Acts 15 Exposed: The Real Story of Christianity's Most Overlooked Decision - David Bercot

We're going to be talking this morning about the Jerusalem Council from Acts 15. Now, what's important about this council is that it laid down four universal, eternal laws on all Christians. Now, if you ask most Christians, they would say, "No, that isn't what happened." If you look at most commentaries, they'll tell you that's not what happened. So we are going to be looking at what the Scriptures say and what history tells us about it and why this is important to us.

These four laws are among probably the most disrespected laws of the entire New Testament. I say dis—I put it—I started as a—I had originally put disregarded, but so many commandments in the New Testament nowadays are disregarded. I'm saying disrespected because in most churches you're going to hear, "Oh, those were temporary laws. They don't apply any longer. They're just totally disrespected." Like, "Oh, that's nothing. You don't have to pay any attention to that."

Okay, let's read about this council. If you'll turn with me to Acts 15. I don't have it up on the screen because we're going to read most of the chapter.

For those of you who can't read, I'll give you a picture to look at.

It's funny trying to find a picture. So many of them, they showed the apostles there with a Jewish yarmulke on. It's like, "Have you never read 1 Corinthians 11? That men didn't cover their heads? And that the Christian men." So inaccurate. So I did find at least one that the men did—the apostles did not have their heads covered. All right, let's read this together. Acts 15. And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved."

Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question. So at this point, we're in Antioch, and these brothers from Jerusalem had come to Antioch to a different church, and we're trying to tell the Gentile Christians in Antioch, "You have to be circumcised and live under the Mosaic law." Okay, so that's what set this all out.

So being sent on their way by the church, so Paul and Barnabas are sent by the church in Antioch, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy to all the brethren. And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all things that God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed—so this is interesting—back to the Pharisees again. I mean, they were such a problem in the four Gospels. And so we get to Acts. Well, guess what? Some of these Pharisees converted. And now they're still a headache after they get converted.

Okay. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying, "It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses." Now, the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, "Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe." Can anyone tell me what he's referring to when Peter says it was by my mouth that God decreed the Gentiles should hear the word?

Wow, that's great. Okay. So Cornelius, when he went and brought the gospel to Cornelius. So a lot of people think of Paul because he was the apostle to the Gentiles, but it was Peter who God used to bring the gospel originally to the Gentiles. So that's why he's saying, "So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they."

So Peter gets up and he says, "No, the Gentiles do not have to live by the law, that we are all saved by grace." Now, I noticed most of the commentaries have him saying by grace alone, which is not what he said, but we are saved through grace, not through the Mosaic law. Okay.

Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles. And after they had become silent, James answered saying, "Men and brethren, listen to me." This is James, the brother of Jesus, not James the apostle.

Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. And with this, the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written. After this, I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down. I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who does all of these things.

So this was actually prophesied. And one of the things you notice with the apostles, you see this in the early Christians, they really knew their Old Testaments. I mean, they knew every prophecy. It seems like they could just pull out. And they didn't have concordances. They didn't have verses and chapters or anything like that, but they really knew the scriptures.

Known to God from eternity are all his works. Therefore, I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath. Now, that verse is—I'm not sure what James is saying there in verse 21. I think his point is that everywhere we go, the Gentiles are going to be running into this same issue because the Jews are in every city. They've got a synagogue, at least one synagogue in every city, and the Jews are always going to be bringing this up.

So we need to get this settled here once and for all, what's required of the Gentiles. Okay. Then it pleased the apostles and elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, who was also named Barsabas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren. They wrote this letter by them, the apostles, the elders, and the brethren, to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia.

Greetings. Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your soul, saying you must be circumcised and keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment, it seemed good to us being assembled with one accord to send chosen men to you and with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth.

And just look at these verses, the last two. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things, that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.

