The council at Jerusalem
1 Some persons who had come from Judea to Antioch were teaching the brothers in this way, “Unless you are circumcised according to the law of Moses, you cannot be saved.”
2 Because of this there was trouble, and Paul and Barnabas had fierce arguments with them. For Paul told the people to remain as they were when they became believers. Finally those who had come from Jerusalem suggested that Paul and Barnabas and some others go up to Jerusalem to discuss the matter with the apostles and elders.
3 They were sent on their way by the Church. As they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria they reported how the non-Jews had turned to God, and there was great joy among all the brothers and sisters.
4 On their arrival in Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the Church, the apostles and the elders, to whom they told all that God had done through them.
5 Some believers, how ever, who belonged to the party of the Pharisees, stood up and said that non-Jewish men must be cir cum cised and instructed to keep the law of Moses.
6 So the apostles and elders met together to consider this matter.
7 As the discussions became heated, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that from the beginning God chose me among you so that non-Jews could hear the Good News from me and believe.
8 God, who can read hearts, put himself on their side by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as he did to us.
9 He made no distinction between us and them and cleansed their hearts through faith.
10 So why do you want to put God to the test? Why do you lay on the disciples a burden that neither our ancestors nor we ourselves were able to carry?
11 We believe, indeed, that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are.”
12 The whole assembly kept silent as they listened to Paul and Bar nabas tell of all the miraculous signs and wonders that God had done through them among the non-Jews.
13 After they had finished, James spoke up, “Listen to me, brothers.
14 Sy meon has just ex plained how God first showed his care by taking a people for himself from non-Jewish na tions.
15 And the words of the pro phets agree with this, for Scripture says,
16 After this I will return and re build the booth of David which has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again.
17 Then the rest of hu manity will look for the Lord, and all the nations will be consecrated to my Name. So says the Lord, who does today
18 what he decided from the beginning.
19 Because of this, I think that we should not make difficulties for those non-Jews who are turning to God.
20 Let us just tell them not to eat food that is unclean from having been offered to idols; to keep themselves from prohibited marriages; and not to eat the flesh of animals that have been strangled, or any blood.
21 For from the earliest times Moses has been taught in every place, and every Sabbath his laws are recalled.”
The council’s letters
22 Then the apostles and elders together with the whole Church de cided to choose representatives from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. These were Judas, known as Barsabbas, and Silas, both leading men among the brothers.
23 They took with them the following letter:
Greetings from the apostles and elders, your brothers, to the believers of non-Jewish birth in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia.
24 We have heard that some persons from among us have worried you with their discussions and troubled your peace of mind. They were not ap pointed by us.
25 But now, it has seemed right to us in an assembly, to choose representatives and to send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,
26 who have dedicated their lives to the service of our Lord Jesus Christ.
27 We send you then Judas and Silas who themselves will give you these instructions by word of mouth.
28 We, with the Holy Spirit, have decided not to put any other burden on you except what is necessary:
29 You are to abstain from blood from the meat of strangled animals and from prohibited marriages. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
30 After saying good-bye, the messengers went to Antioch, where they assembled the community and handed them the letter.
31 When they read the news, all were delighted with the encouragement it gave them.
32 Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, spoke at length to encourage and strengthen them.
33 After they had spent some time there, the messengers were sent off in peace by the believers;
34 Silas, however, preferred to stay with them and only Judas went off.
35 So Paul and Barnabas continued in An tioch, teaching and preaching with many others the word of God.
Paul’s second mission
36 After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the believers in every town where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, to see how they are getting on.”
37 Bar nabas wanted to take with them John also called Mark,
38 but Paul did not think it right to take him since he had not stayed with them to the end of their mission, but had turned back and left them in Pam phylia.
39 Such a sharp disagreement resulted that the two finally separated. Barnabas took Mark along with him and sailed for Cyprus.
40 Paul, for his part, chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers and sisters to the grace of the Lord.
41 He traveled throughout Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches there.
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Comments Acts, Chapter 15
• 15.1 Here we see the first major discussion in the Church. Paul gives us an account of it in Gal 2:1-10.
For two or three centuries, Jews who had emigrated to Greek-speaking countries had at tracted countless pagans to their faith. How ever, these pagans practically had to form an integral part of the Jewish people. Proselytes and foreign-born sympathizers were required to start following what we read in verses 19-20. Then, they had to be circumcised.
