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Acts 15:1-21
The Council at Jerusalem
1Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 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. 3 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. 4 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.
5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.”
6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. 13 When they finished, James spoke up. “Brothers,” he said, “listen to me. 14 Simon has described to us how God first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. 15 The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
16 “‘After this I will return
and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
17 that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’
18 that have been known for ages.
19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21 For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
This is a very important passage, it seems to me, because it’s the story of the first big theological controversy of the early church. It’s important because it foreshadows controversies that would continue to break out in the church throughout its history, but also because it provides a model for how the church can effectively deal with those controversies.
The issue at the center of this controversy was the question of whether followers of Jesus needed to become Jews before they could become Christians. Of course, Jesus had been a Jew who generally lived according to the traditional teachings of his people, although he was somewhat flexible about some aspects like healing on the Sabbath and ritual cleansings before meals.
And as you might remember, most of the original followers of Jesus, and all of the first apostles, were also Jews. The account in the Acts of the Apostles seems to say that the first apostles continued to keep the Law of Moses, even after they started following Jesus. The scholars tell us that many or most of the first followers of Jesus attended Jewish synagogue services on Saturday and Christian worship on Sunday.
But when the apostles – including Paul – went out into the world to spread the gospel message among the gentiles, some elements of the Law of Moses became a problem. Paul did not teach his gentile converts that they needed to observe Jewish laws about eating only kosher foods and being circumcised. And in a story we thought about a week or two ago, Peter was told in a vision that he could eat gentile food so that he could share table fellowship with people he was telling about Jesus.
Circumcision was a special problem, and not just for the obvious reason that gentile men didn’t want to do it. But also, Greek culture idolized the human form, and considered circumcision an abomination. In fact, circumcised athletes were forbidden to compete in the ancient Olympic Games, where competitors were naked.
So Paul didn’t require converts to strictly keep traditional Hebrew law, but before long, other Jewish Christians started showing up in the churches he started, and telling believers that Paul had been wrong. They said that followers of Jesus did have to obey all the laws and ordinances of the Hebrew tradition.
So Paul and Barnabas traveled to Jerusalem, which was still the center of church life. When the apostles got there, all the leaders of the church were called together to talk about the matter. The key players seem to have been Paul and Barnabas, Simon Peter and James. Church tradition says that James was the biological brother of Jesus and the leader of the church in and around Jerusalem.
Two things about the discussion seem especially worth noting:
First of all, everybody had a chance to express their thoughts. Those who wanted to require full obedience to the Law of Moses were Pharisees. Strict obedience to the law was very important to Pharisees, and even though they didn’t eventually win the argument, the Pharisee Christians had a chance to express their views.
The second important thing about the discussion was that people considered the issue in light of what they thought God was doing in the world. Peter, who had seen the vision saying it was OK to eat gentile food, offered that vision as evidence that traditional practices should not be required of gentile converts. And Paul and Barnabas reported on the success of their ministry as a sign of God’s desire to reach gentile followers.
Eventually, the church reached a compromise. They decided to maintain strict standards of sexual morality and obedience to a few other traditional laws, but generally release gentile believers from the requirement to become Jews first.
The traditional markers of religion are obeying rules to make God favor you, and setting up walls to divide the good people from the bad people. Although Jesus had consistently worked to break down those walls and said that right relationship with God wasn’t about keeping a list of strict rules, his followers seem to have struggled from the earliest days of the church to avoid sliding back into that old ‘religious’ way of thinking.
The church still argues about what Old Testament rules are binding on followers of Jesus. And this passage from Acts should probably be considered a model for how we deal with disagreements – respectfully listening to each other and carefully watching for what God’s actions in the world tell us about his thinking, then compromising to avoiding building walls that might keep people away from him.
Let’s pray. Lord, you know that we still find ourselves in disagreements about how we should live out our faith. In those disagreements, let a spirit of peace and mutual respect prevail, so that we hear one another, even those who disagree with us. And help us to be constantly mindful of what your actions in the world reveal to us about your will for the church. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The listed readings for today are Psalms 30 and 86; Job 41:1-11; Acts 16:6-15; and John 12:9-19. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.org, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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