Okay, so that was the council and what was decreed. It's always a model of how a church should work. I mean, they disputed, I mean, they talked the thing out, but then, you know, every time when one of the leaders got up to speak, everyone was quiet, showed them respect. I love what he says there, our beloved Barnabas and Paul. And it's not real easy to get the time on many of these events, but if I'm following it the way I'm seeing it, this is—it was right before this when Peter, I mean, Paul had rebuked Peter down in Antioch for withdrawing from the Gentiles. And you notice the letter that, yeah, Peter, there's no animosity, there's no—I mean, he's up there doing the talking first of all, you know, supporting Paul.

And yeah, they all talk, refer to Paul as our beloved. So that's, I think it's just wonderful how mature Peter was that, yeah, he didn't carry any hard feelings from that. Now, this morning, we want to just mainly look at that decision, Acts 15, 28, and 29. So look at it again.

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit. We'll just kind of analyze this. All right, so the Holy Spirit. So what they said was inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is on the level of scripture. Of course, it is in the scriptures, but this is the Holy Spirit inspiring this. And this isn't all some maybe over-enthusiastic preacher saying, "Well, the Holy Spirit has told me this or that." These are the apostles.

They know when the Holy Spirit is talking to them because Jesus said the Holy Spirit will come and reveal all things to you. So it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. Okay, us are the apostles plus the elders there. So this is unusual. It's the only time you have a decision, a law handed down by all 12 apostles, plus Paul and Barnabas, plus James, the brother of Jesus, who wrote also part of the New Testament. So, I mean, this is an incredible array here from the Holy Spirit and from all the apostles to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things. Okay.

Now, we're going to emphasize that and notice that word, these necessary things. Because what I'm going to read you in a minute is what all your commentaries are going to tell you is, "Oh, these were temporary things. These were expediencies. These were recommendations." It's like, excuse me, what does it say? These necessary things. All right.

That you abstain from things offered to idols. I'll just, we'll just list these. Abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. All right. So just, you know, the issue is they're going to live by the law of Moses. They have to be circumcised and all of this. And the apostles threw out all of that, the whole law, the entire Mosaic law, the covenant of circumcision, everything. And said, well, outside, of course, they're not including the teachings of Jesus. But as far as everything from the old, they said just four things. That's it. Just four things from all the whole Old Testament. Just, just four things we want the Gentiles to follow.

Things offered to idols, to abstain from things offered to idols, blood, things strangled, from sexual immorality. Now, I mean, if I were just reading this, if I didn't know the history of Christianity, I'd say, well, that's pretty simple. I mean, they make it clear. It's repeated twice there in Acts 15. And it's just four things. I mean, why should there be any confusion about it?

But yeah, this is the problem. Now, I'm not blaming Billy Graham, but I remember when I was in my 20s, I, well, this shows the difference in time. This would have been the early 70s. And there's actually a daily newspaper column by Billy Graham. If you imagine today a newspaper, having a daily column by a prominent minister, I can't anyway.

But this, yeah, our local paper, every day there was a column by Billy Graham. Now, I doubt he personally wrote it as busy as he was, probably one of his staff. I don't know. But I'm reading it one day and somebody's asking the question.

They sent in the question to him. They said, "I was talking to someone else and they said that Christians shouldn't eat blood." And, you know, quoted there from Acts 15. And so is this correct? And Billy Graham's answer was, "No, Acts 15, that was just one church trying to impose their will on another church. You can just ignore that. That doesn't carry any weight at all."

I'm sitting there like, "Is that what you read in Acts 15? That this is just a church imposing its will on someone else? It wasn't the Holy Spirit. It wasn't the 12 apostles?" That was kind of a shock to me. But over the years, these are my commentaries. I pulled this off the internet.

Yeah, I mean, every time this came up, every preacher I ever heard speak on it, every discussion I had, every commentary I ever looked at, that's exactly what they said. "Oh, this was a temporary expedient. These were temporary rules. They don't apply to Christians today. You can safely ignore it." I'll just read to you from some. The first two of these are online commentaries and then the next two are from written ones.