This was the way many Christians in Jerusa lem saw their entry into the Church. The Pha ri sees among them were categorical (5): pa gans are saved by faith in Christ but this faith is linked to the observance of the Law. Even though they were not fully aware of it, to them faith meant becoming an integral part of the people of God, a people who was identified with Israel.
Paul’s missions contributed a new element. Communities that were mostly made of non-Jews emerged in Greek lands and Paul did not impose any condition for their baptism. For them, the people of God was the Christian community.
Was the Church going to split? Was Paul going to start another’“Christian” Church, one more radical in its understanding of salvation only through faith in Christ? The Jerusalem encounter was an effort of the whole Church to clarify its faith and to preserve its unity.
The way to resolve the conflict emphasizes the aspect of the Church as a community. The”Elders, in charge of the Mother Church of Jerusalem, met with the apostles who were the supreme authority (22)… Simon Peter re minded them of his experience with Cornelius (chapter 10) and he opened the way to total freedom with regard to the Jewish religion.
We, with the Holy Spirit have decided (28): the decision of the community in union with its apostles is the guarantee of the Holy Spirit. Several times in the course of history, similar debates have taken place although they were not about freeing the Gospel from the laws of the Old Testament but rather, they were dealing with Church laws and customs that had become an impossible burden to carry (15:10) for most men and women. How ever, it is only possible to point out these ob stacles at a wide open debate as the one in Jerusalem had been.
• 13. We have a hard time following the interventions and arguments. This is because we do not know the atmosphere in which the discussion took place. At the time, people were celebrating one of the major Jewish feasts. The Gospels call it the feast of the Dedication of the Temple (Jn 10:22) to recall both its construction by Solomon and its purification by Judas Maccabeus. The entire discussion must have started with the liturgical texts for those days. An in-depth study shows us that, in addition to the quotations of 16-18, what Peter and James said was also referring to these texts. From God, people expected a purified temple and a renewed people and the apostles understood that if many Jews drifted away by not believing in Christ, converted pagans were going to replace them (16). Then, this purified people was to be like the temple, or more precisely, the tent (16) that protected the Ark of God before human pride built the great stone temple.
James, the very conservative leader of the Jerusalem Church, interpreted the texts and he did not hesitate to admit that they confirmed what had been started with the evangelization that took place in Antioch and with Paul’s missions. It would be necessary to go even further and to call people from all the nations (17).
• 20. Today we are convinced that verses 20-21, repeated in 28-29 in our text, are the result of an error. These verses are unlikely and they contradict everything we read further on, either in Acts or the letters of Paul and James. What has been copied here was a later decision—as we read in Acts 20:25—made by James for communities that were mostly Jewish in terms of their members and language. Instead of that, Luke’s text most likely contained one of the two following formulas: Let each one of you love his neighbor as himself or Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you. Absolutely nothing was imposed.
• 22. The final decision of the “Council” of Jerusalem, as it is presented here, is doubtless the best the apostles and the Holy Spirit could do at the time. Let us frankly say that the settlement could only be provisional and lacked doctrinal justification. To impose Jewish laws was to penalize non-Jews; it was also a way of saying that the Church was unable to live according to the “newness” of the Gospel, free of the past, free of religious discipline. In fact, a few years later, there was no question of these laws since the Church had freed itself of the Jewish community, just as it had been rejected by the Jews.
• 28. The decision of the community united to its apostles guarantees the presence of the Holy Spirit. On several occasions in history, similar debates have taken place, but then it was not a question of freeing the Gospel of the Old Testament laws; it was the laws and customs of the Church that had become the impossible burden to carry (v. 10) for a large human majority. Only when a debate is wide open, as was the one at Jerusalem, does it succeed in pointing out the obstacles and ecclesiastical taboos. As long as the central organisms stifle the liberty of expression, the mission weakens and encloses itself within a traditional clientele decreasing day by day.
• 36. This is the year 50. It has been thirteen years since Paul encountered Christ on the road to Damascus and now another stage of his life is starting. He acts as the leader in charge. The apostles and the Church in Jeru sa lem officially recognized the mission that Christ had given him on the day of his conversion.
The sudden breakup between Paul and his friend Barnabas should not surprise us: faith does not destroy one’s personality. Time and thanksgiving tend to lessen conflicts. Some years later Paul, who is imprisoned, will be helped by Mark (Phil 24), and much later, imprisoned again, Paul will ask Mark to come and help him (2 Tim 4:11).