Bible Study Lesson for Acts 15:1-21: First Church Council

(Note: When I taught my Bible study on the Book of Acts I used a flannel map as a visual aid. In my lecture notes you will find reference to this flannel map. The primary commentary I used was Compton's Interactive Bible, a software CD; I sometimes refer to this as my Interactive Bible CD.)

This chapter can be divided into three sections.

Verses 1-21 describes the first church council held in Jerusalem in which the question of whether or not Gentile Christians should conform to Jewish traditions is debated.
Verses 22-35 describes the letter that the council wrote & what happened when it was distributed to the believers.
Verses 36-41 describes how Paul and Barnabas quarrel and part company

Read Acts 15:1. These men were probably from the party of the Pharisees, which we will see mentioned in verse 5. They believed that before a person could become a true Christian, he had to keep the law of Moses, which included circumcision. These "legalists" were also called "Judaizers." Isn't it reassuring to know that even back then there were factions with the church? What we have to deal with all the politics and denominations today can be seen represented in the New Testament. We will see how the early church dealt with these things and hopefully pick up some pointers about how we should deal with like problems in today's church.

Read Acts 15:2. Paul and Barnabas, as missionaries to the Gentiles, would, of course, have quite a few problems with the Judaizers' philosophy. They had not received any indication via the Holy Spirit that Gentiles were supposed to do anything to receive salvation, except to accept Christ. We can get a good idea of how strongly Paul felt about this issues by reading his letter to the Galatians. Read Galatians 2:15-21. Verse 21 seems to be the key verse and the key to Paul's argument: if one could be saved by the law, then Jesus' death is worthless!

Interestingly Paul doesn't pull any punches when he calls these Judaizers "false brothers." Read Galatians 2:4-5. My personal picture of these men is that they were believers who had never grown past their personal backgrounds as Pharisees and were immature in their faith and/or deceived. To me they fit the parable of the seed falling on good soil that springs up, but is then choked by weeds (the cares of the world). I would expect that we have all met legalistic Christians in our lives who carry around burdens that they don't have to, thinking they have to do certain things or be a certain kind of person to "earn" Christ's gift of salvation. They might "say" they believe the gift of grace, but their lives show them burdened with legalistic dos & don'ts.

Clearly the fact that these men felt they could come up from Judea to Antioch, a Gentile city, and openly preach this philosophy showed that they had quite a bit of support from other Jewish believers in the church. This was not an isolated incident and a simple debate was not going to resolve the issue. Paul and Barnabas and some other believers do what we are supposed to do as Christians, they go to their leaders to have the question resolved.

Read Acts 15:3. Remember Paul and Barnabas and their companions are walking from Antioch to Jerusalem. That is quite a long way. Just like we do, perhaps, when we travel cross country, we stop and stay with friends and relatives. They use this as an opportunity to stop and share with the house churches in the towns and villages of Phoenicia and Samaria. The majority of these believers would be Jews and therefore would be excited to learn about Gentile converts. { Point out route from Antioch to Jerusalem on flannel map, showing generally where Phoenicia and Samaria are. } These men had the gift of evangelism - I can't imagine them going on any trip and not sharing the gospel with just about everyone they met.

Verses 4 through 22 describe a sequence of meetings at this council. Read Acts 15:4-5. First we have a general meeting of welcome and report. The sense we get is that the entire church of Jerusalem is assembled together. Paul and Barnabas speak before the assembly, reporting on the missionary trip and evangelistic efforts with the Gentiles.

After hearing this report, some of the Judaizers stand up, in the assembly, and say that the Gentiles have to start obeying the law of Moses.

While the church is still assembled, the church leaders (apostles and elders) leave the assembly for a time to discuss this issue. Read Acts 15:6. As the leaders of the church, it make sense that they are the ones to discuss this issue and come to a final decision about it, rather than going by some sort of general vote of the entire church. Now from my understanding, all of these men would have been Jewish Christians or Jewish converts, who later became Christian. This meeting continues through verse 11.

Read Acts 15:7a. I have to laugh a little when we read "after much discussion..." I can just imagine how heated this debate was! I haven't sat on any church committees, but from what I've been told by those that have, they can get pretty messy! And since many of these men were probably of strong personalities, with strong opinions, I'm sure there were some raised voices before this "discussion" was completed. As we read here, it will be Peter who will be the deciding voice. Read Acts 15:7b. Peter is reminding his audience of the experience he had with the vision of the sheet descending from heaven filled with unclean animals and the resulting conversion of the centurion Cornelius and his family. My commentary said that it is estimated that this happened at least 10 years ago. By this time the Gentile believers probably far out-numbered the Jewish believers! I find it interesting that it took this long for the discussion of whether or not Gentile believers should be required to following the law of Moses to come up in such a public way.

Peter makes a very key statement here "God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe." He makes sure they understand, that it was God who stepped in and brought about Cornelius' conversion.