So this one is called godquestions.org. I noticed they often come up if you Google anything on the Bible. That one is usually one of the first ones up. They say this, "The Jerusalem Council then proceeded to give four," and then they put rules in quotation marks, "that Gentile Christians should live by." These were not rules the Gentiles must follow in order to be saved. Rather, the rules were to build harmony between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the first century.

That was it. These were just trying to build harmony. And I noticed a false dichotomy here. I don't know if any of you noticed that. These aren't rules to be saved. They're rules just to bring harmony. Like those are the two choices. Like either these are commandments, this is how you get saved, or it's just building harmony.

Well, there's a lot of in-between possibilities too. How about these are commandments given to Christians to live by? No, this isn't how you get saved, but once you are saved, these are commandments given. But they don't give you that choice. It's either you got to do this to get saved or it's just build harmony.

Another one, bible.org. Well, wouldn't it have been nice to get that domain name when that was available? They must have grabbed that one early. It says this, "The things which were proposed as requirements were not requirements for salvation." Nobody has said they are. But rather requirements for fellowship between Jewish and Gentile saints.

And I read these necessary things and no, they're just so you can have fellowship together. These four prohibitions were the four most offensive things to a Jew. And I hear that all the time. Oh, they picked the four most offensive things to Jews. Really? If they were trying to not offend Jews, I don't think those would be the four things on the list. They might, some of them might be. But I know when the Romans talk about the pagan Romans, their acquaintance with Jews, what they always talk about and they're usually making fun of the Jews.

But the things they always mention are circumcision, the Sabbath, and not eating pork. I mean, I mean, that's what the Romans, I can't tell you how many different passages I read from different Romans from the first century. That's what they always talk about. So they were just trying to make peace. Definitely didn't have on their don't eat pork, you know?

That's just nonsense. They don't say, "Oh, well, we don't want to offend the Jews. I'm giving you these things." Refraining from these things would greatly reduce the cultural tensions which existed between Jews and Gentiles. The decision of the Jerusalem Council then was that the gospel for Jew or Gentile was salvation as a gift of God's grace through faith alone.

Do you remember that? Was that in there? I don't remember. It's like, "What do people get these things?" I mean, if you hear me criticize commentaries, it's not that, you know, the idea of a world trying to help us understand scripture is a great idea, but I mean, they just, they pull things out of their head that aren't in there and they just, they just stick it in.

Anyway, all right, the pulpit commentary, which is, I think, dates back to the 1800s, it said this, "The four prohibitions seem to have been a temporary arrangement adapted to the then condition of the church with a view to enabling Christian Jews and Gentiles to live in brotherly fellowship." They weren't necessary things. It was like, "Yeah, yeah, this will help you get along." Now, if you're noticing a trend here that they all seem to be saying the same thing, yeah, that's the way commentaries are. They all copy from each other and pretty soon you hear in about a hundred sources and you think, "Well, wow, this must have some facts behind it. They're all saying this."

No, it's just they're all parroting the other one. They don't can't think for themselves, so they copy what somebody else said. Finally, Matthew Henry, he says, "The only grounds for this decree was to placate the rigid Jews who had embraced the Christian faith. And all meets were pronounced free and indifferent to all Christians as soon as the reason of this decree ceased."

Oh, really?

Did you know Acts so well, Zach? Yeah, we're in Acts. Did they say that all meets are now free and indifferent to Christians? Okay, yeah. Yeah, I figured there and I'm missing that in my Bible, but yeah, okay.

At the furthest, this was after the, at the furthest, this was after the destruction of Jerusalem. Thereafter, the obligation of it ceased. Well, not very necessary. Just a few years. Okay. The apostles are saying, "These things are particularly offensive to the Jews.

Therefore, for the present, don't offend them. In a little while, the Jews will assimilate with the Gentiles and then the danger will be over." There you have it. So if you want to know what the Bible says, rather than reading it, go to commentaries and yeah, you'll get the inside story. Now, somehow none of them were there.

