Tolerance and Spiritual Maturity, Acts 15

Acts 15 recounts a meeting of church leaders in Jerusalem which is of extreme importance to the overall purpose of the Book of Acts. In vv. 1-3, we read:

Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.

The discussion centered on two issues. On one hand, it sought to establish the terms for admitting Gentiles into the church; on the other, it aimed to provide a framework for acceptable social interaction between Jewish and Gentile believers within the same congregation – particularly regarding shared meals. The first point concerned the content of the gospel of salvation, specifically, whether observing the Law and undergoing circumcision were essential for belonging to the Kingdom (v. 5). The second matter related to peaceful coexistence and unity among Jewish and Gentile believers in the local church.

If Galatians 2:11-14 took place before the Jerusalem meeting, it undoubtedly serves as a backdrop to it. In those verses, Paul describes how Peter visited Antioch and, for a time, freely shared meals with the Gentile believers, but when certain men arrived from Jerusalem representing James, Peter stopped eating with them, as it says in vv. 11–12:

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.

The practice of sharing meals between Peter and the Gentile believers in Antioch was unsettling to the Jerusalem church, as Gentiles did not distinguish between clean and unclean animals, paid no heed to whether an animal had been strangled, and did not observe Jewish purification customs. It appears that Peter was persuaded by James’s envoys to stop sharing meals with his Gentile brothers. Others – including Barnabas – followed his example and, like him, fell into hypocrisy; for this reason, Paul publicly rebuked Peter: “When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?’” (v. 14).

Ultimately, the elders and apostles of Jerusalem rejected the demands of the Judaizers. Gentiles did not have to be circumcised or observe the Mosaic Law to be admitted into the church. Regarding table fellowship, a reasonable consensus was reached. Gentiles were to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, and from the meat of strangled animals. They were also to abstain from sexual immorality usually connected to idolatry. 

Paul stated his position regarding clean and unclean food in Romans 14:14–23 and 1 Corinthians 8:1–13. In a nutshell, he said, “But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do” (1 Corinthians 8:8). In other words, no food was impure per se, even if it was forbidden by the Mosaic Law or came from an animal sacrificed to idols. His conscience did not forbid him from eating anything. Yet, to avoid wounding the weak conscience of a brother, he was willing to become a vegetarian if necessary. Regarding issues such as idolatry and immorality, however, he was completely intolerant.

The church of our time would do well to follow Paul’s example regarding things that call for flexibility and tolerance. Many matters related to the practice of the faith are not black and white but contain nuances. Recognizing this demonstrates spiritual maturity.