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Acts 15:19–29
“It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell” (vv. 28–29).
To settle the question whether gentile Christians had to be circumcised and follow all the Mosaic law, the Apostles and elders gathered, convening what is now known as the Jerusalem Council. Having heard from Peter, James, and Paul about the conversion of the gentiles, the council turned to the Apostle James, who noted that the gentiles’ joining the church fulfilled Old Testament prophecy (Acts 15:1–18).
Consequently, today’s passage reveals, James concluded that the conversion of the gentiles and their reception of the Holy Spirit while they were still uncircumcised meant that they did not have to be circumcised. The Apostles and elders agreed with James, sending a letter instructing the gentile Christians only to “abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality” (vv. 19–29).
The council’s decision maintained that the gentiles, like the Jews, are declared righteous by faith alone apart from works (justification) while showing sensitivity to cultural differences in the church. The council did not make the gentiles’ obedience to the law a prerequisite for their justification, but it did instruct them to avoid practices that offended Jewish sensibilities. Some of these instructions were only temporary—the guidance against meat sacrificed to idols, blood, and what had been strangled. These were not rules given for all time because the New Testament plainly indicates elsewhere that we are free to eat whatever has been sanctified by prayer (1 Tim. 4:4–5). Nevertheless, the Jews did not yet fully understand that, especially those Jews outside the church. Gentile Christians’ flaunting their freedom to eat what the Jews considered taboo could cause strife in the church and erect unnecessary barriers to outreach to other Jews. After all, the gentile Christians would be preaching to many Jews, since in every city they would encounter Jewish communities and synagogues where the law of Moses was known (Acts 15:21).
Additionally, the Jerusalem Council told the gentile Christians not to engage in sexual immorality. This was a permanent provision, for sexual morality is a matter of God’s eternal moral law, and the New Testament says that sexual immorality is always contrary to the Lord (see 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Thess. 4:3). Since the food laws are ceremonial, the Jerusalem Council’s guidance regarding them was not intended for all time. The moral law, however, is always in force.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The right course of action in the early church with respect to the food laws differed according to the situation because food is not a matter of eternal import. As Dr. R.C. Sproul comments, however, “Sexual morality is not situational ethics or a question of prudence, but a question of insulting the holiness of God.” Christians never have license to break God’s moral law, since it expresses His holy character.
For further study
- Leviticus 18
- Proverbs 7
- 1 Corinthians 10
- Hebrews 13:4
The bible in a year
- Job 31–32
- Acts 13:1–25