And it's like, boy, somehow they know so much of what was going on in the first century when they didn't live in the first century. They know little about it. They just make up what's convenient for them.

Is Bill here? Yeah, so Bill's famous quote from Jesus, "But from the beginning, it was not so." So this is what's being said today. Oh yeah, these are temporary requirements, but that is not what it was in the beginning.

Marie, I could feel the rest of today just reading you quotes from the early Christians. I'm just going to read three. So origin, this is about the year 235. He said, "We find written in the Acts of the Apostles that when the apostles had come together, they established decrees that we who have believed in Christ from the Gentiles are obligated to observe."

So did he think it was a temporary thing that it, yeah, ended with the destruction of the temple? This is what, 150 years after the temple was destroyed over that? They still view them as obligations on all Gentiles. And of course, it'd be on all Jews as well.

Tertullian says this, this was, I remember when I first came across this quote when I was reading the early Christians, because this was one of the questions I had wondered. I mean, our church said, "No, that's temporary. That was not meant to always apply to Christians." And so yeah, I was kind of curious, what would the early Christians have to say? And this quote was one of the first I had noticed. This is Tertullian. He's writing to the pagan Romans. This is in his, I think it's from his apology, written about the year 81, 90, 95, something like that. He says this to the pagans, "Blush for your vile ways before the Christians who do not have even the blood of animals at their meals of simple and natural food.

We abstain from things strangled and from things that die a natural death." Okay, so this is 190. The Christians are following what was said. To clench the matter with a single example, you tempt Christians with sausages of blood just because you are perfectly aware that the thing by which you thus try to get them to transgress, they hold unlawful.

So this is quite a quote. It's showing that, no, they took that as a serious law. We don't eat blood. We don't eat things strangled. Not only that, it was so well known that Christians would not eat blood that the Romans would try to get them to violate their conscience by, "Hey, you hung your star from the death, whatever. Hey, here's some blood sausages. You want some?" So yeah, I mean, it tells the whole story there. When I read that, I knew, okay, these commentaries are just not telling the truth. One last one, Minucius Felix about the year 200. So much do we shrink from human blood that we do not even use the blood of edible animals in our food.

Okay, so these were regarded by the early Christians as laws, eternal laws bound by which all Christians are bound.

Now, the interesting thing is the apostles were not creating any new commandments for the Gentiles. Did you know the Gentiles were already under those four laws? These weren't new laws. These were four laws that had always been on the Gentiles, but they weren't enforced. Most Gentiles didn't live by them, but they had always been there. Let me demonstrate that.

Back to that quote. Okay, as far as eating human blood, at this time, that's what most of the Gentiles were doing, blood sausages and all of that, but it was not so from the beginning. Humans did not originally eat animal blood.

All right, so I want some of you children to help me, all right? So what animals were Adam and Eve allowed to eat in the Garden of Eden?

Do any of you young people know?

Or maybe I should ask, were they allowed to eat any animals?

Well, even the children are trained that, "Oh, David's got a trick question there, so don't answer." It's not a trick question.

No, so there were no animals they were allowed to eat, okay? So from the beginning, humans did not eat blood because they were not allowed to even eat animals at all. Their food were vegetables, fruit, things that would grow. So from the very beginning, see, this issue wouldn't have come up because humans were not even allowed to eat animals, let alone to eat their blood, okay?

So when were, when was mankind given the right to eat animals? Do any of you children know that?

Hint, hint, you can look at the picture. When was it first given? Well, it was given to Noah, okay? That up until this time, mankind had eaten just vegetables and grain, that sort of thing, fruit. God for the first time gave Noah the right to eat animals, all right?

And this is what he told him. "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things just like the green plants. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood." Genesis 9:3-4. And that word with its life can also be translated with its soul, okay? And sometimes it's translated that way. All right, so this was given to Noah and to all of his descendants. Okay, is there anyone here who is not a descendant of Noah that he was not your forefather?

