⁶The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. ⁷After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. ⁸And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; ⁹and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. ¹⁰Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? ¹¹But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”

This debate in Jerusalem set the stage for many councils in church history, convened to settle doctrinal issues. Lest we dismiss such theological wranglings as ivory-tower elitism or stuffy academics, we find in our passage no less-significant debaters than the apostles themselves, including Peter and Paul. Debate is necessary to discover and hone our understanding of the truth.

Paul and Barnabas, being on one side of the disagreement that had broken out, had given their report of what God had done in their ministry (Acts 15:4). Then “some from the sect of the Pharisees who believed” rebutted them, that they should have been teaching the Gentiles to get circumcised and follow the Law of Moses (Acts 15:5). The apostle Paul didn’t need approval from anyone or any council for his ministry or his message; he had received his commissioning directly from the Lord:

For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Gal. 1:11–12)

Yet, he was concerned about the unity of the church and the Christian movement in general, so to Jerusalem he (and Barnabas) went to settle the issue.

After hearing both sides, Peter stood up among the gathered apostles and elders and gave his perspective. He reiterated what he and they had all learned from the incident of Cornelius (though he doesn’t mention the centurion by name, the story clearly relates to that of Acts 10 and 11). He summarizes that they had already settled that salvation comes “through the grace of the Lord Jesus” in the same way, to both Jew and Gentile. Therefore, Paul and Barnabas’ teaching and ministry were in complete solidarity with all the apostles! Peter’s words were persuasive, but he was simply reminding the Jerusalem leaders of what had already taken place and what they already knew.

Lord, thank You for the early resistance to adding law to grace.