Christianity started out from Jerusalem. The disciples fulfilled their Lord's command, and "began at Jerusalem." The gospel was first preached at Jerusalem. The Holy Ghost endowed the Christian teachers, and scaled the Christian believers, first at Jerusalem. The Church first took form at Jerusalem. Its officers were first appointed at Jerusalem. And the records intimate that, when the other disciples were scattered abroad, the older and prominent apostles remained behind in the holy city, and exercised a kind of supervision over the work of the various Christian teachers. The constitution of the Jerusalem Church cannot be certainly known; but it is clear that St. Peter had no exclusive authority, and that if disputes and controversies were submitted to an apostolic council, their decision took the form of recommendation and not of Command. As the subject will be treated from several points of view, according to the bias of the preacher, we give only the general outline of the topics that may be usefully considered.

I. JERUSALEM, THE CHRISTIAN STARTING-POINT. The first teachers were Jews; and Christianity is not only the proper outcome and perfection of Judaism, but it bears the Jewish stamp. It links on to the fundamental ideas of God, sin, redemption, which were revealed to the Jews. If it were wholly new, it could not be true.

II. JERUSALEM, THE APOSTOLIC CENTER. A kind of mother Church. Observe how its council of apostles and elders was sought when difficulties of doctrine or practice arose; and how the Gentile Churches sent their charitable gifts to the poor saints at the mother Church.

III. JERUSALEM, THE MODEL CHURCH. How far any Church could present a model may be disputed. Any model would be efficient by reason of its illustrating working principles, not by virtue of its mere form.

IV. JERUSALEM, THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. How far apostles claimed authority on the ground of their knowledge of Christ, inspiration, miraculous gifts, and power to give or bring the Holy Ghost, needs to be carefully considered. - R.T.

1. For a little time the noise of controversy ceases. Paul and Barnabas might have taken a much shorter way to Jerusalem; but Paul, like the Master, always wished to do some work on the way. When Christ was apparently hastening to a particular locality, He would often on the road stop to do some intermediate miracle. So Paul said, "We will make this a missionary journey." So they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria — the district where Philip had done his wonderful works. We should all leave footprints behind us; people that come afterwards should know that we were there first.

2. Follow the apostles. They find a line of Churches all the way, generally speaking, from Antioch to Jerusalem. There were houses of call on the road. The pioneer had, by sacred influence, said, "Other and stronger men will be coming this road some day — be prepared for them." We, too, walk on roads that have been well trodden for us. We take the roads of a country as a matter of course. Who ever thinks of roads, or could suppose that a poet could wax eloquent upon road making? Yet even so common a thing as a road is essential to civilisation. Surely as they passed along Paul and Barnabas would often think of Philip, and would often hear of him in the homes where they lodged. It is pleasant to see, in little wayside houses, the pictures of Wesley and Whitefield, and pastors of humbler name, who have lived in the locality. These pictures are texts. Despise not your forerunners.

3. What peeps we get into the domestic life of the time! The two men coming into a house turned it into an historical temple. There are some visits that transfigure the localities in which they are paid. And the little common feast, and the sort of talk which passes between men and unites men's hearts! Forget not the little idylls that help to make up the massive poetry of great histories. There were little occasions, as well as great ones, in the development of the Christian story. Handgrips, and special prayers, and visits to the sick chamber, where the tenderest of all supplications were breathed, and still the men passed on, having to maintain a valiant and historical testimony in the face of the first council of the Christian Church.

4. As they went along what did they talk about? "Declaring the conversion of the Gentiles." There ought to be great joy when soldiers come from the field of war with the latest news. We soon rough down, by dumb applause, the stumbling missionary who tries to tell us that the blood-red banner is floating higher than ever in the wind! The early Christians were full of their subject; we easily slip out of ours. They had but one theme, only it included all other themes. They took pleasure in their work; they liked Sunday better than Monday — nay, they made Sunday seven days long.

5. In ver. 4 note that the Church is spoken of in its unity. We have made it into a thousand. I do not object to denominations any more than I object to regiments; but as I expect all the regiments to bow to one throne, so I would expect all denominations to have common ground upon which they can have a common altar. Being received by the Church, the two speakers stood up to tell their tale. Have we no tale to tell? If a thief broke into your house, you would tell everybody about it. If your house was on fire, all the neighbourhood would know it. A man who has a tale to tell tells it; and he is right in doing so. We are not unwilling to speak, but we have no story to relate.