Read Acts 15:8-9. He goes on, again, to remind them that it was God who did the work and that He showed the Jewish believers that the Gentiles were acceptable by giving them the Holy Spirit (as demonstrated by their speaking in tongues). I think part of what Peter is saying is that "how can you reject the Gentiles when God has so clearly accepted them? Do you really want to be so foolish as to go against God?" I like the fact that he says "who knows the heart." As human beings it is impossible judge anyone else's heart, including our own. This made me think of familiar passage in Jeremiah. Read Jeremiah 17:9-10.

Peter goes on to say that "he purified their hearts by faith." This is Peter's way of saying what Paul will affirm in Romans 5:1-2.

Read Acts 15:10-11. The Jews had been unable to "earn" salvation through the yoke (or burden) of the law, so how could they possibly ask the Gentiles to take on this yoke? If they, as Jews, were saved by grace, so were the Gentiles.

We now move into the third meeting, when the leaders rejoin the rest of the church. As we will read in the next verse, apparently the laypeople were having their own heated discussion, because they become silent when Barnabas and Paul share. Read Acts 15:12. Barnabas may be mentioned first here because of his importance in Jerusalem - remember he is mentioned as one of the first people to sell property and give it to the church, way back in chapter 4. Read Acts 4:36-37. The story of miracles and signs among the Gentiles would have been even further confirmation that God was working with the Gentiles and was accepting them into His family.

Read Acts 15:13-14. This is James, the brother of Jesus. Though he is not one of the 12 apostles, he holds a high position in the church. (James, the apostle, and brother to John, was killed a few years earlier.) "Simon" is the Greek version of "Peter." Before the whole church James reminds them that Peter is a witness to the fact that God has moved to draw Gentiles to join the church community. He then goes on to give proof from the Old Testament to support his argument.

Read Acts 15:16-18. James is quoting from Amos. People have given different interpretations about what exactly the Lord is saying through the prophet here. I'm not going to try to go through the different possible meanings - I would like to just focus on what I feel is the key phrase for the current debate: "and all the Gentiles who bear my name." So, even in the Old Testament (as we've seen mentioned many times during our study of Isaiah) there is a clear message that salvation is also for the Gentiles.

Read Acts 15:19. James doesn't want to put any stumbling blocks in the paths of the Gentiles - ie. "we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles" I wonder if he may have been remember the following words of Jesus. Read Luke 17:1-2.

But the church leaders could not leave things as status quo or not respond to the vehement emotions (on both sides) generated by this debate. As we will read in the next verse, circumcision was not required, but four stipulations were laid down. These were in areas where the Gentiles had particular weaknesses and where the Jews were particularly repulsed by Gentile violations. It would help both the individual and the relationship between Gentile and Jew if these requirements were observed. They involved divine directives that the Jews believed were given before the Mosaic laws. (Again, ignoring these stipulations did not negate a believer's salvation, but rather helped him to walk in a way pleasing to the Lord. Most churches, today, have their own list of what they feel are appropriate behaviors for their congregations, for what they feel is the believers' own good.)

Read Acts 15:20. Let's look at each of the four stipulations. 1) from food polluted by idols. That is from food sacrificed to idols. What is going on here is that by knowingly eating food sacrificed to an idol they may feel like they have involved themselves in pagan worship and therefore sinned against Christ. Paul will actually directly address this question in his first letter to the Corinthians. Read 1 Corinthians 8:4-13. There is a lot going on here - talking about the freedom with have in Christ, yet, how we must sometimes give up that freedom out of our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, since it may cause them to stumble. This tells me, therefore, that not all Gentiles believers immediately chose to abide by the stipulations presented at this first council. From what I understand, meat that was sacrificed in pagan temples was then resold in the market place; buying and eating such meat would have been a normal practice for many Gentile believers. (In today's church, a common dietary debate is focused around alcohol - should Christians drink or not? So, nope, there's nothing new under the sun!)

2) from sexual immorality. This was a particular sin that was apparently taken fairly lightly by Gentiles and was often associated with pagan religious rituals.

3) from the meat of strangled animals. This particular dietary practice was repulsive to Jews and comes from the command given in Genesis 9:4. My commentary gave me some more insights into what is going on here.

"Life is the precious and mysterious gift of God, and man is not to seek to preserve it or increase the life-force within him by eating 'life' that is 'in the blood' --as many pagan peoples throughout history have thought they could do."

This command also explains the last of the four stipulations. 4) from blood. That is, from eating blood separate from meat. For more information, let's see Leviticus 17:10-12. By abiding to these last two dietary restrictions, Gentile Christians were showing sensitivity to their Jewish brothers' beliefs. They would have also, I think, been fairly easy to abide to.

Read Acts 15:21. I think James is saying here that there are Jews living in all the known cities of the time and that their dietary requirements are already well known among the Gentiles. (I think.) So, it shouldn't be all that difficult to follow these dietary requirements, since accommodations would have already been made in these cities to sell food to the Jews living there already.

To be continued...

Sources
Editors. Compton's Interactive Bible (software)
Philip Yancey and Tim Stafford (notes). The Student Bible. NIV Version