Chapter 15 Acts 15
The Jerusalem Council (vv. 1-21)
Some men a came from Judea to Antioch and started teaching the believers, “You cannot be saved unless you are circumcised as the Law of Moses requires.” 2 Paul and Barnabas got into a fierce argument with them about this, so it was decided that Paul and Barnabas and some of the others in Antioch should go to Jerusalem and see the apostles and elders about this matter.
3 They were sent on their way by the church; and as they went through Phoenicia and Samaria, b they reported how the Gentiles had turned to God; this news brought great joy to all the believers. 4 When they arrived in Jerusalem, c they were welcomed by the church, the apostles, and the elders, to whom they told all that God had done through them. 5 But some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees d stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and told to obey the Law of Moses.”
6 The apostles and the elders met together to consider this question. 7 After a long debate Peter e stood up and said, “My brothers, you know that a long time ago God chose me from among you to preach the Good News to the Gentiles, so that they could hear and believe. 8 And God, who knows the thoughts of everyone, showed his approval of the Gentiles by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he had to us. 9 He made no difference between us and them; he forgave their sins because they believed. 10 So then, why do you now want to put God to the test by laying a load on the backs of the believers which neither our ancestors nor we ourselves were able to carry? 11 No! We believe and are saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are.”
12 The whole group was silent as they heard Barnabas and Paul report all the miracles and wonders that God had performed through them among the Gentiles. 13 When they had finished speaking, James f spoke up: “Listen to me, my brothers! 14 Simon has just explained how God first showed his care for the Gentiles by taking from among them a people to belong to him. 15 The words of the prophets agree completely with this. As the scripture says, g
16 ‘After this I will return, says the Lord,
and restore the kingdom of David.
I will rebuild its ruins
and make it strong again.
17 And so all the rest of mankind will come
to me,
all the Gentiles whom I have called
to be my own.
18 So says the Lord, who made this known long ago.’
19 “It is my opinion,” James went on, h “that we should not trouble the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead, we should write a letter telling them not to eat any food that is ritually unclean because it has been
offered to idols; i to keep themselves from sexual immorality; j and not to eat any animal that has been strangled, k or any blood. l 21 For the Law of Moses has been read for a very long time in the synagogues every Sabbath and his words are preached in every town.”
Interesting Stuff:
a They were Jewish Christians from Jerusalem who could have come from ‘the party ‘of the Pharisees’ (see v. 5). They insisted that before a person could become a true Christian he must keep the Law of Moses. Their teaching was that circumcision was therefore essential to salvation. These became known as the ‘Judaizers’.
b The Phoenician and Samaritan Christians were the converts of the Hellenist Christians who left Jerusalem after Stephen’s martyrdom. They probably took a broader view than that which prevailed at Jerusalem and rejoiced at the news of God’s work among the Gentiles.
c There were a few meetings that apparently took place (as described in vv. 4-22): (i) a general meeting of welcome and report (vv. 4-5) (ii) a meeting of the leaders (vv. 6-11) (iii) a meeting of the apostles, elders and the whole assembly (vv. 12-22).
d Some Pharisees (refer to ‘The Pharisees’, p. xxx) became Christians and brought their Judaic beliefs with them into their new faith. They believed that Gentiles must first become converts to Judaism and be circumcised (see v. 1), and then they would be eligible to be saved by faith. Perhaps some of them had gone to Antioch and now returned to present their case.
e Peter was no longer the chief figure of the Jerusalem church, for James had now assumed that role (see v. 13). But Peter was dominant in the Jewish Christian mission and responsible to the Jerusalem church. And it is as a missionary, not an administrator, that he spoke up and reminded the council that God had chosen to have the Gentiles hear the Gospel (11:1-18) some ten years earlier from him and accept it.
f This was James, the Lord’s brother. He, and not Peter, was the decisive voice at this meeting which has come to be called the Jerusalem Council. This could partly be due to the position which he increasingly came to hold as the foremost leader in the church (cf. 12:17) and partly because he was regarded as a law-abiding Jewish Christian. The Judaizers within the church looked to him for support. See chap 12, note l for other details.
g This is taken from Am 9:11-12.
h James’ conclusion was that the church should not go on burdening Gentiles who turned to God because God was doing a new thing in raising up the church in the last days. Nothing in the Scriptures suggests that they were to become Jews in order to become God’s people. Circumcision was not therefore required, but James recommended four things that the Gentile Christians should abstain from.
