Acts 15:12-21 (NIV)
The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. When they finished, James spoke up: “Brothers, listen to me. Simon has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
“‘After this I will return
and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
that the remnant of men may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’
that have been known for ages.
“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 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. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
In the wake of Peter’s testimony of how God worked in the household of Cornelius without them being circumcised or fully converting, Paul and Barnabas gave their testimony. They had countless stories of life transformation in the gentiles they had dealt with, brought on, not through adherence to the ceremonial law, but purely through faith in Jesus. And that change spoke of both genuine salvation and baptism with the Holy Spirit.
The evidence was powerful and incontrovertible, and the conclusion was inescapable: God could save the gentiles by faith alone, the same for gentiles as for Jews
God inspired James, the brother of Jesus, with verses from Amos 9:11-12 that reinforced all this testimony. They key to him was the phrase “the Gentiles who bear my name.” If God had in mind full converts to Judaism, He would not have referred to them as gentiles. Thus, God Himself had to be interpreted as saying that in the future there would be gentiles who became His people while still remaining gentiles.
James’ conclusion was that the only parts of the old law that was to be required of these new gentile converts at the beginning of their walk was, first, to stay away from worship of idols by not participating in the feasts held at their temples. These feasts were quite common, and many of the gentile converts would have been brought up worshiping these false gods, so a clean break was essential in getting them well-started.
Next was avoiding sexual immorality. The sexual mores of Greco-Roman culture were far from those of the kingdom of God. Not only was fornication, adultery and many kinds of perversion accepted as normal, but many of the temples of the gods and goddesses had ritual prostitution as an integral part of their worship. As new converts were to live from that time on as members of the kingdom and to separate themselves from all that works against it, strict sexual ethics had to be part of their discipleship.
Finally, they were to avoid the meat from strangled animals and blood. Animals were killed by strangulation to keep the blood in the meat, considered a delicacy. God, from the days of Noah onward, had taught His people that blood was precious and bore the life of both men and animals in it. It was therefore not to be consumed, but either offered to God, or poured out on the ground when animals were killed (Genesis 9:4-6, Deuteronomy 12:16, 23-25).
Verse 21 assumes that, with these vital requirements in place in the lives of new gentile converts, there would be abundant opportunities to learn the rest of God’s moral requirements as they attended worship services at the synagogues and house churches wherever they lived. The books of the Old Testament, including the law, were the Scriptures of the New Testament Church, and were read at all services. With this constant exposure to the Scriptures and the leading of the Holy Spirit, they would quickly learn the additional moral requirements of life in the kingdom of God.
Father, in this area I’m afraid that we tend to go to one extreme or the other in our teaching of new Christians. On the one end, we load them down with tons of rules and requirements, making life as a new Christian unmanageable. On the other end, we fail to provide the guidance and guidelines necessary for them to be able to make the transition from life in the kingdom of the world to life in the kingdom of God. Forgive us, Lord, and help us to take our cue from these Spirit-filled, Spirit-led believers in Jerusalem to strike the balance between what must be initially taught and what may be learned later as they grow. Amen.
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