6. Look at ver. 5. The contention was Pharisaic. Not many of them believed, and those who did were greater opponents as believers than as unbelievers. There are hinderers in the Church as well as outside. This position was not only Pharisaic, it was founded upon a narrow reading of the letter. If Christianity is a square with well-defined walls, there are men who could stand in the middle of it and defend it bravely; but if Christianity is a horizon which recedes as we advance, and which has room enough within it for other universes tenfold larger than our own, they become bewildered, the letter is of little use to them, and so they make four corners for themselves, and subside within the prison of a creed. It is difficult for some men to see the bud in the seed. Christianity has its blossom as well as its root, its fruit as well as its blossom. The type only lives by its little self until the fulfilment comes, and then it passes away. They who upheld the law of Moses were Pharisees. How marvellous the providence that a Pharisee of the Pharisees was sent to answer them! They would have made short work of other men, but there arose a very prince of the blood, and in his presence they met an unexpected and successful check. A man who knows a smattering of a language may astound the villagers who never heard of it; but let a man arise who knows the language perfectly, and then the blatant pretender will fall away in shame. God grows His own men, and will always find His own champions. Let us rest in the God of truth, and the truth shall never be in want of a man of adequate capacity and needful eloquence to show its grandeur and enforce its claims.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

Barnabas, Barsabas, David, James, John, Judas, Mark, Paul, Peter, Silas, Simeon, SimonCilicia, Cyprus, Jerusalem, Judea, Pamphylia, Phoenicia, Samaria, Syria, Syrian AntiochAccompanied, Assembly, Brethren, Bringing, Brothers, Caused, Causing, Church, Conversion, Converted, Declaring, Describing, Detail, Distance, Forward, Gentiles, Giving, Glad, Indeed, Inspired, Joy, Members, Nations, News, Passed, Passing, Phenice, Phoenicia, Phoeni'cia, Relating, Reporting, Salvation, Samaria, Sama'ria, Short, Story, Traveled1. Great dissensions arise regarding circumcision.
5. The apostles consult about it,
22. and send their determination by letters to the churches.
36. Paul and Barnabas, thinking to visit the brothers together,
39. disagree, and travel different ways.

Acts 15:3

     5590   travel
     5661   brothers
     6629   conversion, examples
     7120   Christians
     7726   evangelists, ministry

Acts 15:1-3

     8289   joy, of church

Acts 15:1-6

     5108   Paul, life of

Acts 15:1-12

     7610   Council of Jerusalem

Acts 15:1-19

     7336   circumcision, spiritual

Acts 15:1-29

     7241   Jerusalem, significance

The Breaking Out of Discord
'And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. 2. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. 3. And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

The Charter of Gentile Liberty
'Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. 13. And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: 14. Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. 15. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, 16. After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

A Good Man's Faults
'And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. 38. But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.'--ACTS xv. 37, 38. Scripture narratives are remarkable for the frankness with which they tell the faults of the best men. It has nothing in common with the cynical spirit in historians, of which this age has seen eminent examples, which fastens upon the weak places in the noblest natures, like a wasp …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

A Message from the Crowned Christ
(Revelation, Chapters ii and iii) "The glory of love is brightest when the glory of self is dim, And they have the most compelled me who most have pointed to Him. They have held me, stirred me, swayed me,--I have hung on their every word, Till I fain would arise and follow, not them, not them,--but their Lord!"[64] Patmos Spells Patience. Patience is strength at its strongest, using all its strength in holding back from doing something. Patience is love at flood pleading with strength to hold steady …
by S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation

Upon Our Lord's SermonOn the Mount
Discourse 2 "Blessed are the meek: For they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: For they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: For they shall obtain mercy." Matt. 5:5-7 I. 1. When "the winter is past," when "the time of singing is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land;" when He that comforts the mourners is now returned, "that he may abide with them for ever;" when, at the brightness of his presence, the clouds disperse, …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

