The Jerusalem Council

The teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam ʿalayhi al-salām, peace be upon him on tawḥīd (توحيد, “the oneness of God”) was a complete rejection of the existence of many gods. A teaching of that kind was hard for the Romans to accept, above all among the Gentiles.¹ For a man as sincere and steadfast as Barnabas, living the way of life ʿĪsā ibn Maryam taught among the Romans, without compromise or any attempt to adapt to their culture, must have been a heavy responsibility.

This count applies the third principle of the measure: ʿĪsā ibn Maryam kept the law and restored its purpose, and his disciples kept it after him.

Barnabas held firmly to the belief that ʿĪsā ibn Maryam knew his Creator did not want the laws of the Torah reduced or altered in the smallest degree.² So he stayed loyal to the teaching he had received directly from him. Paul did not agree.

Tension over the law

After more than two years of preaching among the Gentiles, Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch in Syria and reported to the congregation on what they claimed as the work of God.³ The rapid growth among uncircumcised Gentiles began to create a new tension, one that had flared before but was now sharpening.⁴

Many Jews held that Gentiles had to be circumcised and submit to the law of the Torah before they could be fully accepted into the covenant people. The tension led to the need for a great council in Islamicjerusalem to resolve the crisis that was beginning to threaten the unity of the early church.⁵

The central question at the Jerusalem Council was whether Gentiles who embraced the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam had to be circumcised and keep the law of the Torah.⁶ Paul insisted that the requirement was unnecessary, while disciples such as Peter and Barnabas defended the basic requirement that the law be kept.

Peter spoke at the council to recall that God had shown his acceptance of Gentiles through the Cornelius episode. He did not, however, cancel the principle of the law as a whole.⁷

James then announced a compromise: Gentiles were released from circumcision and remained bound to avoid idolatry, blood, the meat of strangled animals and fornication.⁸ That shows the original teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, founded on the law, was kept as the basis, even as it was adapted for preaching to other peoples.

19διὸ ἐγὼ κρίνω μὴ παρενοχλεῖν τοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν ἐθνῶν ἐπιστρέφουσιν ἐπὶ τὸν θεόν, 20ἀλλὰ ἐπιστεῖλαι αὐτοῖς τοῦ ἀπέχεσθαι τῶν ἀλισγημάτων τῶν εἰδώλων καὶ τῆς πορνείας καὶ τοῦ πνικτοῦ καὶ τοῦ αἵματος·

19Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.⁹

Paul, however, interpreted the decision freely and developed the idea that the law of the Torah had ceased to bind anyone, the Jews included. The clash between Paul and the disciples therefore arose from a deep difference of principle.

Playing the Jew in the Temple

One event that exposes Paul’s plain hypocrisy took place when he returned to Islamicjerusalem after his missions in Gentile territory. As Acts records,¹⁰ James and the elders told him that many Jews had heard that Paul taught the Jews of the Diaspora to abandon the law of Moses and the customs of their fathers. To put an end to the rumor, James told Paul to join four men under a vow, undergo the rite of purification in the Temple with them and pay the cost of their offerings.

20οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες ἐδόξαζον τὸν θεόν, εἶπόν τε αὐτῷ· Θεωρεῖς, ἀδελφέ, πόσαι μυριάδες εἰσὶν ἐν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις τῶν πεπιστευκότων, καὶ πάντες ζηλωταὶ τοῦ νόμου ὑπάρχουσιν· 21κατηχήθησαν δὲ περὶ σοῦ ὅτι ἀποστασίαν διδάσκεις ἀπὸ Μωϋσέως τοὺς κατὰ τὰ ἔθνη πάντας Ἰουδαίους, λέγων μὴ περιτέμνειν αὐτοὺς τὰ τέκνα μηδὲ τοῖς ἔθεσιν περιπατεῖν. 22τί οὖν ἐστιν; πάντως ἀκούσονται ὅτι ἐλήλυθας. 23τοῦτο οὖν ποίησον ὅ σοι λέγομεν· εἰσὶν ἡμῖν ἄνδρες τέσσαρες εὐχὴν ἔχοντες ἀφʼ ἑαυτῶν. 24τούτους παραλαβὼν ἁγνίσθητι σὺν αὐτοῖς καὶ δαπάνησον ἐπʼ αὐτοῖς ἵνα ξυρήσονται τὴν κεφαλήν, καὶ γνώσονται πάντες ὅτι ὧν κατήχηνται περὶ σοῦ οὐδέν ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ στοιχεῖς καὶ αὐτὸς φυλάσσων τὸν νόμον. 25περὶ δὲ τῶν πεπιστευκότων ἐθνῶν ἡμεῖς ἀπεστείλαμεν κρίναντες φυλάσσεσθαι αὐτοὺς τό τε εἰδωλόθυτον καὶ αἷμα καὶ πνικτὸν καὶ πορνείαν. 26τότε ὁ Παῦλος παραλαβὼν τοὺς ἄνδρας τῇ ἐχομένῃ ἡμέρᾳ σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁγνισθεὶς εἰσῄει εἰς τὸ ἱερόν, διαγγέλλων τὴν ἐκπλήρωσιν τῶν ἡμερῶν τοῦ ἁγνισμοῦ ἕως οὗ προσηνέχθη ὑπὲρ ἑνὸς ἑκάστου αὐτῶν ἡ προσφορά.

20And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law, 21and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. 22What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. 23Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow; 24take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law. 25But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.” 26Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them.¹¹

Without protest, Paul followed the instruction and pretended to keep the law. De jure he kept it that day in the Temple; de facto he had already abolished it in his letters, where he states repeatedly that the Torah is finished and circumcision with it.¹²

The act shows that Paul was willing to adjust his rhetoric to context, and beyond that, to perform a ritual he rejected to win the trust of the local Jewish community. Small wonder that some accuse him of playing the Jew before Jews and the Gentile before Gentiles,¹³ the modus operandi he describes himself in 1 Corinthians 9, and a moral relativism that opens the door wide to manipulation of the teaching.

That extreme interpretation set off a worsening tension between Paul and the disciples. Soon afterward, the personal tension between Barnabas and Paul reached its peak.

1. Also called gôyîm (גּוֹיִם), from the Latin gentilis, “belonging to a nation or people”; cf. Douglas Harper, “Gentile,” Online Etymology Dictionary, https://bit.ly/4muqlVp (accessed 19 December 2024). ↩
2. cf. Matthew 5:18. ↩
3. Acts 14:26–27. ↩
4. The question first arose after the conversion of Cornelius, a Gentile, as recorded in Acts 10:1–48 and 11:1–18. ↩
5. Acts 15:1–6. ↩
6. Acts 15:1–2. ↩
7. Acts 15:7–11. ↩
8. Acts 15:19–20. ↩
9. Acts 15:19–20 (SBLGNT; ESV). ↩
10. Acts 21:17–26. ↩
11. Acts 21:20–26 (SBLGNT; ESV). ↩
12. cf. Galatians 3:13, 5:2–3; Colossians 2:14; Romans 6:14. ↩
13. See 1 Corinthians 9:20–21. ↩

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