ISB ~ Acts 15 v20

write to them:James sets forth a pastoral initiative to promote fellowship and preempt foreseeable friction between Jewish and Gentile believers coming together in the Church. The result is an apostolic letter from Jerusalem to the Churches in Syria and Cilicia that requires Gentile converts to observe a minimal code of religious purity— abstinence from idol foods, sexual immorality, and the consumption of blood in meat or by itself (15:23-29). The Jews abhorred these practices as cultural expressions of idolatry. James is saying that even though the Gentiles are exempt from the ritual observances of Judaism (circumcision), they are still expected to break away from the ritual observances of paganism. Allusions to this decree appear in 1 Cor 8-10, 1 Thess 4:3, and Rev 2:14, 20.

See essay:Paul, Idol Food, and the Jerusalem Council at 1 Cor 8.

• The decree is shaped by the laws of Lev 17-18 that govern the conduct of Gentile sojourners living in the company of Israel. They were forbidden to eat meat consecrated to idols instead of to Yahweh (Lev 17:7-9), to consume blood (Lev 17:10-12), to eat meat not properly drained of blood (Lev 17:13-14), and to engage in various forms of sexual immorality, such as incest, adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality (Lev 18:6-23). Though several such laws are enjoined on the foreigner in the Torah, only these four prohibitions are applied equally to Israelites and sojourners and threaten to cut violators off from the covenant.

• According to the Council of Florence in 1442, the apostolic decree was only a temporary measure to facilitate unity among Jews and Gentiles in the early Church. The binding force of its food restrictions was relaxed once the ethnic circumstances that made them necessary passed away.