Acts 15:28–29

Context

This passage records the decision reached at the so-called Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. Certain people had come to the church at Antioch teaching that unless believers were circumcised, "ye cannot be saved" (15:1). Circumcision is the Jewish covenant rite in which the male foreskin is removed. In response, Paul and Barnabas went up to Jerusalem to discuss the matter with the apostles and elders. The council reached its conclusion after a speech by Peter and a proposal by James (15:19–20). The apostles and elders put that conclusion in writing and sent it by Judas and Silas to the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. These verses form the concluding portion of that letter.

Interpretation

• Reading against the background of Leviticus: This view holds that the four items correspond to regulations in Leviticus 17–18 that applied even to foreigners living among Israel. Those regulations address idolatrous sacrifice, eating blood, and forbidden sexual relations. On this reading, "fornication" may also include prohibited marriages, such as those within forbidden degrees of kinship.
• Reading as accommodation for the sake of fellowship: Many Protestant commentators do not regard these four items as conditions of salvation. They see them instead as a practical agreement that took the consciences of Jewish believers into account, so that Jewish and Gentile believers could share table fellowship. On this view, the dietary regulations are tied to the circumstances of the time, while the prohibition of fornication is a moral command that transcends any particular era.
• Reading as a moral code: This view reads the passage as prohibiting the fundamental sins of idolatry, murder (the shedding of blood), and sexual immorality. It aligns with the Western textual tradition described below.

Debates and Issues

• Textual question: Manuscripts are the handwritten copies through which the biblical text was transmitted. Some so-called Western manuscripts, such as Codex Bezae, are reported to omit "things strangled" and to add a saying to the effect of "do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself."
• Relationship to Paul's letters: In 1 Corinthians 8 and 10, Paul treats food offered to idols as a matter of conscience and edification. Interpreters therefore differ on how this decision relates to Paul's teaching.
• Blood and transfusion: Jehovah's Witnesses cite the command to "abstain from blood" as one basis for refusing blood transfusions. Most Protestant denominations regard the passage as a dietary regulation and do not connect it with transfusion.
• Authority of church councils: Presbyterians point to this scene, in which the apostles and elders gathered to reach a decision, as a biblical basis for representative assemblies such as presbyteries and general assemblies. The chapter on synods and councils in the Westminster Confession of Faith likewise cites Acts 15 as a proof text. Congregationalists and Baptists, for their part, sometimes emphasize congregational participation, noting 15:22, which says the decision was made "with the whole church."

In the Korean Church

The phrase "to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things" is quoted in sermons warning against legalism. The passage is also often raised in pastoral counseling on whether Christians may eat food from ancestral rites (see Ancestral Rites and Memorial Services) or foods containing blood, such as seonji (congealed ox blood) or sundae (Korean blood sausage).

Related Passages

• Acts 15:19–20
• Leviticus 17:10–14
• Genesis 9:4
• 1 Corinthians 8:4–6
• Galatians 5:1