Okay, I don't see any hands. Okay, so all of us, this law was given. It was never, never canceled. God never took this law away. This was the law given to all mankind. So Gentiles were already under this law not to eat blood, okay? As I said, God didn't enforce it. It doesn't mean he didn't want it followed. It's just that somehow over time, Noah's descendants is like, "I'm not going to bleed this animal in," you know, or maybe, "Hey, you know, blood pudding tastes good," whatever. I don't know what, you know, how and when it happened, but somewhere along the line, they decided, "Okay, we don't have to live by this," all right? Now, the two other laws against idolatry, well, of course, Noah did not worship idols.

And even though, again, there was no written code, these are things that God's people, like Abraham and and Sarah, they did not worship idols. They knew that was a sin. And so was sexual immorality. When you look at the courtship of like Isaac and Jacob, you see how very careful they were in keeping themselves pure. So these were, this was natural law as far as idols and immorality, and blood was an actual commandment given when man was given the right to eat animals. So see, these were already laws binding the Gentiles. The apostles didn't give them anything new. These laws were already there. They just were largely forgotten.

Okay.

And before the covenant of circumcision, Abraham was living by all four of these laws. So again, this goes back before the Mosaic law. It goes back before the covenant of circumcision. These were four laws binding on all mankind, but only a few godly people like Abraham and his descendants were the ones actually living by those commandments. But they were not new commandments. They weren't temporary concessions. These had already been there from way back. All right. Now, God later repeated all four of these laws to the Jews as part of the Mosaic law, but they didn't originate in the Mosaic law. He just added them to the Mosaic law. He'd already given it. Okay. Now I'm going to read from Leviticus here, I think maybe one verse from Deuteronomy, and see how serious God viewed eating blood.

And whatever man of the house of Israel, now notice this, or of the strangers who dwell among you. So if you were a Jew or even just a Gentile, if you were living there within the borders, who eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. Okay, so God is very clear. You don't eat blood. I'm the one who gave you the right of what you can eat, and blood represents the life of an animal. I don't want you to eat the blood.

Whatever man of the children of Israel or of the strangers who dwell among you, again, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out his blood and cover it with dust. Okay? So he wanted the animal to be properly bled, you know, either cut off its head or whatever, and pour out the blood on the ground. Now, you can't get out every little drop of blood that way, but he wanted you to show respect for the life by pouring out the blood.

For it is the life of all flesh. Its blood sustains its life. Therefore, you shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires of the gazelle and the deer alike.

Only you shall not eat the blood. You shall pour it on the earth like water. Okay? That's pretty simple. I want you to bleed the animal properly while once you slaughter it before you eat it.

Now, the fact that God repeated these laws to the Jews did not suddenly make them temporary laws. In other words, he'd already given that law. He's only repeating it again because it had been totally ignored. Any more than it made his laws against idolatry and immorality temporary. Okay? So these are permanent laws and they're not temporary ones. Everybody with me on this. By the way, if you feel free to raise your hand if as I'm going, something's not clear, I'd rather answer it as I'm going than at the end, okay?

It was not until the days of Augustine. It's amazing how many things the church followed until Augustine. Although in this situation, Augustine isn't the one who said, "Oh, this is," he did say these were temporary, but he's saying everybody was treating them as temporary. He says, I was just reading it this week in one of his writings. He said, "Oh, if you got a rabbit and strangled it and then wouldn't eat it because it hadn't been bled," he said, "all the people would laugh at you." All the people meaning Christians at that time, everybody in the Roman Empire had to be a Christian.

It's like, wow, that's strange. Here a law was given to not eat strangled animals. And he's saying, "Oh, you'd be laughed at by the other Christians if you objected to that." So yeah, the days of Augustine, we're talking about the year 400. That's when they decided, "Oh, that was just temporary. We don't have to live by that anymore."

You know, they decided that with a bunch of things.

