Father Stephen De Young: So now this quotation that he uses from Amos, you’re going to see there’s both pieces. Because as it begins after this “I will return”. Right now this “return” that Amos is talking about, after this is after the exile. Remember when God leaves the temple, so it’s destroyed, he’s going to return. We know now he returned in the person of Jesus Christ and “will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down. I will rebuild its ruins and I will set it up.” He’s not talking about the physical temple, notice he uses the word tabernacle, not temple. David didn’t build the tabernacle, and didn’t build the temple. I’m going to come and I’m going to rebuild it. So that right. This is purpose, in order that, the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the… and Gentiles should really be better translated “nations”. But it gives you the idea. “Even all the Gentiles who are called by my name”, says the Lord who does all these things.

And the point St. James is making is what Gentiles were called by his name, that’s what separated Israel from the Gentiles. So he’s saying, look, this was prophesied in Amos that after the Messiah came after his return, in addition to restoring this remnant of Israel, that God was going to… the purpose for Him restoring Israel, the remnant of Israel was so that all of the nations, all of humanity could seek the Lord, even all the nations. The people from all the nations who would be called by him. So he’s saying this was prophesied, this was God’s intent all along.

But that “so that” is critically important that Israel was not called as an end in itself. God just liked them better than everybody else. They’re called with this purpose so that all the nations of the world could return to undo the Tower of Babel.

And what happened there? Another interesting thing to note is that St. James here in Jerusalem, here with all these Jewish folks having this discussion, quotes the Greek translation of Amos. We know this because it’s different than the Hebrew. Where it says “Gentiles” here, It says “Edom” in the Hebrew.

Interlocutor: In our book of [inaudible] back here, which one?

Father Stephen De Young: I’m pretty sure it’ll match in here because they did this from the Septuagint in the Orthodox Study Bible, which is the Greek rendering. But he cites the Greek rendering authoritatively here. That’s just a sidenote.

St. James continues:

“Known to God from eternity are all His works.

So, this means God doesn’t have sort of plan A, plan B, plan C. “Well, that doesn’t work out then I guess I’ll try this.” Why does he make that point? Well, it’s not that Israel was plan A or the Torah was plan A. And now this is plan B, right? He’s saying this was God’s intent all along. This was his purpose all along, was to bring about what we’re seeing right now happen before our eyes, with people from all nationalities and ethnicities and races and peoples of the world all coming to know Christ. “Therefore, I judge”—he’s rendering a decision here. St. James is, not St. Peter.

“Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

Now, [Laughter] this is the part where it gets interesting, right? Because as I mentioned before, the most common interpretation of these verses is “Well, what St. James is saying here is that all those other commandments in the Old Testament are being set aside, and there’s just these four, right?” You don’t eat meat offered to idols, you don’t eat blood. You don’t eat anything strangled, which would have the blood in it, and sexual immorality, which is nice and nebulous and not defined here. So we can call that whatever we want to, right? These are the only four things Christians have to do.

But that sort of begs the question, why these four things especially? Why, like eating blood, and strangled. Why would those be the ones you’d pick?

Interlocutor: Always in these interpretations, they assume just arbitrary. The Lord has this random number generator, and it’s like spinning…

Fr. Stephen: Right, so, he doesn’t mention theft. It’d seem to me like theft would be worse than eating something strangled. Murder, giving false testimonies. There’s lots of things that seem worse than this, right? I mean, sexual immorality, clearly. Bad. Idol worship. Okay, we could see why you’d mentioned that, right? Those two things are kind of the Ten Commandments, right? If you interpret adultery broadly, these other two get kind of treated. Why these four? And also, why does he conclude by saying…

Interlocutor: I didn’t get the conclusion.

Fr. Stephen: Right. Because, they only need to worry about these four things because Moses has for many generations been preached in all the synagogues in all these cities, so the Gentiles have heard it. Why would we say “These four things, because they’ve all had an opportunity to hear the law of Moses”. If he’s saying none of those other things apply, then it wouldn’t matter if they’d never heard the law of Moses, right? He’d say we just need to give them these four commandments.

