You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Acts 15:29 (2-10-11)

Interesting list. Not what I would have predicted.

Nothing specifically out of the Ten Commandments. Nothing I’d call significantly Jewish. And nothing I recall Jesus teaching.

So why this list?

I wonder if it was a protection issue.

These early Gentile converts had almost certainly all come out of idolatry. Their most likely slippage would be back into idolatry. And all of these are protections to keep people away from idolatry (even the sexual immorality).

So it’s possible the Jerusalem council wasn’t about making them even a little bit Jewish but rather strengthening them in Christ.

Which is what we’re still supposed to be about.

[Father, help me not to be concerned about getting believers to act in ways that I like but rather to about making them solid in their relationship with You.]