Now, today, the typical argument that I hear a lot is that Paul stated in First Corinthians that it was permissible for Christians to eat meat sacrifice idols. So it was forbidden by the 12, but when Paul writes to the Corinthians, he says it's okay to do it.

Therefore, the Acts 15 commandment was obviously temporary. So I've heard that a lot. I've heard it from Anabaptist speakers. Now, the issue of meeting eat sacrifice to idols, I would need an entire sermon to discuss it. I mean, I would have liked to have gone into that. I've got all the material, but I thought this is going to make this too long. So maybe another time if people have any interest. But let me just say this.

Nobody, nobody in the early church understood First Corinthians in this manner. None of them understood that Paul said, "Oh, it's okay to eat meat sacrifice to idols." They all read that and they stood, understood that he's clearly saying you cannot do that. Okay? What he is saying is if you go buy meat at the meat market, it's okay to eat it. You don't have to inquire about it. Or if you're at someone's house and they give you and they serve you meat, you don't have to ask questions on that. He's not saying it's okay to eat meat sacrifice to idols. Now, I don't know if it's our Bible translations that obscure that or our lack of knowledge of the culture.

All I can say is the people who lived in that culture universally understood, you know, we are not allowed to eat meat sacrifice to idols. Let me just read you from a couple. Aristides, he's the earliest Christian apologist we have. About the year 125, he said, "Christians do not eat the food that is concentrated to idols, for they are pure." So they did not understand, oh, Paul had done away with this, which would be absurd if all 12 laid down a law, Paul would not have had the authority to just cancel out a law handed down by all 12, more importantly by the Holy Spirit. That's not how the apostles worked.

Justin Martyr, I mean, this is really telling. By the year 160, those are the Gentiles who know God through Jesus the Crucified, abide every torture and vengeance, even to the extremity of death, rather than to worship idols or eat meat offered to idols.

So, I mean, they understood, hey, this is permanent. We don't eat, and they would die for it. They would not eat meat offered to idols. So, like I say, Paul is not saying it's okay. Paul can be very hard to understand sometimes, and I'm not sure what all he's saying in First Corinthians, but if you go back there, he starts off the whole thing saying, "You cannot eat at the table of the Lord and the table of demons." And then he gives that exception. If you eat some, if you get meat at the meat market, then it's okay. You don't have to ask questions, which I would assume would be, you know, that would apply to ever, you know, forever.

If you're buying it at the store, you don't have to inquire what the source was. Now, people might say, well, those early Christians got it wrong. They could have eaten meat sacrifice to idols. They just didn't read their Bibles.

How about Jesus Christ? Do you think he got it wrong? This is about the year 1895, 90 maybe from Revelation. Jesus is talking here, but I have a few things against you because you have there are those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balaam to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. So does it sound like Jesus was saying, "Oh yeah, that was temporary. You can eat meat sacrifice to idols"? I mean, he's condemning the church there because they had people saying, "Hey, it's okay to do this."

Another church, Jesus says, "Nevertheless, I have a few things against you because you allow that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols." Okay, so that was not a temporary thing done away with. Again, First Corinthians is not crystal clear. This is crystal clear, and this is written 30 or more years after Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians. So it is clear this was still a binding commandment. Okay, anyone have any question on that?

All right.

Now we come down. So what's the application of all this today? So if I've convinced you all of this is still binding, and I hope I have, so how do we apply it? It's, it's fortunately, I say fortunately since everyone has decided, oh, you can just ignore this. Fortunately, it doesn't come up that much in our daily life today.

Because meat in this country, and I would say probably throughout the Western world, the developed world, that has been killed at a slaughterhouse has been properly bled. I've had a friend who worked at a chicken slaughterhouse and one who worked at a beef slaughterhouse, and I've also read online, and wow, they bleed the animals, not because they're showing respect to God. I think it affects the flavor of the meat or whatever, but the chickens, they render them unconscious, usually with CO2 gas, and then they hang them upside down. They got, I mean, it's just this big conveyor belt machine, and that was his friend's job. You know, he grabbed the chickens and, you know, hang them up there, you know, upside down.