Here’s what he’s actually saying. There’s a portion of the Book of Leviticus that runs from at least chapter 17 to chapter 23. Some people include chapter 24. It’s referred to as the Holiness Code. And the reason those chapters are referred to as the Holiness Code is that over and over again in those chapters, as the Lord is giving commandments, he says, “Be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord”. Over and over and over again after giving a series of commandments. And so that’s why it’s referred to as the Holiness Code. The commandments cover a whole bunch of things in that section, all kinds of things. Dietary restrictions, a very detailed… you read 17, 18 and 19 are a detailed list of sexual sins, right? To the point of grossness at points you wouldn’t want to read it to your Sunday school class. I’d have to explain what different things mean, but very detailed listing of sexual immorality. Very detailed listing of these things. If you read it very closely, all of it is addressed to the sons of Israel, right? God says to Moses over and over, “Speak to the sons of Israel and say, you shall not do this. You shall not… right down the whole list.”  Laws about yeast, what you can eat, all these things.

There are three places in the Holiness Code where it says something slightly different, where it says, “You shall not do this, nor the alien or the stranger or the foreigner who dwells amongst you.” So when it says “You can’t eat shellfish”, it doesn’t say “not you”, it doesn’t say that. It just says you, as one of the sons of Israel, are not to do this, have to take care of mildew in this way. They have to do these things.

The three places where it says “You can’t do it, and no foreigners” in Leviticus, the foreigner living among you has the option of coming and observing the Passover with you, of coming and doing a certain religious observance. It’s optional, right? But there are certain things they’re not allowed to do. Those three things are the worship of idols, not allowed to worship idols if they’re living in Israel. The sexual immorality, the list of sexual sins are not to be committed by the sins of Israel and eating meat with blood in it. Those are the only three places where it says “not just you Jewish people, but any Gentiles living among you”.

So, based on this, it is not coincidence that St James chooses these four things, two of which have to do with eating blood, right? These are the things which the Gentiles living in the midst of the Jewish people cannot do. So St. James is viewing this new people as the fulfillment of the old people. We’re welcoming these Gentiles in, they’re coming in, they’re worshiping Yahweh, the God of Israel. They don’t have to keep all of the minutiae of all these different things. But there’s these three things they can’t do.

Interlocutor: Which they always couldn’t do.

Fr. Stephen: Which they always couldn’t do. And so this is why he says, because the law of Moses has been preached to them in all these places. They’ve heard Leviticus. They’ve heard Leviticus. They know the Law. And so they not only know that these are the three things they can’t do, but when I say sexual immorality, they know what I’m referring to, because they’ve heard the Law read, where it lists all those things that constitute sexual immorality.

So, St. James is taking a very literal, very strict reading of the Torah here and how he applies it to the Church. He’s not arguing it doesn’t apply anymore. He’s arguing it very much still applies exactly as written.

And that’s important in terms of our view of the Old Testament, right. That here the Old Testament’s authority in the Church, in the Christian Church is being affirmed strongly, but also there is no ambiguity about what sexual immorality is. Go to Leviticus, you can read what sexual immorality is. And the argument well, yeah, it says this sexual behavior is an abomination, but it also says shellfish is an abomination. Well, no, it distinguishes in Leviticus, between these are things that just apply to the nation of Israel and the Old Covenant. These are the things that apply to everyone, everywhere, all the time.

That distinction is made in Leviticus and is upheld here in Acts 15. And St. James again speaks positively of the fact that the Torah is being read in all of these Gentile cities and that they’re hearing it.

Then it pleased the apostles and elders, with the whole church,

Really, that’s the whole assembly, meaning it wasn’t just the leadership, but everyone there.

to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely, Judas who was also named Barsabas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren.

So, St. Silas is going to become important later. There’s some question as to whether St. Silas here is the same person as the Sylvanus who’s going to be mentioned in St. Peter’s Epistles, because it’s the same name. Sylvanus is the Latin form. We’ve talked before how several people have, like St. John Mark is really St. John, but Marcus was like the Latin name he went by. Sylvanus would be the Latin form of Silas. Silas would be the Aramaic form of in Greek Silhouan. That’s where the Greek name is, Silhouan, like St. Silhouan comes from, he’s named after the same name. So this may very well be this St. Silas who we’re going to see later on in the Book of Acts also may be the same St. Silas who was with St. Peter later in Rome. So they send them back with St. Paul and Barnabas.

