Missionary Council in Jerusalem

• After the Caesarean and Antiochian outpourings, the church continued to grow and extend itself. By now, it had ranged as far north as Galatia in eastern Asia Minor.
• There, Paul and Barnabas had been sent as the church's first intentional missionaries to the Gentiles. They had experienced great success, and several indigenous churches had been planted, resulting in many new believers being added to the Lord.
• These new believers came from four classes of people: Jews, Jewish proselytes, God-fearers, and Gentiles. It was the last two classes that created controversy in the church.
• Certain Jewish believers contended that before these two groups could be saved, they must first submit to the Jewish rite of circumcision. This debate has been called the "Gentile Question." Acts 15 records the story of how the controversy was resolved.
• In this chapter we will discuss the church council in Jerusalem where the issue was addressed directly. It occurred soon after Paul and Barnabas' first missionary journey, and we refer to it as the missionary council in Jerusalem.
• It was a highly significant event in the church's missionary development. It was for this reason that Luke included it in his narrative.
• At this council the church officially determined that Gentiles did not have to submit to the Law of Moses, which required circumcision for one to be saved.
• As Scripture makes clear, salvation for both Jews and Gentiles is by faith in Christ alone.

Some Jewish brothers arrived in Antioch from Judea and began to teach the Christians there that believers must be circumcised before they could be saved. Paul and Barnabas strongly opposed this teaching and entered into a sharp dispute with them. The leaders in the church in Antioch, therefore, appointed Paul and Barnabas, along with some other believers from the church, to go to Jerusalem and discuss the matter with the apostles and elders there.

On their journey to Jerusalem, the delegation traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, where they gave reports about how the Gentiles had come to Christ. This news made the believers in those places glad. When Paul and Barnabas arrived in Jerusalem, they were received warmly by the leadership of the church. They then gave a report of all that God had done through them among the Gentiles. However, some of the Pharisees who had become believers objected, saying that the Gentile Christians must be circumcised and obey the law of Moses to be saved.

• Must a Gentile first become a good Jew before he or she can become a Christian?
• As simple as that question may seem to us today, it was not so simple for the early church. Christianity had been born into the cradle of Judaism.
• However, in order for it to grow into a worldwide movement, it had to break free from the binding legalism of the Jewish religion.
• Some Jewish Christians resisted the call for liberation. Others, like Paul and Barnabas, knew that it must take place if Christianity was to prosper among the nations.
• That is why they decided to travel all the way to Jerusalem to settle the matter once and for all.

15:2 Sharp dispute

• That some would teach that a person must keep the Law of Moses before becoming a Christian was no small issue. It struck at the very heart of the gospel of grace.
• Paul and Barnabas had no choice but to oppose this teaching, even if it meant sharp dispute.
• Some issues are so important that they cannot be ignored; they must be addressed and resolved.

This question

• The "question" referred to is the Gentile question.

Soon after Paul and Barnabas arrived in Jerusalem, the apostles and elders met to consider the Gentile question. After much discussion, Peter stood up and reminded the delegates of how God had used him to bring the message of the gospel to the Gentiles in Caesarea. He told them how God had seen into the Gentiles' hearts and had accepted their faith in Him. God proved this by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He had given to the Jewish believers at Pentecost. He made no distinction between them and the Jews, cleansing their hearts by faith.

Peter concluded his address with a challenge: "Why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." After Peter had concluded, the whole assembly sat in silence and listened to Paul and Barnabas tell how, through them, God had worked many signs and wonders among the Gentiles.

• At the Jerusalem Council Peter, Paul, and Barnabas stood as witnesses to the fact that God had chosen to include the Gentiles in His plan of salvation.
• They testified how God, by pouring out His Spirit, had extended His hand toward uncircumcised Gentiles. God himself had chosen to include them in His plan of salvation.
• This salvation does not come through keeping the law but through faith in Christ.

15:7 God made a choice

• It is not our choice who should and who should not hear the gospel and be saved.
• The choice to include all people in His plan of salvation was God's alone.
• It was also in God's sovereign plan that Peter would first preach the gospel to the Gentile believers in Caesarea.

15:8 By giving the Holy Spirit to them

• God proved that He had accepted the Gentiles into His family by giving them the Holy Spirit.
• The baptism in the Holy Spirit is an experience for believers only.
• Jesus taught that the gift of the Holy Spirit is given to God's children (Luke 11:13). He further taught that the world (unbelievers) cannot receive the Spirit (John 14:17).

After Peter, Paul, and Barnabas had finished their speeches, James spoke up and reinforced what Peter had said. He noted that in Caesarea, God had visited the Gentiles and received them to be part of his people. This was in agreement with the words of the Hebrew prophets: "'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" (Amos 9:11-12; Isaiah 45:21-22).

James then delivered his judgment on the matter, stating that the leaders of the church should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who were turning to God. Only four out of thousands of Jewish religious prohibitions were to be followed by Gentile converts. He said the council should write a letter and tell the Gentile believers that they should not eat food sacrificed to idols and that they must abstain from all sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood.

