The Gentile Welcome Is Settled, but Two Companions Part

Paul writes of “certain” who “came from James” to Antioch and caused Peter to withdraw from Gentile tables (Galatians 2:12); whether they are these men is uncertain, and James disowns their message in verse 24. “After the manner of Moses” is a telling phrase, since circumcision began with Abraham (Genesis 17) and was only later written into Moses’ law (Leviticus 12:3).

“Dissension” is stasis, a word for civil strife, used of Barabbas’s “insurrection” (Luke 23:19). “Certain other of them” is left unnamed; if this is the visit of Galatians 2:1–3, one of them was Titus, an uncircumcised Greek whom Paul brought as a living test case. That identification is debated.

“Brought on their way” is propempo, to send someone off with provisions and escort, a standard courtesy among early churches (Romans 15:24, 3 John 6). The route runs through Phoenicia and Samaria, where the scattered believers of 8:4 and 11:19 had planted churches, and Samaritans, once outsiders themselves, rejoice at news of Gentiles.

This is Paul’s third visit to Jerusalem in Acts, after 9:26 and the famine relief of 11:30. “Received” is paradechomai, to welcome. Three groups are named, the church, the apostles and the elders, and all three will share in the final decision (verse 22).

“Sect” is hairesis, a school or party, a neutral word here; Acts applies it to the Sadducees (5:17) and, on opponents’ lips, to the Christians themselves (24:5). Paul was a Pharisee by training (23:6, Philippians 3:5), so he knows exactly how these believers read Moses.

The gathering is traditionally called the Council of Jerusalem and usually dated to about AD 48 or 49, the first of the church’s many councils, though the text uses no such title. “Consider of this matter” is literally “to see about this word”: the question is treated as a word, a matter to be examined.

“A good while ago” is literally “from ancient days”, though Cornelius’s baptism was perhaps ten years earlier; the phrase stresses that the question was settled long before this meeting. “God made choice among us” puts the choice of Peter as the first to preach to Gentiles in God’s hands, not his own.

“Which knoweth the hearts” is one Greek word, kardiognostes, heart-knower. It appears only twice in the Bible: here, and in the prayer of 1:24 when the apostles asked the heart-knowing Lord to choose Judas’s replacement. The God who chose Matthias by his knowledge of hearts has judged the Gentiles’ hearts too.

“Purifying” is katharizo, the verb of the rooftop voice: “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common” (10:15). In the vision the word applied to foods; Peter now applies it to hearts. Cleanness, the whole matter in dispute, is located where the ritual law could not reach.

To “tempt” God is to put him to the test, as Israel did at Massah (Exodus 17:2), and Deuteronomy 6:16 forbids it. Jewish teachers spoke of taking up “the yoke of the kingdom” and “the yoke of the Torah” as an honour. Peter uses the image for a burden that experience showed no one had carried, and Paul calls it “the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).

These are Peter’s last recorded words in the Book of Acts; after this chapter he does not appear again. “We believe” is emphatic, a statement of what the apostles hold. He speaks of “the grace of the Lord Jesus”, a phrase Paul uses to close several letters, and which here carries the whole argument.

“Kept silence” is sigao: the arguing stops. In Jerusalem the names revert to “Barnabas and Paul”, Barnabas first, as in the letter of verse 25; he is the man the church there had known and trusted since 4:36. “Miracles and wonders” are the signs and wonders credited to Moses in Egypt (7:36).

This is James the Lord’s brother, whom later tradition called James the Just; Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius, says his knees grew hard as a camel’s from prayer in the temple. His reputation for keeping the Law is the reason his voice could carry the Pharisee believers. “Answered” means he responds to all that has been said.

“Simeon” is the Hebrew form of Peter’s name, used of him only here and in 2 Peter 1:1, a Jerusalem touch in James’s speech. “A people for his name” uses laos, the word the Scriptures reserve for Israel, now for a people drawn “out of” the nations, as Deuteronomy 14:2 spoke of Israel chosen “out of all the nations”.

“Agree” is sumphoneo, to sound together, the root of symphony: the prophets’ words and the events at Caesarea are in harmony. James says “the prophets” though he quotes only Amos, as if Amos spoke for the others; the Twelve circulated together on one scroll.

Amos 9:11 is quoted from the Septuagint. The “tabernacle of David” is a skene, a booth or hut: Amos pictures the royal house as a collapsed shelter. “After this I will return” is not in Amos and may echo Jeremiah 12:15. The Dead Sea Scrolls also quote this verse to describe the community God would rebuild.

The Greek and Hebrew of Amos differ strikingly at this point. The Hebrew of Amos 9:12 reads “that they may possess the remnant of Edom”; the Septuagint reads “that the residue of men may seek”. Edom and adam, man, share the same consonants, and “possess” and “seek” differ by one letter, so the Greek translators read a promise of conquest as a promise of seeking.

The oldest manuscripts have a shorter line, closer to “says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old”, echoing Isaiah 45:21. The King James follows a later text that expands it into a statement about God’s knowledge of his works. In either form, the Gentile inclusion is presented as long intended, not improvised.

“My sentence is” translates a single Greek verb, krino, “I judge”; whether James speaks as the meeting’s president delivering a ruling or as one voice offering a verdict is debated. “Trouble” is parenochleo, to add difficulties or harass, found only here in the New Testament.

The four items resemble the rules Leviticus 17–18 laid on “the stranger that sojourneth among you”: no sacrifice to other gods, no eating blood, no meat of an animal not drained, no forbidden unions. The Western text drops “things strangled” and adds the negative Golden Rule, turning the list toward ethics; this is an early rewriting.