These were in areas where the Gentiles had particular weaknesses and which the Jews found repulsive. The council felt that it would help relationships between Jewish and Gentile Christians within the church if these requirements were observed. The Jews believed these were commands given by God even before the Mosiac Law.
i These were food that were offered on pagan altars as part of their sacrifice to the idols (cf. 1 Co 8:7-13).
j Sexual immorality was a sin that was taken lightly by the Greeks. It was also associated with certain pagan religious festivals.
k The Bible stresses that ‘the life of every creature is in its blood’ (Lev 17:14) and that is why God told Noah that he was not to eat meat that has its lifeblood in it (Ge 9:4). Life is God’s mysterious and precious gift to man. He was not to seek to preserve it or to increase the life-force within him by eating the ‘life’ that is ‘in the blood’ as many pagan peoples throughout history had thought they could do. Meat of animals that were strangled would retain some of its blood. Thus eating it was forbidden.
l Eating blood is expressly forbidden in Jewish law (see note k above). This might refer to the practice of eating blood apart from the meat.
Questions:
What did the men from Judea teach at the Antioch church (v. 1)?
2. What resulted from that incident (v. 2)?
3. What did Paul and his companions do along the way as they travelled to Jerusalem (v. 3)?
4. How were they received when they arrived in Jerusalem (vv. 4-5)?
5. Describe what happened at the meeting of the apostles and the elders in Jerusalem (vv. 6-21).
Summary of Section:
- Some men came from Judea to Antioch and started teaching the believers that they could not be saved unless they were circumcised as required by the Law of Moses.
- Paul and Barnabas got into a fierce argument with them about this. So the church decided to send them together with some others to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this matter.
- On their way through Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported how the Gentiles had turned to God. This brought great joy to the believers there.
- When they arrived in Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the elders, apostles and the church. They reported all that God had done through them.
- But some of the believers from the party of the Pharisees stood up and said that the Gentiles must be circumcised and told to obey the Law of Moses.
- The apostles and elders met together to consider this issue. After a long debate, Peter stood up and reminded them about how a long time ago, God had chosen him from among them to preach the Good News to the Gentiles.
- He said that God had given the Gentiles His Spirit just as He had given them, making no distinction between Jews and Gentiles. He forgave their sins because they believed.
- Therefore he asked them why they were asking the Gentiles to bear a burden which neither they nor their ancestors could carry.
- He ended by saying that they believed and were saved by the grace of Jesus just as the Gentiles were.
- The whole group was silent as they heard Barnabas and Paul report all the miracles and wonders that God had performed through them among the Gentiles.
- Then James spoke up and told the group that the words of the prophets agree completely with what Peter had shared about God’s care for the Gentiles in taking from among them a people for Himself.
- He then said that he was of the opinion that they should not trouble the Gentiles who were turning to God.
- Instead they should write a letter asking them to refrain from eating food that was ritually unclean because it had been offered to idols, from sexual immorality, from eating any animal that had been strangled, and from eating blood.
Nuggets of Wisdom
- For several years now Gentiles had been brought to faith in Christ and welcomed into the church by baptism. It began with the conversion of Cornelius in Caesarea (10:1-48) and the Gentiles in Antioch (11:20). Both incidents had been checked out by the Jerusalem church and accepted as the work of God. With Paul’s practice of preaching directly to Gentiles in his mission in Cyprus and throughout southern Asia Minor (Acts 13-14), however, the trickle of Gentile conversions was fast becoming a flood and became a matter of far- reaching concern in Jerusalem.
- The Jewish leaders had no difficulty with the general concept of believing Gentiles because many OT passages predicted their being included as God’s people. So far, it had been assumed that they would be absorbed into Israel by circumcision. Thus by observing the Law, they would be acknowledged as members of the covenant people of God, like the Jews themselves. But something different was happening which alarmed many of the Jewish Christians.
- Gentile converts were now being welcomed into fellowship by baptism without circumcision and were becoming Christians without also becoming Jews. They were retaining their own identity and integrity as members of other nations. It was one thing for the Jerusalem leaders to approve of the conversion of the Gentiles but another to approve of faith in the Messiah without being included into Judaism. The problem of the conditions of their membership into the church began to arise.
- Their former view of the gospel of Christ as a reform movement within Judaism was now being challenged. Some like Paul were bold enough to assert that the gospel was good news for the whole world and the church of Christ was not a sect within Judaism but an international family of God no longer bound by race or the Law.
- It had evidently been the policy of the church at Antioch and its missionaries that such Gentiles should not be required to keep the Jewish law. This, however, was unacceptable to the Jewish Christians for two reasons:
i) They found it hard to believe that Gentiles could be saved and become members of the people of God without accepting the obligations of the Jewish Law. This was the point that was pressed by some of the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem to the church at Antioch. This point was supported by those who were former Pharisees and who retained the attitudes of their pre-conversion days.
ii) There was the question of how Jewish Christians who continued to live by the Jewish Law could have fellowship at table with Gentiles who did not observe the Law and were therefore ritually unclean. This problem would be particularly acute when the church met to ‘break bread’. This issue is not mentioned explicitly in this section but it was a live issue (see Gal 2:11-14) and the decision reached in 15:20 was intended to deal with it. - Thus the convening of the Council of apostles and Christian leaders at Jerusalem in approximately A.D. 49 to deal with the place of Gentiles in the church was an event of the greatest importance for the early church.
