I’ve covered Acts 15 before in a CvB comic, but this one came across my mind and I wanted to do it as well. I believe I have brought up in the past a 90’s movie called “The Judas Project” which looked at Jesus coming during the 90’s. This comic kind of takes some inspiration from that. If we had a Jerusalem Council today and they were looking out at what people coming to Jesus were needing to be taught and were going to give direction on what that was, what would it be?

From the letter they did write, we know they covered things that the Roman culture was into that God doesn’t consider good: idols, eating blood or something strangled (which would have blood in it), and sexual immorality. What does our culture have in it that God doesn’t consider good?

Well the first item I have listed here is related to one of the first punishments Israel received. In Exodus 32, Israel decides they need a new mediator between them and God as Moses was not to be seen. What did they do? They went back to what they saw the Egyptians do, they created an idol of God. We see this from their statements of “having a feast for the LORD” and “This is the God that took you out of Egypt.” Many in church teach that this is them creating some new god to worship. That is not the case, they were trying to worship God the way the pagans did, just like several of our traditions in the Church today. God does not like this (Deut 12:31) It isn’t a “He knows my heart” issue. He doesn’t want to be worshipped in that way.

The second item is learning the ways God wants to be worshipped. His holy days. They are His days and something that many Christians are not taught about. If they are, it is said that they are “the Jews days”. No where does it state this. God says several times when giving the instructions for the holy days, often called feasts, that these are His feasts. The word translated in your Bible for feast is mo’ed. The same word used in Genesis 1:14 as seasons. The lights in the sky; sun, moon, and stars; are there to tell us when things are going to happen. One of those things are His mo’ed, His feasts, His holy days. This was on the 4th day of creation, before man was created.

The next item is food. Now wait. I know what you are thinking “all food is clean, Jesus made it that way. Or Peter was shown a vision.” or something along those lines. Hear me out. There is a common meme passed around social media about if it was a sin 100 years ago, it is still a sin today. Most I think would agree. What about abominations? If God calls something an abomination, which is a really strong word, would that ever change? God doesn’t change (Malachi 3:6) so I would say NO. Many Christians will quote Leviticus 20:13 to state that homosexuality is a sin. The word in that verse for abomination is to’ebah. That same word is used in Deuteronomy 14:3, just before going over what can and can’t be eaten. It isn’t just “oh hey don’t eat that”, God is calling it an abomination to eat the unclean things. Many of us have grown up with an understanding that all animals are food. God never makes this claim. He always has them separated. Look even at Noah and how many animals he brought on the ark. More clean animals were brought. Only the unclean were in twos.

The last is the same last item the original Council ended with: they will learn from Moses every Sabbath. Reading the first 5 books of the Bible at a weekly gathering is a tradition that has been happening for centuries. We see Jesus take part in it as well when he stands up before the synagogue and reads out of the Isaiah scroll. A tradition that the Jerusalem Council thought was a good idea to keep from Judaism. Is it a sin to not read Moses every Sabbath? No. God instructs us in Deuteronomy 31 that the Book of the Law is to be read in front of everyone every 7 years. We don’t have a copy of just the Book of the Law, but we do have all of the Laws in the first 5 books. Is it a good idea for someone new to the faith and wants to know what to do to read it every Sabbath? Just as it was then as it is now: absolutely.