“After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild and I will restore it, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord who does these things.”
Acts 15:16-17 (NIV)
Our NIV bibles have a text note telling us these 2 verses come from Amos 9:11,12 (see Septuagint) which tells us that James the brother of Jesus quoted these verses from the Greek translation of the Hebrew OT, hence the slight difference in wording. I love it when the apostles quote the OT to make a NT point for it removes any doubt at all about the meaning of that OT passage. Some people will say well that is the apostles understanding of the text as if somehow the OT prophet had a different meaning from the NT apostle. Gooblygook I say! When an OT text is used by the NT apostles, what we have is not a difference of opinion or meaning, rather we have the true meaning of the OT text given by the Holy Spirit in the light of the glorious grace of Christ Jesus in which we live and have our being. We have here in Acts 15 a God given opportunity to understand the prophecy of Amos 9 in the beautiful light of the glorious gospel. What Amos saw was a worldwide expansion of the kingdom of God, in which the rule of David the king extended across all nations. The apostle James understood that the report of the Spirit being given to Gentiles as they confessed faith in Christ Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecy in Amos 9, and because the apostles were able to recognize this as God’s work, they came alongside God in His work, and welcomed the Gentile believers into the community of believers. There is absolutely no way to over emphasize how important the prophecy of Amos 9 was to the formation of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. Gentiles being joined to Jews in Christ Jesus was not plan B – it was the plan all along! Who would have thought that God’s plan to restore David’s kingdom was to bring the gospel to depraved pagans like you and me, and give us the faith to believe and the Holy Spirit upon belief? Amos saw it 800 years before it happened. May we have the spirit of Acts 15 towards the people of the West Hill community as we seek to see our Lord’s church established in West Hill. May we not put any boundaries up that were not established by the apostles as we see God put His Spirit into their souls.
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