- Luke’s account shows that the problems were raised only by a group in the church and were not felt by everybody. The representatives from Antioch found that news of the conversion of Gentiles was welcomed both by the churches they visited on the way to Jerusalem and in Jerusalem itself. When it came to discussion, the two most important leaders, Peter and James, took the side of the men from Antioch. James concluded the whole discussion by pointing out that the entry of the Gentiles into the church was in accordance with God’s plan revealed in prophecy, and that there was no reason to have them obey the Law.
- He pointed out that they must recognise and embrace Gentile believers as brothers and sisters in Christ and not burden them by asking them to add to their faith in Jesus either circumcision or the whole code of the Law. At the same time, he saw it necessary to appeal to the Gentile believers to respect the consciences of their Jewish fellow-believers by abstaining from four practices that would offend them.
- James was the decisive voice partly because of the position which he increasingly came to hold as the foremost leader in the church and partly because he was regarded as a champion of Judaic laws.
- Some scholars see this chapter as the turning point of the book of Acts. In this chapter, Jerusalem is still the focus of interest, and Peter makes his final appearance. But from now on, Peter disappears, to be replaced by Paul. Jerusalem also moves into the background as Paul pushes beyond Asia into Europe and Rome appears on the horizon. The decision reached at the Jerusalem Council freed the gospel from its Jewish trappings into being God’s message for all humankind. And it gave the Jewish- Gentile church a new identity as the reconciled people of God, the one body of Christ.
The Letter Is Read to the Antioch Church (vv. 22-35)
22 Then the apostles and the elders, together with the whole church, decided to choose some men from the group and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose two men who were highly respected by the believers, Judas, called Barsabbas, and Silas, m 23 and they sent the following letter by them:
“We, the apostles and the elders, your brothers, send greetings to all our brothers of Gentile birth who live in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. 24 We have heard that some men who went from our group have troubled and upset you by what they said; they had not, however, received any instruction from us. 25 And so we have met together and have all agreed to choose some messengers and send them to you. They will go with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul, 26 who have risked their lives in the service of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 We send you, then, Judas and Silas, who will tell you in person the same things we are writing. 28 The Holy Spirit n and we have agreed not to put any other burden on you besides these necessary rules: 29 eat no food that has been offered to idols; eat no blood; eat no animal that has been strangled; and keep yourselves from sexual immorality. You will do well if you take care not to do these things. With our best wishes.” 30 The messengers were sent off and went to Antioch, where they gathered the whole group of believers and gave them the letter. 31 When the people read it, they were filled with joy by the message of encouragement. 32 Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, o spoke a long time with them, giving them courage and strength. 33 After spending some time there, they were sent off in peace by the believers and went back to those who had sent them.
34 Paul and Barnabas spent some time in Antioch, and together with many others they taught and preached the word of the Lord.
Interesting Stuff:
m These were presumably leaders in the Jerusalem church. There was no later mention of Judas but Silas became an important figure as seen in the later chapters of Acts. He was a prophet (v. 32) and a Roman citizen (16:37).
n Authority was first given to the Holy Spirit although there was also agreement among the apostles, elders and the other believers. They were also claiming indirectly that the Holy Spirit was present and working as they met together.
o As indicated here, one of the primary roles of prophets in the early church was to encourage and strengthen the brothers (see chap 11, note q).
Questions:
What did the Jerusalem church decide to do after the meeting (vv. 22-23)?
2. Who sent the letter and to whom was it sent (vv. 22-23)?
Who suggested that this letter be written?
3. What was said to the Gentile believers that upset them (vv. 24, 1)?
4. Which two men were sent with Paul and Barnabas to deliver the letter (v. 27)?
5. What were the ‘necessary rules’ conveyed to the Gentile Christians in the letter (v. 29)?
6. What was significantly absent from this list of rules?
7. Why had it been necessary for the letter to be written?
8. What freedom would be enjoyed by the Gentile Christians as a result of this letter?
9. Describe what happened when the whole group arrived at Antioch (vv. 30-33).
10. What did Paul and Barnabas continue to do at Antioch (v. 35)?
Summary of Section:
- The apostles, elders together with the whole church, decided to choose two men Judas and Silas who were highly respected by the believers and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.
