The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”
- Acts 11:1-3
Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
- Acts 15:1-4
When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help us! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.” (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple.)
- Acts 21:27-29
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
- Hebrews 13:8
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
- Romans 12:2
First Peter gets into trouble by visiting a Gentile in his home. He presents the situation to the counsel in Jerusalem and the issue seems to go away. Then, Paul comes back after his first mission trip to Jerusalem and Judaizers have visited Antioch to try to force them into becoming circumcised. The same issue, round two.
If you read through Paul’s letters, he brings up circumcision in seven of the letters: Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Titus. It is not that Paul is obsessed with circumcision. It is that the Judaizers never gave up.
The Judaizers were considering Christianity to be a sect of Judaism. Judaism is marked by the outward sign of circumcision. It is very important to a Jew.
But Paul was against this practice because salvation was by grace through faith – ONLY. No act of works should be added, and circumcision is something done to the male believers.
My point is that church dissension has been around since the first century. And the longer an argument is raised and then is buried in a committee, the easier it is to get that argument into the church confessions, creeds, or polity – no matter how heinous the heresy.
When my wife and I came back from Europe when I was stationed there in the Army, we were assigned to a research facility in Massachusetts. When I got out of the military about eight months later, we moved to South Carolina. We made the observation that the original thirteen colonies, now states, had been around longer and they had developed more “issues” within their governments, more ways to tax the poor man so that he remained poor. But we had been residents of Texas, with no state income tax (really high property taxes) up to that point.
But, I think the argument can be drawn. Pennsylvania may not be the highest percentage of state income tax, but then they have local tax. And then where in Mississippi, we had trash collection, water, and sewer all in one bill. In Pennsylvania those are all separate bills, each more expensive than the combined bill from Mississippi for the same amount of trash and water use. In Washington state (where we lived in a desert community and you would expect higher water cost), where we lived a year and a half between those other two states. It was two bills, roughly the same price as Mississippi, but a little higher as each company assigns a handling fee.
You give yourself more time, you will figure out ways to make little changes.
But why make all these changes in the church confessions, creeds, etc.? Jesus Christ never changes. And we should transform our minds rather than conform to this earth.
As I grow closer to Jesus Christ, I am getting fed up more and more with organized religion. Changing myself to be more like Jesus… I can get into that. Changing the church to be more like the world? I vote “no.”
Just a thought…
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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