings to process. But they were not mere human beings, they were now believers who were empowered by Holy Spirit!
Consider this history: in the Old Testament, Jews were admonished by God to maintain a distance from non-Jews. They were trained not to keep company with other cultures and peoples and not to learn or implement their ways. God gave them this commandment because He was training them to follow Him and His ways. God had consecrated them as His holy people whom He would use to bring the Messiah into the earth.
God said to Israel (Jews) “When you come into the land which the Lord Your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.” (Deuteronomy 18:9) For them close association with Gentiles could lead to breaking the law of Moses. Yet, the long-awaited Messiah had now come, and He was now calling all of humanity into His family not just the Jews.
The founding believers of the Church, as documented in Acts, were Israelites who needed a complete revolution of their understanding as it pertained to who God was now considering to be His people. They were now seeing who God was including as His inheritance: He was including all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ! But they did not make the shift in their thinking to understanding that all believers were equal.
In Acts 11, Apostle Peter defends his actions under the accusation of the other believers. He asked the leaders and people: “If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?” (Acts 11:17 – NKJV) Then the next verse notes: “When they heard these things they were silent; and they glorified God, saying, ‘Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.’” (Acts 11:18)
At this point, could Apostle Peter have led the leaders and the people into a time of repentance once he explained that the Holy Spirit told him to go to Cornelius’ home? Could they have been led into repentance once they were told that the Holy Spirit had fallen on the Gentile believers just as He did on the Jewish believers? Would that have addressed the spirit of division that polarizes the Church today? “They had no further objections,” (Acts 11:18a) but there is no transformation in their thinking to embrace the fact that Jews and Gentile were now one in Christ.
We know that there was no transformation because Paul notes: “When Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision (Jews) group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.” (Galatians 2:11-13) Although Holy Spirit was present to heal them, the early Church were not transformed in their hearts from segregation, separation, and inequality.
And here we are twenty-two centuries later, and oneness and unity still elude the present-day Church. Jesus’ prayer in John 17:20b-21a says: “I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one…” This prayer of the Lord is still outstanding. Nevertheless, Jesus’ prayer will be fulfilled at some point in history! Will this be the generation that opens its heart to see this prayer come to pass? Is the Church ready for this transformation? Is the Church ready for the unity, oneness, and equality that can only be found in Christ?
