Acts 15
A dispute over circumcision that cannot be settled in Antioch goes to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem; what results is the most consequential decision in the history of the early church.
Summary
Some men come down from Judea to Antioch and teach the brothers that unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Paul and Barnabas have no small dissension and debate with them; the church decides to send Paul and Barnabas and some others up to Jerusalem to lay the question before the apostles and elders. They travel through Phoenicia and Samaria, reporting the conversion of the Gentiles and bringing great joy. In Jerusalem they are welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, and they declare what God has done with them. But some believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees stand up and say: the Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses. The apostles and elders meet to consider this. After much debate, Peter stands: brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Why then are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
The assembly falls silent. They listen to Paul and Barnabas describe the signs and wonders God has done among the Gentiles through them. James speaks: Simeon (Peter) has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name. This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written in Amos: After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen. My judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him. The whole assembly agrees. They choose Judas Barsabbas and Silas to go with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch, bearing a letter: it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to place on you no greater burden than these requirements. In Antioch they read the letter to the congregation, who rejoice at the encouragement. After some time Paul says to Barnabas: let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord. Barnabas wants to take John Mark; Paul refuses, since Mark had deserted them in Pamphylia. The disagreement is so sharp that they part company. Barnabas takes Mark and sails to Cyprus; Paul takes Silas and departs through Syria and Cilicia.
- Acts 1Chapter 1 is a prologue and a hinge.
- Acts 2Pentecost is the structural and theological engine of the whole book.
- Acts 3Chapter 3 is the first miracle narrative in Acts, and its structure follows a pattern the book will repeat: the sign, the crowd, the sermon, and the opposition (which comes in chapter 4).
- Acts 4Chapter 4 is the first formal opposition scene in Acts, and it establishes a pattern: arrest, interrogation, the apostles' refusal, release, prayer, and the Spirit's confirmation.
- Acts 5Chapter 5 is one of the most dramatically concentrated in the book.
- Acts 6Chapter 6 is transitional but efficient.
- Acts 7Chapter 7 is the theological and dramatic climax of the Jerusalem section.
- Acts 8Chapter 8 is the first chapter of the middle section — Judea and Samaria — and it works by juxtaposition.
- Acts 9Chapter 9 contains the first telling of Paul's conversion (the other two are in chapters 22 and 26), and it is worth reading all three consecutively to see how Luke shapes each one for its audience.
- Acts 10Chapter 10 is the structural pivot of the first half of Acts and one of the most carefully constructed chapters in the New Testament.
- Acts 11Chapter 11 has two movements.
- Acts 12Chapter 12 is the last major Peter chapter in Acts, and it works as a deliberate counterpoint to the Herod material.
- Acts 13Chapter 13 is the beginning of the long Pauline section, and it opens with a scene worth pausing over: the Spirit speaks during a worship service in Antioch — while they are worshipping and fasting — and sets Barnabas and Saul apart for a specific but unnamed work.
- Acts 14Chapter 14 completes the first missionary journey and its most memorable episode is the Lystra scene (verses 8-20).
- Acts 15Chapter 15 is the structural centre of Acts and one of the most important chapters in the New Testament.
- Acts 16Chapter 16 is one of the richest in Acts.
- Acts 17Chapter 17 covers three cities and demonstrates the range of Paul's rhetorical repertoire.
- Acts 18Chapter 18 is relatively measured in tone after the drama of chapter 17.
- Acts 19Chapter 19 is the longest account of Paul's settled ministry in any city and falls into two parts.
- Acts 20Chapter 20 is the most elegiac in Acts.
- Acts 21Chapter 21 is the beginning of the long arrest sequence that occupies the rest of the book.
- Acts 22Chapter 22 is the second telling of Paul's conversion (the first is in chapter 9, the third in chapter 26).
- Acts 23Chapter 23 is structurally a thriller: the Sanhedrin hearing (verses 1-10), the night vision in the barracks (verse 11), the assassination plot (verses 12-22), and the extraordinary military escort to Caesarea (verses 23-35).
- Acts 24Chapter 24 is the first of three formal hearings in Acts — before Felix (24), before Festus (25), and before Agrippa (26) — and it establishes the pattern the others follow: Jewish accusation, Paul's defence, Roman incomprehension of the internal religious question, and a procedurally inconclusive result.
- Acts 25Chapter 25 is a pivot chapter.
- Acts 26Chapter 26 is the third and final telling of Paul's conversion (compare chapters 9 and 22) and the most rhetorically elaborate.
- Acts 27Chapter 27 is one of the most detailed sea narratives in ancient literature and is written in the first person plural (the we-passage resumes at verse 1), which gives it its immediacy.
- Acts 28Chapter 28 is the ending the book has been building toward, and it rewards slow reading.