Actes 15:7-11

And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up.

Peter’s speech

Mark--

I. The time when peter spoke. “When there had been much disputing.” That was the critical moment. Speeches acquire force from the time at which they are delivered. Wise men keep back as long as possible. Thus their wisdom goes for twice the value which it would be appraised at did they speak earlier in the discussion. Many a man who is not of first-rate ability allows all the ready tongues to talk first, to relieve their feelings, to show their weak ability, and to secure what noise, mistakenly called applause, they can. Then when the assembly has fatigued itself, and would be only too thankful for a deliverance from the wordy confusion, he rises, puts together the different opinions, finds the middle line, and invites the controversialists to join along that line of compromise. They hail him as a Daniel, though Daniel he is none! He came in at the right time. This is the way in all great assemblies. Peter, then, is growing in grace and knowledge. There was a time when he would have been heard first. Now that he has waited until there has “been much disputing,” he will make his noblest speech.

II. Peter kept to facts. Over some ground we walk very daintily, because we are not quite sure of it; but Peter walks upon solid rock. “Men and brethren, ye know this is not a question of a speculative kind; I will ask you to walk with me over a road macadamised with facts.” As Christian men, we might have gone farther upon our journey if we had not tried to cut it short by crossing bogs and swamps. The longest way about is often the shortest way home. How does Peter come to speak this new language? He has been in conference with Paul. Privately Paul has bad interviews with them “which were of reputation.” There are private processes of education going on in every life and in every house. We feel that Peter has touched the man to whom we owe doctrinal Christianity! He was an apt scholar. Keep company with the wise if you would grow in wisdom.

III. In Peter’s speech you have a whole system of Divinity. I know of nothing outside this deliverance. Here you have--

1. The Trinity “God,” “the Holy Ghost,” and “the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Trinity must assert itself; it does not ask to be proved.

2. Divine sovereignty. “God made choice.” “God gave them the Holy Ghost.” “God put no difference between us and them.”

3. The whole scheme of Judaism. A yoke which could not be borne, but needful at the time. We must have chafing before we can have rest. God must show us what the law really is in all its details and tyrannous demand, before we cry out for mercy, pity, and grace.

4. Salvation by grace (verse 11).

IV. Peter surpasses himself in the breadth of his Christian philosophy.

1. He must have in all his thinking as its vital point Divine action. In fact, he says, “Men and brethren, this is a question that involves the Divine sovereignty; that being so, I start with this fact, that I went to the Gentiles against my convictions, my prejudice, my inclinations; but the law of gravitation drew me; it was God that inspired and directed me.” The reason why we have so many superficial theories of life is that men exclude Divine action. It is not evolution that perplexes me, but creation; and I find no fuller answer than “God created the heavens and the earth.” And so in the evolution of circumstances, the development of spiritual and moral history, I cannot consent to begin at some point indicated by a creature as limited as myself. Here, again, I say, “My difficulty is not with evolution, but with creation; and to that difficulty I find no answer so commanding, so gracious, as, ‘Men and brethren, ye know that a good while ago--God.’“ All the Chapter s of the Bible are hewed out of the quarry of its first verse!

2. Then Peter gives us a doctrine which has become commonplace to us; as uttered from his mouth it was a miracle. “And put no difference or distinction between us and them.” We ourselves being the Gentiles received into the great Abrahamic circle, do not feel the value of the inclusion as we ought to do; but the men who were inside that enclosure, and thought they completed its circumference, when they saw a rent made in the circle of the covenant, and hordes of uncircumcised Gentiles coming in, were appalled and disgusted. What could you say to such men? Could you propose a theory of social evolution to them? They would have burned you with their angry glances! Peter went right into the broken circle, and said, “Ye know that a good while ago--God!” There are times when we must gather up our whole enthusiasm and reasoning and hope into the Divine name, and hurl it, like an infinite thunderbolt, against all the petty action and conceit of a narrow-minded age. Think of a Jew acknowledging that God put no distinction between himself and a barbarian! You do not wonder that Peter should afterwards write: “Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

3. And then how broad again his philosophy becomes when he says, “Why tempt ye God?” This urging of the law beyond its intended province is a temptation of God. This is not obedience; not homage; it is temptation. Even Divine ordinances are not to be thrust beyond Divine boundaries. Paul himself never made a grander speech. How singularly and wondrously God trains one man until he is almost another! (J. Parker, D. D.)