They go on this conveyor belt, and then there's some kind of sign that just cuts their, their next, you know, cuts their head off. Sorry.

But yeah, it's bled out thoroughly, okay? And in beef, somewhat similar, they're stunned first, and then they're, they're, I think they're hung upside down as well, and they're stabbed in like the jugular vein where they will bleed out. So in our country, yeah, they're more than what I think God would have required in ancient times. They are properly bled. Again, you don't get every ounce of blood out. God didn't ever require that. He just wanted it poured on the ground, show respect for life.

You don't have to try to get every molecule of blood out from the meat. He never required that, okay? So we're pretty forced in this country. Like I say, you buy food at the grocery store, you don't have to worry about, yeah, has it been bled.

But what if you travel? Deborah and I, in 1995, 1996, we visited Ireland. I was working on the book about St. Patrick, and I wanted to spend some weeks in Ireland to kind of understand the country, get the feel of it. And we were at a bed and breakfast, and this isn't a bed and breakfast, but anyway, at breakfast, we were sitting there at the table. It was, I don't know if she was a single woman or not, but she had served breakfast, and Deborah and I prayed, and she had come out to bring something else and was standing there in the doorway. And she heard us pray, and she said, "Oh, I'm so delighted.

I'm a Christian, and I'm so excited that you were Christians as well, and glad to hear you praying before you ate." And so, you know, we chatted, and we all, well, that's, that is, that is great. So yeah, we're going on our meal, and then she brings these out. If they look like burnt hamburgers or not. Okay, so I looked at this, and I don't like eating strange things. So I was kind of like, "Well, what's this?" And so Deborah asked her, "What is this?" "Oh, it's pudding." They call pudding something different in England than what Ireland, than what we do over here.

And Deborah said, "Does it have blood in it?" I said, "Oh yeah, it's blood pudding." And so I said, since she had said she was a Christian and all that, I said, "Did you know that in the Bible it says that Christians aren't supposed to eat blood, you know, in Acts 15?" And no, I didn't know that. I said, "Oh, I'm sure you didn't, and didn't mean any harm, but yeah, actually, yeah, we're not supposed to eat blood. It's forbidden to Christians." And so she thanked us, and I don't know if she, if she changed, but yeah, that's blood pudding. So if you travel, I was going to have some pictures of blood sausage. It was so gross.

I couldn't download them on my computer. I just, if you want to ruin your lunch or supper, just Google images for blood sausages. And anyway, so when you're traveling in other countries or if you're doing mission work, yeah, you need to, you need to be careful because they do eat, you know, blood sausages where that's where they add blood. They're actually adding it. They want to eat blood and like the taste of it or something. Yeah, it's gross to Americans.

Thankfully, I'm glad our country doesn't, doesn't, doesn't like that. All right, so something else I think we should be careful of, and that is hunting or if you slaughter your own livestock, that you properly bleed it. Now, most of us can't do what they do at a slaughterhouse, and God doesn't require that, but that the animal is properly bled, that if you shoot a deer, and I think most hunters dress it out there in the woods, yeah, if you would just carry it home and, I don't know, wait a day, that blood is going to have gone into the, a lot of it into the meat, you know.

And I'm not, you know, going to be anybody's judge. I'm just going to say, yeah, make sure you bleed it properly right there on the spot. Bruce was telling me a question had come up he had dealt with of a deer hit by a car and, yeah, eating that.

And this particular, the meat didn't taste right, and he asked about it, and, and you know, the guy said, well, yeah, it was because he was hit by a car, yeah, the blood had gone to the meat, plus a lot of other things, trauma and that. And so, yeah, it affected the taste of the meat, and that's probably why they bleed it properly in this country because of that. So I'd never even thought of that. Now, I've known, I don't remember who it was who hit a, was telling me he hit a deer. It was still partly alive and got out of his, he had a big knife and just slid his throat right in and bled it, you know.

