Paul’s experiences, as would only be right and proper, play
an obvious role in his soteriology and his ecclesiology. It is not in the
least bit difficult to discern that, along with his knowledge of early church
traditions, along with what he has experiences as recorded in the fifteenth
chapter of Acts has a heavy influence on portions of his letters. While
others are concerned about maintaining a certain understanding of propriety
concerning food that would allow for Jews and Gentiles to join each other at a
meal table, Luke’s presentation has Paul appearing to want to allow love to
have its say, tempered with compassion, mercy, patience, and
understanding. For Paul, it is the expansion of the kingdom of God that
is the abiding concern, rather than the ability for some to maintain their
dietary provisions (identifying features) in such a way that may limit the impact
of that kingdom and of the new creation it portends.
It is useful, of course, to hear the letter from
Jerusalem. This letter places us in the enviable position of knowing the
precise situation that stood behind the production of the letter (the events of
the fourteenth chapter), which cannot be said of Paul’s letters. When
placed side by side with Paul’s letters, and especially with those that focus
on the unity of believers under covenant, the difference in tone and spirit is
marked. So we read: “From the apostles and elders, your brothers, to the
Gentile brothers and sisters in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, greetings!
Since we have heard that some have gone out from among us with no orders from
us and have confused you, upsetting your minds by what they said, we have
unanimously decided to choose men to send to you along with our dear friends
Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas who will tell you these
things themselves in person. For it seemed best to the Holy Spirit and to
us no to place any greater burden on you than these necessary rules: 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”
(15:23b-29).
This letter from Jerusalem could be construed in such a way
that may cause some to think that Jewish dietary sensibilities are more
important than the unity of believers. As can be seen, the instructions
contained in the letter are quite clear. The implications of the
instructions are that Gentiles must do certain things that will allow for them
to join with Jewish believers (or that will allow for Jewish believers to join
them) at the church’s society-altering meal table. Understandably then,
since Paul was concerned with the positioning of Gentiles in relation to the
covenant, and was quite insistent that the basis for entrance upon the covenant
(justification) was the same for all people (belief in Jesus), with Abraham as
the model, anything that could conceivably stand in the way of full unity and
full equality under that covenant was problematic. Interestingly, Luke
never gives us a report of Paul’s response to the debate in Jerusalem or his
opinion concerning the letter. One could say that the silence is
deafening.
The tripartite directive to the Gentile believers concerning
the food that could be placed upon and consumed at the meal table of the
believing assembly could easily be utilized as a means of creating a
second-class of kingdom citizens, as it was the dietary restrictions of the
Jewish believers, and the attendant and implied morality of those restrictions,
that could be seen to have trumped the apparently lax morality of the Gentile
believers (as indicated by their lack of concern with the history of their
food, its association with idolatry and sexual immorality, and its lack of
proper preparation). Now, this is not to say that Paul did not value the
dietary restrictions or that he believed that the Jewish believers should
abandon the law-based restrictions that they observed. He never insists
that Jewish believers violate their conscience, but he does insist that it is,
in fact, a matter of conscience, and that the presence of certain foods, if
they are not eaten, should not be an issue for the Jewish believer.
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