Texts in Conversation
Acts 15 and 1 Corinthians 8 give different instructions for eating food offered to idols. Acts treats it as a rule for everyone, while 1 Corinthians says it depends on personal conscience since food does not change one’s relationship with God. The difference shows early Christians working out how to set boundaries.
Share:
Acts 15:29
New Testament
25 we have unanimously decided to choose men to send to you along with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul, 26 who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas who will tell you these things themselves in person. 28 For it seemed best to the Holy Spirit and to us not to place any greater burden on you than these necessary rules: 29 that you abstain from meat that has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from doing these things, you will do well. Farewell.
Date: 75-85 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
1 Corinthians 8:8
New Testament
4 With regard then to eating food sacrificed to idols, we know that “an idol in this world is nothing,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 If after all there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we live, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we live. 7 But this knowledge is not shared by all. And some, by being accustomed to idols in former times, eat this food as an idol sacrifice, and their conscience, because it is weak, is defiled. 8 Now food will not bring us close to God. We are no worse if we do not eat and no better if we do.
Date: 55-57 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Search:
Notes and References
"... At the Jerusalem council it was James's careful argument from Scripture, citing a prophecy in which it was clear that Gentiles who join the messianic people of God do so precisely as Gentiles (Acts 15:14-19), that finally settled the matter. Based on James's argument, the so-called apostolic decree, issued by the council, denied that Gentile believers must obey the Torah, with the exception of four specific prohibitions (Acts 15:29) drawn from those the Torah itself requires not only of Israelites but also of Gentiles resident in Israel (Leviticus 17-18). In effect, observing these prohibitions would make clear that Gentile believers had indeed been morally purified by faith and the Spirit, such that there need be no barrier to fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus ..."
Bauckham, Richard
"James and the Jerusalem Community" in Skarsaune, Oskar, and Reidar Hvalvik (eds.) Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries
(pp. 55-95) Hendrickson Publishers, 2007
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.