"Now the End of the Commandment," &C.
1 Tim. i. 5.--"Now the end of the commandment," &c. Fourthly, Faith purging the conscience purifies the heart (Acts xv. 9.), and hope also purifies the heart (1 John iii. 3.), which is nothing else but faith in the perfection and vigour of it. This includes, I. That the heart was unclean before faith. II. That faith cleanses it, and makes it pure. But "who can say, I have made my heart pure (Prov. xx. 9.), I am clean from my sin?" Is there any man's heart on this side of time, which lodges not many …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Foreword
"Jesus of Nazareth, a Biography, by John Mark," recognizes the author of the second Gospel as that "John, whose surname was Mark" (Acts 15:37), whom Barnabas chose as companion when he sailed for Cyprus on his second missionary journey. In making use of the new title, the plan of the Editor is to present "The Gospel: According to Mark" as it would be printed were it written in the twentieth rather than the first century. Mark's Gospel has been chosen for this purpose to make available in more readable …
John Mark—Jesus of Nazareth - A Biography

The Subtraction Process
The baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire, the entering into the heavenly inheritance of Canaan, and the possession of the land, and all the blessings that follow are unmistakably a process of addition to the already blessed experience of the justified soul. This addition is scripturally termed "sanctification." No mortal language can ever express how much of an addition it is; but there must necessarily precede this marvelous grace, a definite and absolute subtraction, a loss of all things for the …
J. W. Byers—Sanctification

Cleansing.
As there are conditions requiring to be complied with in order to the obtaining of salvation, before one can be justified, e. g., conviction of sin, repentance, faith; so there are conditions for full salvation, for being "filled with the Holy Ghost." Conviction of our need is one, conviction of the existence of the blessing is another; but these have been already dealt with. "Cleansing" is another; before one can be filled with the Holy Ghost, one's heart must be "cleansed." "Giving them the Holy …
John MacNeil—The Spirit-Filled Life

Second Missionary Journey
Scripture, Acts 15:36-18:22 +The Inception+--After the Jerusalem Council Paul returned to Antioch where he spent some time, "teaching and preaching the Word of the Lord with many others also." "And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren i+The Companions+ (Acts 15:37-40).--Barnabas proposed to take John Mark, his nephew, with them on this second journey. But Paul strenuously objected, basing his objection on the ground that this young man had deserted them …
Henry T. Sell—Bible Studies in the Life of Paul

Authorship of the Pentateuch.
The term Pentateuch is composed of the two Greek words, pente, five, and teuchos, which in later Alexandrine usage signified book. It denotes, therefore, the collection of five books; or, the five books of the law considered as a whole. 1. In our inquiries respecting the authorship of the Pentateuch, we begin with the undisputed fact that it existed in its present form in the days of Christ and his apostles, and had so existed from the time of Ezra. When the translators of the Greek version, …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

The Figurative Language of Scripture.
1. When the psalmist says: "The Lord God is a sun and shield" (Psa. 84:11), he means that God is to all his creatures the source of life and blessedness, and their almighty protector; but this meaning he conveys under the figure of a sun and a shield. When, again, the apostle James says that Moses is read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day (Acts 15:21), he signifies the writings of Moses under the figure of his name. In these examples the figure lies in particular words. But it may be embodied …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

The Council at Jerusalem.
(Comp. § 34, pp. 835 sqq. and 346 sq.) The most complete outward representation of the apostolic church as a teaching and legislative body was the council convened at Jerusalem in the year 50, to decide as to the authority of the law of Moses, and adjust the difference between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. [743] We notice it here simply in its connection with the organization of the church. It consisted not of the apostles alone, but of apostles, elders, and brethren. We know that Peter, …
Philip Schaff—History of the Christian Church, Volume I

The Synod of Jerusalem, and the Compromise Between Jewish and Gentile Christianity.
Literature. I. Acts 15, and Gal. 2, and the Commentaries thereon. II. Besides the general literature already noticed (in §§ 20 and 29), compare the following special discussions on the Conference of the Apostles, which tend to rectify the extreme view of Baur (Paulus, ch. V.) and Overbeck (in the fourth edition of De Wette's Com. on Acts) on the conflict between Acts 15 and Gal. 2, or between Petrinism and Paulinism, and to establish the true historic view of their essential unity in diversity. …
Philip Schaff—History of the Christian Church, Volume I

The Catholic Epistles.
I. Storr: De Catholicarum Epp. Occasione et Consilio. Tüb. 1789. Staeudlin: De Fontibus Epp. Cath. Gott. 1790. J. D. Schulze: Der schriftstellerische Charakter und Werth des Petrus, Jacobus und Judas. Leipz. 1802. Der schriftsteller. Ch. des Johannes. 1803. II. Commentaries on all the Catholic Epistles by Goeppfert (1780), Schlegel (1783), Carpzov (1790), Augusti (1801), Grashof (1830), Jachmann (1838), Sumner (1840), De Wette (3d ed. by Brückner 1865), Meyer (the Cath. Epp. by Huther, …
Philip Schaff—History of the Christian Church, Volume I

