Jew and Gentile.
On reaching Antioch in Syria, from which place they had been sent forth on their mission, Paul and Barnabas took advantage of an early opportunity to assemble the believers and rehearse "all that God had done with them, and how He had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles." Acts 14:27.The church at Antioch was a large and growing one.A center of missionary activity, it was one of the most important of the groups of Christian believers.Its membership was made up of many classes of people from among both Jews and Gentiles.
While the apostles united with the ministers and lay members at Antioch in an earnest effort to win many souls to Christ, certain Jewish believers from Judea "of the sect of the Pharisees" succeeded in introducing a question that soon led to wide-spread controversy in the church and brought consternation to the believing Gentiles.With great assurance these Judaizing teachers asserted that in order to be saved, one must be circumcised and must keep the entire ceremonial law.
Paul and Barnabas met this false doctrine with promptness and opposed the introduction of the subject to the Gentiles.On the other hand, many of the believing Jews of Antioch favored the position of the brethren recently come from Judea.
The Jewish converts generally were not inclined to move as rapidly as the providence of God opened the way.From the result of the apostles' labors among the Gentiles it was evident that the converts among the latter people would far exceed the Jewish converts in number.The Jews feared that if the restrictions and ceremonies of their law were not made obligatory upon the Gentiles as a condition of church fellowship, the national peculiarities of the Jews, which had hitherto kept them distinct from all other people, would finally disappear from among those who received the gospel message.
The Jews had always prided themselves upon their divinely appointed services, and many of those who had been converted to the faith of Christ still felt that since God had once clearly outlined the Hebrew manner of worship, it was improbable that He would ever authorize a change in any of its specifications.They insisted that the Jewish laws and ceremonies should be incorporated into the rites of the Christian religion.They were slow to discern that all the sacrificial offerings had but prefigured the death of the Son of God, in which type met antitype, and after which the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic dispensation were no longer binding.
Before his conversion Paul had regarded himself as blameless "touching the righteousness which is in the law." Philippians 3:6.But since his change of heart he had gained a clear conception of the mission of the Saviour as the Redeemer of the entire race, Gentile as well as Jew, and had learned the difference between a living faith and a dead formalism.In the light of the gospel the ancient rites and ceremonies committed to Israel had gained a new and deeper significance.That which they shadowed forth had come to pass, and those who were living under the gospel dispensation had been freed from their observance.God's unchangeable law of Ten Commandments, however, Paul still kept in spirit as well as in letter.
In the church at Antioch the consideration of the question of circumcision resulted in much discussion and contention.Finally, the members of the church, fearing that a division among them would be the outcome of continued discussion, decided to send Paul and Barnabas, with some responsible men from the church, to Jerusalem to lay the matter before the apostles and elders.There they were to meet delegates from the different churches and those who had come to Jerusalem to attend the approaching festivals.
Meanwhile all controversy was to cease until a final decision should be given in general council.This decision was then to be universally accepted by the different churches throughout the country.
On the way to Jerusalem the apostles visited the believers in the cities through which they passed, and encouraged them by relating their experience in the work of God and the conversion of the Gentiles.
At Jerusalem the delegates from Antioch met the brethren of the various churches, who had gathered for a general meeting, and to them they related the success that had attended their ministry among the Gentiles.They then gave a clear outline of the confusion that had resulted because certain converted Pharisees had gone to Antioch declaring that, in order to be saved, the Gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses.
This question was warmly discussed in the assembly.Intimately connected with the question of circumcision were several others demanding careful study.One was the problem as to what attitude should be taken toward the use of meats offered to idols.Many of the Gentile converts were living among ignorant and superstitious people who made frequent sacrifices and offerings to idols.The priests of this heathen worship carried on an extensive merchandise with the offerings brought to them, and the Jews feared that the Gentile converts would bring Christianity into disrepute by purchasing that which had been offered to idols, thereby sanctioning, in some measure, idolatrous customs.
Again, the Gentiles were accustomed to eat the flesh of animals that has been strangled, while the Jews had been divinely instructed that when beasts were killed for food, particular care was to be taken that the blood should flow from the body; otherwise the meat would not be regarded as wholesome.
God had given these injunctions to the Jews for the purpose of preserving their health.The Jews regarded it as sinful to use blood as an article of diet.They held that the blood was the life, and that the shedding of blood was in consequence of sin.