- They sent the following letter along with them:
i) They, the apostles and elders, sent greetings to all their Gentile brothers who lived in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia.
ii) They had heard that some men from Jerusalem had gone and upset them by what they said although they had not received any instruction from them.
iii) They had met and agreed to send Judas and Silas with Paul and Barnabas to tell the church in person what they had put in writing.
iv) The Holy Spirit and they had agreed not to put any other burden on them besides the four rules that they were to abstain from eating food offered to idols, from blood, from animals that had been strangled, and
from sexual immorality. - When the messengers arrived, they gathered the church together and gave them the letter.
- The church read it and was filled with joy at the message of encouragement.
- Judas and Silas, who were prophets, spoke a long time with them, giving them courage and strength. After some time, they were sent back to Jerusalem in peace.
- Paul and Barnabas spent some time in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord together with many others.
Nuggets of Wisdom
- James’ proposal met with the agreement of the whole assembly. What is important to note is that though the extremist Jews had lost the argument, they apparently accepted their defeat without any bitterness or disagreement.
- The letter falls into the standard pattern of a first-century letter and was sent in the name of the apostles and elders of the church in Jerusalem. They wrote with authority to their fellow Christian brothers. At this
stage, the Jerusalem church still felt it possessed the authority to tell other churches what to do because it was still led by the apostles. - The decision reached by the church in Jerusalem was regarded as being inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is, throughout the book of Acts, the guide of the church in its decisions and actions.
Paul Separates from Barnabas (vv. 36-41)
36 Some time later Paul p said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit our brothers in every town where we preached the word of the Lord, and let us find out how they are getting along.” 37 Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them, 38 but Paul did not think it was right to take him, because he had not stayed with them to the end of their mission, but had turned back and left them in Pamphylia. q 39 There was a sharp argument, and they separated: Barnabas r took Mark and sailed off for Cyprus, 40 while Paul chose Silas s and left, commended by the believers to the care of the Lord’s grace. 41 He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
Interesting Stuff:
p Luke now presents Paul as taking the initiative for another missionary journey. It was not intended as a new outreach for Paul but only a revisiting of believers converted on the first missionary journey. Nevertheless, God was to bring a second missionary journey out of it.
q See 13:13. Mark had turned back at Perga and did not go to Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe.
r Barnabas and Mark do not appear in Acts again. Despite this disagreement, we find that Paul speaks highly of Barnabas (cf. 1 Co 9:6.). It appears that Paul must have been reconciled to Mark because in some of his letters, he made mention of Mark in favourable terms.
s Paul appears to have sent for Silas to accompany him on this missionary journey. He had evidently come to appreciate Silas in their contacts at Jerusalem and Syrian Antioch and concluded that he would make a good partner. More than that, Silas was a leader in the Jerusalem congregation and was explicitly identified in the Jerusalem letter as one who could speak with authority on the attitude of the Jerusalem church. He was also a Roman citizen who could claim, if need be, the privileges of such citizenship along with Paul.
Questions:
What plan did Paul suggest to Barnabas (v. 36)?
2. What was Barnabas’ response to Paul’s idea (v. 37)?
3. Describe what happened between Paul and Barnabas (vv. 37-39).
4. Where did Paul and Barnabas end up going to (vv. 39-41)?
Summary of Section:
- Some time later, Paul suggested to Barnabas that they go back and visit their brothers in every town where they had preached the word of the Lord and find out how they were getting along.
- Barnabas wanted to take John Mark along but Paul refused because he had not stayed with them till the end of their mission but had left them in Pamphylia.
- Paul and Barnabas had a sharp disagreement and they separated.
- Barnabas took Mark and sailed off for Cyprus.
- Paul chose Silas and went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches there.
Nuggets of Wisdom
- At this point, the possibility of evangelising new territories was not raised although what happened in 16:6 showed that the idea might have been in Paul’s mind already. What started as a follow-up visit to the areas already evangelised became, under the Spirit’s direction, a full-scale mission that took Paul and Silas temporarily out of Asia Minor. They were led into Macedonia and Greece where they established churches in Philippi, Thessalonica and Corinth.
- Barnabas’ desire to take Mark with them was probably motivated by the wish to give the young man another chance to prove himself. Paul, however, was concerned for the mission and unwilling to take a doubtful partner. It worked out in the end that each was able to choose his own companion and so both went their separate ways. Later it seemed that Barnabas was proved right in what he did because Paul acknowledged the worth of Mark and regarded him as a colleague (see Col 4:10; 2 Ti 4:11).
- After the separation between Barnabas and Paul, the spotlight became exclusively on Paul and nothing more was mentioned in Acts about Barnabas’ activities.
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