Whether the Justification of the Ungodly is the Remission of Sins
Whether the Justification of the Ungodly is the Remission of Sins We proceed to the first article thus: 1. It seems that the justification of the ungodly is not the remission of sins. It is clear from what was said in Q. 71, Arts. 1 and 2, that sin is opposed not only to justice, but to all virtues. Now justification means a movement towards justice. Hence not every remission of sin is justification, since every movement is from one contrary to its opposite. 2. Again, it is said in 2 De Anima, text …
Aquinas—Nature and Grace

Whether Purification of the Heart is an Effect of Faith
Whether Purification of the Heart is an Effect of Faith We proceed to the second article thus: 1. It seems that purification of the heart is not an effect of faith. Purity of heart pertains mainly to the affections. But faith is in the intellect. Hence faith does not cause purification of the heart. 2. Again, that which causes purification of the heart cannot exist together with impurity. But faith exists together with the impurity of sin, as is obvious in those whose faith is unformed. Hence faith …
Aquinas—Nature and Grace

Church Government.
By this time the Gospel had not only been firmly settled as the religion of the great Roman empire, but had made its way into most other countries of the world then known. Here, then, we may stop to take a view of some things connected with the Church; and it will be well, in doing so, to remember what is wisely said by our own Church, in her thirty-fourth article, which is about "the Traditions of the Church" (that is to say, the practices handed down in the Church) --"It is not necessary that traditions …
J. C. Roberston—Sketches of Church History, from AD 33 to the Reformation

Whether Every virtue is a Moral virtue?
Objection 1: It would seem that every virtue is a moral virtue. Because moral virtue is so called from the Latin "mos," i.e. custom. Now, we can accustom ourselves to the acts of all the virtues. Therefore every virtue is a moral virtue. Objection 2: Further, the Philosopher says (Ethic. ii, 6) that moral virtue is "a habit of choosing the rational mean." But every virtue is a habit of choosing: since the acts of any virtue can be done from choice. And, moreover, every virtue consists in following …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether the Old Law was Good?
Objection 1: It would seem that the Old Law was not good. For it is written (Ezech. 20:25): "I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments in which they shall not live." But a law is not said to be good except on account of the goodness of the precepts that it contains. Therefore the Old Law was not good. Objection 2: Further, it belongs to the goodness of a law that it conduce to the common welfare, as Isidore says (Etym. v, 3). But the Old Law was not salutary; rather was it deadly and …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether There Should have Been Man Ceremonial Precepts?
Objection 1: It would seem that there should not have been many ceremonial precepts. For those things which conduce to an end should be proportionate to that end. But the ceremonial precepts, as stated above ([2105]AA[1],2), are ordained to the worship of God, and to the foreshadowing of Christ. Now "there is but one God, of Whom are all things . . . and one Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things" (1 Cor. 8:6). Therefore there should not have been many ceremonial precepts. Objection 2: Further, …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether Simple Fornication is a Mortal Sin?
Objection 1: It would seem that simple fornication is not a mortal sin. For things that come under the same head would seem to be on a par with one another. Now fornication comes under the same head as things that are not mortal sins: for it is written (Acts 15:29): "That you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication." But there is not mortal sin in these observances, according to 1 Tim. 4:4, "Nothing is rejected that is received with …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether it is against the Natural Law to have a Concubine?
Objection 1: It would seem that to have a concubine is not against the natural law. For the ceremonies of the Law are not of the natural law. But fornication is forbidden (Acts 15:29) in conjunction with ceremonies of the law which for the time were being imposed on those who were brought to the faith from among the heathens. Therefore simple fornication which is intercourse with a concubine is not against the natural law. Objection 2: Further, positive law is an outcome of the natural law, as Tully …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether the Justification of the Ungodly is the Remission of Sins?
Objection 1: It would seem that the justification of the ungodly is not the remission of sins. For sin is opposed not only to justice, but to all the other virtues, as stated above ([2212]Q[71], A[1]). Now justification signifies a certain movement towards justice. Therefore not even remission of sin is justification, since movement is from one contrary to the other. Objection 2: Further, everything ought to be named from what is predominant in it, according to De Anima ii, text. 49. Now the remission …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

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