Act 15 Conflict Essay

In Acts 15, a conflict arises in the early church. Paul, Barnabas, Peter, and James become involved in the discussion among the other apostles and elders. They had to discern how God wanted them to respond to some who said that the Gentiles should be required to fulfill the Law of Moses. They discerned scriptures, examined the evidence, and looked at God’s examples in the past, eventually coming to the conclusion that Gentiles are not required to fulfill the Law. There are many principles in Acts 15 that deal with conflict.
A group of believers who were Pharisees came teaching that that Christians were obligated to follow the entire law God had given to Moses, removing the essential element of liberty from Christian belief (Henry). Paul and Barnabas debated with them, saying that this was not true. The two sides apparently could not come to an agreement, so the church decided to send some representatives to Jerusalem to find out what the apostles and elders there would say. Paul and Barnabas were in the group that went to Jerusalem (English Standard Version, Acts 15.1-3). A principle we can learn from the early church is that when …show more content…
They were from “the party of the Pharisees” (Acts 15.5), meaning that they were believers who were Pharisees, the strictest Jewish sect (Gill). After a heated discussion on this topic, Peter got up and said that because God gave the Gentiles the Holy Spirit, not only Jews who were obeying the Law. By doing this, God showed that the Gentiles were justified by faith in the same way as the Jews. Peter pointed out that even the Jews had never been able to perfectly keep the Law. Barnabas and Paul told about the signs that God had done to show that he had accepted the Gentiles (Acts 15.5-12). Peter, Barnabas, and Paul showed that those in conflict must clearly articulate the evidence showing God supports their