The central question — what does one actually have to do in order to become one of God’s people? — was the driving force behind Paul’s letters to Galatians, Romans and Ephesians. It is a dominant theme in the New Testament. If the apostles had not decided this issue correctly, then the gospel could not have spread to the Gentile world as it did.

Requiring people to be circumcised to join the church was wrong. It was more than just a bad practice. It was a fundamental denial of the gospel. That’s why Paul opposed it so passionately.

It is my view that many of the practices that ubf leaders have traditionally imposed upon members are unnecessary and damaging to the gospel witness. These practices may have been helpful for some at certain times, just as circumcision was good for some at certain times. But to claim them as principles that should always be followed as the secret to success — as ubf leaders have often done — is foolhardy and wrong. Unfortunately, it seems to me that some ubf leaders love those practices and heritage more than they love Jesus and the gospel. (They may even think those practices *are* the gospel.)

A couple of years ago, I was asked to prepare some Bible study material for the North American senior staff on Acts chapter 15, so that we could discuss these questions openly. But a few weeks before the meeting was to take place, the plan was nixed.

I think that every story in the Bible is a particular one, and a one-to-one correspondence with any situation that we face today should never be assumed. That’s why it is unwise, for example,  to read what Paul says about women being silent in church and automatically assume that this is a law or principle that must be applied today.  Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. That needs to be considered very carefully. I will say more about this in the upcoming articles.

If i had been Jew back then who had studied OT scriptures extensively and who was then converted to Christianity i would have probably opposed the decision of the Jerusalem Council. The decision of the Jerusalem council is so radical and so drastically counter-cultural to Jewish customs that i probably wouldn’t have been able to bear the stretch.  So, thank God, that i wasn’t there back then. :)

My question is though: can the situation at the Jerusalem Council be applied to us one-to-one? I cheated and i peeked. :) The Jerusalem Council explicitly mentioned that it pleased the Holy Spirit not to burden Gentile Christians with mosaic laws, which made the mosaic covenant obsolete and irrelevant for Gentiles. It is the same Holy Spirit who not too long after these events inspired all the NT authors to write and finish the rest of the bible. To me it seems that their situation was a particular one that one should be careful with comparisons to our situation…

(by which i don’t want to say that this passage doesn’t teach great principles concerning the Holy Spirit.)

I’d wager  that Jesus’ words from Matthew 5:17 were a major  issue of discussion at the council. Those words, “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” aren’t  so easy to interpret. Couldn’t they be taken to mean that followers of Jesus should not disregard the law but obey the law from their hearts as Jesus did?

As you point out: With 2000 years of Christian history behind us, it’s so easy to underestimate how truly difficult it was — and how truly difficult it still is — to understand  many of the  basic teachings of Jesus. When we read the Bible, we do so through the lenses of modern evangelicalism. It’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking we are reading the Bible plainly and simply, interpreting  everything just as it is and coming to the right answer all by ourselves. None of us can do that.  In our struggle to see and understand Jesus, we all must stand on the shoulders of giants, beginning with the personal knoweldge and witness of the apostles.

So since Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses in himself and when he died the Temple curtain tore in two, I would hope that had I been at the Council, I would have seen this to mean that all could come to him without becoming Jews first…but thats easy to say two thousand years after the fact!