They wrote this letter to them:

So this is the official letter of sort of the findings to resolve the dispute.

The apostles, the elders, and the brethren, To the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia.

These are sort of concentric circles, the city of Antioch, the capital, and then Syria, the region in Cilicia and the even bigger neighboring region.

Greetings. Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls,

Notice they make the point. Those people who came there who are telling you that in Antioch aren’t people we sent to tell you that.

Interlocutor: They were from…

Fr. Stephen: They were from Judea. But they have to clarify that. They weren’t emissaries of the apostles.

unsettling your souls, saying, “You must be circumcised and keep the law”—to whom we gave no such commandment—it seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So they’re affirming to them, Saints Barnabas and Paul, who had been this major presence teaching in Antioch.

We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth.

This is why they’re sending extra people, so in case St. Barnabas and St. Paul show up and say, “Oh yeah, the apostles agreed with us.” And the people, they say, “Oh yeah, sure”. They’re sending these other two people to say, no, we were there. This was the decision.

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things:

So notice that phrase, that phrase is going to be picked up by the Ecumenical Councils. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.

Interlocutor: That’s what how Economical Councils’ decrees began.

Fr. Stephen: Right, because that’s expressing the faith that when we gathered together and came to this understanding, this that we’re issuing is really the decision of the Holy Spirit, not of us. Why? Well, as we read in St. John’s Gospel, Christ promised that the Holy Spirit, when he came would, what? Lead them into all truth.  He’s not leaving them orphans. The Holy Spirit would be with them. And so when the Church comes to this agreement, this represents the action of the Holy Spirit. This is why the Orthodox Church we define tradition. Tradition isn’t “Well, here’s some extra stuff that was passed down by word of mouth from the apostles. We can’t prove that. You just have to believe us.”

Interlocutor: That’s how it’s characterized. [Laughter]

Fr. Stephen: That’s not what we mean by tradition. What we mean by tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church. As the Holy Spirit who indwells the Church and indwells Christians, leads and guides the Church as a whole through history. And that is infallible because the Holy Spirit is infallible. As the Holy Spirit guides, he guides the Church infallibly, the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church.

And notice also he says “to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.” And we just talked about why these things are necessary. But beyond these that God told us, you Gentiles who have come to dwell in our communities have to follow, we’re not going to add anything beyond what God said was necessary. God in Leviticus doesn’t say that any alien or stranger living among you must be circumcised, right?

†that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.

So these are the necessary things according to the Torah for you. We’re not going to add anything else beyond that.

So when they were sent off, they came to Antioch; and when they had gathered the multitude together, they delivered the letter. When they had read it, they rejoiced over its encouragement. Now Judas and Silas, themselves being prophets also, exhorted and strengthened the brethren with many words.

We talked before about how prophecy is working here, right? Notice what it says they did because they were prophets, they exhorted, and they taught. It doesn’t say they told them what was going to happen next week. They exhorted and they taught them in the faith.

And after they had stayed there for a time, they were sent back with greetings from the brethren to the apostles. However, it seemed good to Silas to remain there. Paul and Barnabas also remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.

So this is well-received in Antioch. There’s an agreement there too.

Interlocutor: And all of this sending to people back and forth reinforces what you said, that individual parishes, local churches don’t do their own thing. They are very careful to make sure that they’re doing this…

Fr. Stephen: They’re all part of this larger family. So, Silas stays there.

Then after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they are doing.”

So, St. Paul says, “Let’s go, and revisit, we’ve been working here in Antioch now for a while. Let’s go back to those other cities where we helped begin these communities and visit them.”

Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark.

St. John who was called Marcus. Now, remember he had kind of bailed on them during the first missionary journey after Cyprus. Remember, he went back home. He had kind of tapped out and left. And St. Barnabas, says, I want to take St. John called Mark. Remember, he’s still a very young man at this point, which is part of why he probably bailed.

But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work.

So St. Paul says, “Look, he left last time, it’s probably better…” Now, this isn’t just St. Paul being grumpy because, “He’s just going to take off again” or putting down St. John Mark. From St. Paul’s perspective, what happened after St. Mark left? Well, he got stoned for one thing. All of these things had happened. They faced real trouble, and potentially they could face real trouble again when they went back to these cities, because some of those unbelieving members of the Jewish community who had followed them from city to city, stirring up trouble, they see them coming back, are going to do the same again.