So, so you know, you could do that, but just, yeah, I'd say an area to be careful or if you're butchering your own livestock. I get asked on this a lot, a rare state.

And I'll just say this, okay? It's going to have been bled the same as any other state. Okay, so in this country, it will have been properly bled, whether you eat it rare or not. The meat, the meat followed God's law. Again, it wasn't that you get every little molecule out. Now, the only thing that I take offense at, don't do this around me, is when people say, "Oh, I like it when it's real bloody, you know, that's how I like my meat."

That to me is a little gross, you know, when God says don't eat blood, I don't know. You know, just don't say it. Go ahead and eat the meat, but just don't, don't, if you don't want to offend me, okay?

Anyway, so I usually get mine medium or something like that. But I'd like to say, I don't think you're violating God's law because that meat has been, has been bled. Just, just don't, you know, effuse over how wonderful the blood is. Actually, the red liquid you see with a rare steak is not blood. It's a mixture of water and myoglobin, which is an oxygen-binding protein that's located in the muscles of red meat animals. So even though people call it a bloody steak, there's no blood there.

Okay. All right. What about blood transfusions? This is one reason I was giving this. The brothers from Netherlands asked us this. And the only ones I know of are Jehovah's Witnesses who object to getting blood transfusion, and it is based on Acts 15. And they say, well, yeah, we're not allowed to eat blood. If you do it intravenously, it's still the same thing. That's their argument. In my opinion, it's not a stupid argument. I think there's some legitimacy. On the other hand, it's not a slam dunk either. It's a blood transfusion is a little different in a number of ways. The blood is not going through your digestive system. You're not tasting it in your mouth.

It's not going into your stomach and your intestines, through all of that. It's going directly in your veins. You're not doing it because you're hungry, because you like the taste of blood or anything like that. It's a life-saving measure, replacing blood you lose in an operation or maybe before an operation. So I don't think, I think Jehovah's Witnesses have asked a legitimate question.

And if it bothered someone's conscience, I would certainly say follow your conscience on that. But to make it a law for, to impose that on everybody, since it's not what the apostles are talking about, it didn't exist back then, that I would, would question.

As far as, you know, I was thinking, okay, food sacrifice to idols, that, that we don't ever deal with, not in this country that, that I know of. I don't know if you're in Eastern countries. I wish Daniel was here. Of course, China is atheistic, so I doubt they would offer food to idols there. I wonder if they bleed it. I'd be real curious if they properly bleed their, their, their meat in China. I don't know. From what he told me about the hygiene there, I would just, yeah, I don't know.

And I don't know if in countries like, you know, India and that, whether people offer food to gods and then would want you to eat it. I don't know. I think you just should be on guard if you're doing missionary work in a far Eastern country to find out what, yeah, what the practice is.

Then the last thing is the misuse of the Jerusalem Council. And this is something we Anabaptists do. And it's, it surprised me very much when I came in the Anabaptist world because we are very much sticklers to, if it's a commandment in the Bible, we follow it. And amen. I like that. I mean, that is good. And it doesn't matter if everyone else has quit following it. If it's a commandment, we keep following it. But then Acts 15, you know, where something handed down by all 12 apostles and the Holy Spirit handed this down. And I don't know how many Anabaptist speakers I've heard, you know, say, well, I think we all agree those were just temporary requirements, you know, it's because they've read commentaries.

And it's like, really, you know, I'm very surprised to hear Anabaptists say that because, well, then that's what people say about the head covering. That's what people say about the Holy Kiss. It's what they say about almost everything. Well, those were just temporary. Yeah, that was just for that, that time. I'm just surprised to hear any Anabaptist would, would say that about any commandment in the Bible because you're going to do that with this, then you can do it with, with any other one. Like I say, forcing it doesn't normally come up in this, in this country. So they can say that and yet they're not violating it because it's not going to probably come up.