Acts 15:1-3
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 15
The Council of Jerusalem[a]
The Question of Circumcision. Some men who had come down from Judea were teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised in accordance with the tradition of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 As a result, Paul and Barnabas engaged in a lengthy and acrimonious debate with them, and finally it was decided that Paul and Barnabas and some of the others should go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders.3 So the church sent them on their journey; and as they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported how the Gentiles had been converted, and this news was received with great joy by all the brethren.
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- Acts 15:1 Christian communities have sprung up everywhere and include converts from both Jews and Gentiles. Radical problems have also arisen. The Church is clearly aware that she exists thanks only to the union of the two very contrasting portions of humanity of that time: Jews and Gentiles (Acts 15:14-17); this union should express the true reality of salvation in Jesus Christ. What we see here is an authentically theological inquiry, which consists in interpreting the experience of the apostles’ encounters with the Gentiles and shedding light on them from the Scriptures.
1
As they reflect on the words of the Prophets, the members of the Council realize that the People of God, with which all the prophecies are concerned, exists in its full reality only at the moment when Gentile inquiry meets the original nucleus of Jewish testimonies. However, the practical decisions made are more cautious than the great theological statements. The Council asks for the observance of some elementary precepts that no Jew can abandon and that people know almost everywhere.
They are not to eat meat that has been sacrificed, because this would signify a fellowship with the divinities of the Gentiles (see 1 Cor 10:18-20). They are to avoid illegitimate unions (“unchastity”). They are not to eat flesh with blood in it (“[abstain] from the meat of animals that have been strangled, and from blood” [v. 20]), since according to the mind of the time blood was the sacred principle of life. The last two concern dietary laws (see Gen 9:14; Lev 3:17; Deut 12:16, 23; 1 Sam 14:34; Ezek 33:25).
All agree on these theological principles and their practical consequences. What a staggering sentence we read here for the first time, one that has passed from the Council to our own day: “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and also our decision”!