Josephus claims that Moses ordered the Law read publicly every week so that none would be ignorant of it (Against Apion 2.175), and Philo describes synagogues on the Sabbath as schools of the Law. “Of old time” stresses that the synagogue presence is generations old. James sets the letter inside that long-established reading.

“Pleased it” is dokeo, “it seemed good”, the formula of official decrees, and Luke uses it of himself in his Gospel’s preface (Luke 1:3). Judas Barsabas may be a brother of Joseph Barsabas, the candidate in 1:23. Silas is the Silvanus of Paul’s letters (1 Thessalonians 1:1) and, like Paul, a Roman citizen (16:37).

“Greeting” is chairein, the standard opening of a Greek letter. In the New Testament it opens only three letters: this one, the letter of the tribune Claudius Lysias (23:26), and the Letter of James (1:1), whose author is the James who shaped this decision. Cilicia, Paul’s home province, is named though Acts has recorded no church founding there.

“Troubled” is tarasso, the word Paul uses of the agitators in Galatia, “there be some that trouble you” (Galatians 1:7). “Subverting” is anaskeuazo, to pack up baggage, used of dismantling or plundering a place, found only here in the New Testament. The words “Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law” are missing from the oldest manuscripts.

“Beloved”, agapetos, is used only here in the whole Book of Acts, and it is given to the two missionaries whose methods were in question. The letter names them in Jerusalem order, Barnabas before Paul. “Being assembled with one accord” presents the decision as unanimous, whatever argument preceded it.

“Hazarded” is paradidomi, to hand over, the verb used when Jesus was “delivered” to be crucified; it can also mean to devote. The recent stoning at Lystra (14:19) gives the phrase its weight. The full title, “our Lord Jesus Christ”, marks whose name the risk was taken for.

Letters in the ancient world were often carried by trusted bearers who could confirm and expand them in person, as Tychicus was sent to tell the Colossians Paul’s news (Colossians 4:7–8). “By mouth” means by word of mouth: two men from Jerusalem vouch for the paper, and no one can claim it was forged or twisted.

“Burden” is baros, weight, and the risen Jesus uses the same phrase to Thyatira, “I will put upon you none other burden” (Revelation 2:24), in a letter that condemns eating things sacrificed to idols and fornication (2:20). “Necessary” is epanankes, of necessity, a stiff official word found only here in the New Testament.

The list is reordered from verse 20, and “pollutions of idols” becomes the specific eidolothuta, “meats offered to idols”, the very term Paul discusses at length with the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 8–10). “Fare ye well” is errosthe, literally “be strong”, the normal closing of a Greek letter.

“Dismissed” is apoluo, released, the verb used of the Antioch church sending Paul and Barnabas off in 13:3. “The multitude” is plethos, used in Acts as a term for the whole assembled congregation, as when the Twelve called “the multitude of the disciples” to choose the seven (6:2).

“Read” means read aloud to the gathering, as Paul expected his own letters to be read to whole churches (Colossians 4:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:27). “Consolation” is paraklesis, which also means exhortation or encouragement; the letter both comforts and urges.

Paul describes the prophet’s task as speaking “to edification, and exhortation, and comfort” (1 Corinthians 14:3), and that is what Judas and Silas do here. “Prophets also themselves” places them alongside the prophets and teachers of Antioch (13:1). “With many words” suggests long sessions, not a greeting at the door.

“Let go in peace” is the formal farewell with a blessing, the Hebrew shalom. The oldest manuscripts read that they returned “to those that had sent them” rather than “unto the apostles”. Either way, their mission as delegates was complete.

The oldest Greek manuscripts lack the whole verse. It seems to have been added to explain how Silas can be in Antioch in verse 40 after being sent home in verse 33; Codex Bezae adds further that Judas went on alone. Without it, Paul may simply have sent for Silas from Jerusalem.

“Teaching and preaching” pairs didasko and euangelizomai, instruction for the church and announcement for outsiders. Paul’s letter to the Galatians mentions a time in Antioch when “even Barnabas” was carried away into separating from Gentile believers (Galatians 2:13); if that happened in this period, it may shadow what follows.

“Visit” is episkeptomai, the verb of God visiting his people (Luke 1:68, 7:16), which James also used in verse 14: “God at the first did visit the Gentiles.” “See how they do” is pastoral and plain. Paul is now the one who proposes the journey.

“Determined” is boulomai, to wish or be minded, a softer word than the English suggests. Barnabas had been the one to take Saul by the hand when the Jerusalem disciples were afraid of him (9:27); he is consistent in giving a second chance to a man others doubted.

“Thought not good” is axioo, to judge worthy: Paul did not consider it right. “Departed” is aphistemi, to withdraw or fall away, the verb Jesus used for those who “in time of temptation fall away” (Luke 8:13). Paul’s choice of word shows how seriously he took the desertion at Perga.

“Contention” is paroxusmos, the root of paroxysm, which Hebrews 10:24 uses in a good sense, to “provoke unto love”. This is Barnabas’s last appearance in Acts. Paul later mentions him without bitterness (1 Corinthians 9:6), and Mark is with Paul again in Colossians 4:10.

Only Paul and Silas are said to be “recommended … unto the grace of God”, the phrase used when Antioch sent out the first mission (14:26); nothing is said of Barnabas’s send-off, and some infer the church backed Paul. Silas was a Jerusalem delegate and a Roman citizen, well placed to carry the council’s letter to Paul’s churches (16:4).

Syria and Cilicia were two of the regions named in the letter’s address (verse 23), so Paul delivers the decision where it was meant to go. His route runs overland and westward through the Cilician Gates to Derbe (16:1), the reverse of the road not taken at the end of the first journey.