NOTES for Act 15:36-16:15
What do we look to when we discuss what a person needs or does not need to do for salvation, or when we discuss questions of church order, when we ask questions like: "how and what should we believe?", "what decision will be pleasing to God?", "what does He expect personally from me"?
Usually we recall certain words from Scripture, from church rules, from other people's experience. At worst, we do whatever comes into our head. But the book of Acts opens before us an astonishing example of apostolic faith, when the Holy Spirit clearly lets them see how they must act and where they must go. That is why Luke can say so simply: "the Spirit did not allow them to go there"...
Only one question remains: if the apostles' experience differs greatly from our experience, what does that give us - a reason for gloom and despair, or a reason to plead for the Spirit?