He noted that these were some of the very things that Moses taught and had been preached against in Jewish synagogues for many generations. Sexual immorality is clearly forbidden in Scripture, and the other items were important to ensure that Jewish and Gentile Christians would be comfortable eating and fellowshipping together. In this way, James was making a way for the bond of unity and peace to be preserved between culturally diverse Jewish and Gentile Christians.

• Paul and Barnabas, who had opposed the Judaizers in Antioch, were now joined by Peter.
• All three spoke in favor of including the Gentiles into the church without requiring them to first submit to the Law of Moses.
• James also joined them in saying that the church should not make it difficult for the Gentiles to turn to God.

15:13 James spoke up

• This James was the half-brother of Jesus. He was pastor of the church in Jerusalem and wrote the New Testament epistle of James.
• James the apostle and brother of John was martyred by Herod in 12:2.

15:15 The words of the prophets are in agreement

• God's intention to include the Gentiles in His redemptive plan was nothing new.
• It had always been His intention to take out "from the Gentiles a people for himself" (v. 14).
• God told Abraham that through his seed (Jesus), all the nations of earth would be blessed (Genesis 22:18; compare Galatians 3:16).
• The Hebrew prophets consistently testified to the same thing (Isaiah 45:6, 22; 49:6; 51:4-5; 52:10; 56:7; Amos 9:11-12; Zephaniah 2:11; Zechariah 2:10-13).

After James' speech, the apostles and elders, with the consent of the whole assembly, chose two men from among them, Judas (Barsabbas) and Silas, to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. With them they sent a letter addressed to "the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia." The letter assured the Gentile believers that the men from Judea who had been troubling them did not have the authorization of the leadership of the church in Jerusalem. They were, therefore, sending Judas and Silas to accompany Paul and Barnabas to confirm that the letter had come from them.

The letter called Paul and Barnabas "dear friends" and "men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." The apostles further informed its recipients that the decision they had reached "seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us," indicating that the Holy Spirit had inspired the decision. They assured the Gentile believers that they did not want to place any unnecessary burden upon them; however, they would be required to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality.

As soon as the four men arrived in Antioch, they called a meeting of the church and read the letter aloud. When the Gentile believers heard it, they rejoiced. Afterward, Judas and Silas, who were prophets, encouraged and strengthened the believers there. After a while, Judas returned to Jerusalem with the blessing of the church. Paul, Barnabas, and Silas, however, remained in Antioch, where they and others taught and preached the word of the Lord.

• The decision reached by the Jerusalem Council was momentous.
• Because the delegates were open to the Spirit and the teachings of Scripture, the correct decision was reached.
• It resulted in great joy among the new Gentile believers in the church.
• More importantly, the door was opened for the church to continue to expand among the Gentiles unabated.

15:22 Apostles and elders, with the whole church

• Not only were the top leaders of the church brought into the decision-making process, but the whole church was involved.
• This seems to indicate that some primitive form of democracy may have been used in the early church.

15:23 Believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia

• The church, as it was led by the Spirit, continued to expand into new regions.
• What accounted for these believers in Syria and Antioch? The believers in Syria possibly resulted from church-planting efforts of the church in Antioch. The believers in Cilicia possibly resulted from Paul's ministry there. He had spent time in Tarsus, Cilicia, and was probably involved in planting churches in that city and in the surrounding region, as was his custom (11:25).

• Having settled the Gentile question, the church was now prepared to continue its Gentile mission unhindered by doctrinal disputes.
• After an extended time of teaching and preaching in the church in Antioch, Paul and Barnabas prepared for their second missionary journey.
• This journey, however, was to begin with a dispute of another sort. In the next chapter we will look at that dispute and Paul's missionary journey that followed it.

• We must stand firm in our conviction that people can be saved by faith in Christ alone.
• While we must never be arrogant or contentious in our dealings with others, neither can we allow anyone to change the gospel.
• Paul was so firm on this position that he wrote, "Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!" (Galatians 1:8).

• We should not put unnecessary requirements on people that the gospel does not specifically command.
• Our job is to lead people to Christ, and then to help them grow into Christian maturity.
• This cannot be done by just giving them a set of rules to live by. They must be brought into a living relationship with Christ and then taught to follow Him fully.
• In the words of Paul to the believers in Galatia, "A man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified" (Galatians 2:16).

• At the Jerusalem Council the delegates listened to the testimonies of Peter, Paul, and Barnabas; however, their final decision was based on Scripture.
• We must ensure that all of our decisions concerning the work of God are based solidly on the word of God.

• Throughout life we are required to make many decisions concerning our ministries and our personal lives.
• We should never forget that God has a plan for each of our lives. That plan includes our participation in advancing the gospel to the ends of the earth.
• Therefore, every important decision that we make should be made in consultation with other committed believers and with God.
• We should seek the guidance of the Spirit so that when we make our decisions, we can also say, "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us."
• When we make such decisions, great blessing comes to our lives and to the work of God.