And so this is sort of a pastoral decision by St. Paul. St. Paul and St. Barnabas have to make kind of a judgment here. John Mark wants to come, but on one hand, St. Barnabas can make a case saying, “Well, we shouldn’t hold against him that he left before he wants to come. He’s a little older now. Let’s bring him with us. He has a good heart. He’s a good man.” St. Paul is saying, “He turned back before. I don’t know if he’s ready for the kind of adversity and the kind of things we could potentially be facing. I don’t think this is wise.”

So this isn’t a case of one of them sinning against St. John or being spiteful or anything like that. This is just an honest difference in judgment. And so it’s important that we see that these things happen. It’s possible for us as fellow Christians and fellow believers to just have different views of things that aren’t compatible with each other and honestly disagree without one of us being bad and one of us being…

Interlocutor: Is this a case where we can see maybe just the errors of maybe judgment between even disciples and the apostles? And is this an example of… we look upon Barnabas’s decision or Paul’s to split ways rather than… should Barnabas have submitted to the elder authority?

Fr. Stephen: He was actually the elder. So, no, this is not a case where one of them really had authority over the other. 

Interlocutor: OK, they were peers.

Interlocutor 2: And there’s not a right and wrong side, in other words.

Fr. Stephen: Right. There isn’t always… and this is especially important in our day of the Internet. Someone could be just as intelligent as you, just as good a Christian as you, just as faithful and pious as you, just as moral as you, and still disagree with you.

Interlocutor: I guess the point I was making was, when that happens, there’s also this principle of submission for the sake of unity.

Fr. Stephen: Well, what we’re going to see here is that they’re going to set out separately. Okay. Which isn’t necessarily… it’s not that they broke fellowship with each other and would never speak with each other. Yeah. That would be a problem. But yeah. It doesn’t cause the schism of the church. Neither of them denounces the other. They just disagree. And so they go their separate ways. In the long run, probably more is accomplished, more cities are evangelized by them having these two separate ministries than if they had stayed together, potentially.

So, yeah, we don’t have to take every disagreement… Someone can have a completely good-hearted disagreement with us. And some of these disagreements, there’s not even necessarily a right and a wrong. Like, who was right, St. Paul or St. Barnabas? Well…

So, we have to understand that, and we have to accept the fact that those things are okay. It’s okay that we don’t all agree about everything and we don’t have to argue it out, we don’t have to fight it out. Right. We can just disagree. And that’s ultimately as we’re going to see what they do.

Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus;

Remember, that’s where St. Barnabas is from. And that’s the first place they had gone on their first missionary voyage. So he goes to Cyprus, goes back to Cyprus, to visit those churches with St. John Mark.

but Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Interlocutor: So we’ve got two pairs and they’re each going back to churches that have previously been established.

Fr. Stephen: Right. And they’re going in different directions. Yes, St. Paul and St. Silas are kind of working their way out from Antioch to the surrounding regions, and Barnabas and John Mark go to Cyprus to go and visit those churches.

And so, St. Luke’s narrative here in the Book of Acts is going to continue to follow St. Paul, but that’s not an indication that St. Barnabas did something wrong or isn’t St. Barnabas. He went off and had his own mission. Just as we’re not going to see a lot of the things St. Peter is doing and several of the other apostles, most of the eleven, are not even mentioned in the Book of Acts by name. Doesn’t mean they weren’t doing anything. It doesn’t mean they weren’t proclaiming the gospel, it doesn’t mean they weren’t going different places and proclaiming the gospel and doing these things. It’s just St. Luke is telling us a particular through line of history as we’re going to see as we go forward.

So, yeah, none of this is to demonize St. Barnabas, or even say that he was a bad person or was wrong. So this is probably a good place to leave off. Chapter 15, it’s always been important, but it’s become particularly important in our modern world in terms of understanding it correctly and knowing that this is not a rejection of the Old Testament or the Law, but a reaffirmation of it, it’s importance to us as Christians as long as it’s understood in the context of the age in which we now live and that fulfillment that comes with Christ.