James’ Speech
JAMES’ SPEECH
ACTS 15:13-21
James was a fairly conservative Jewish Christian who might have been expected to oppose what was going on. But he pointed out this was what God intended.
It is James’ turn to contribute to the discussion. He expresses cordial acceptance of Peter’s statement (15:14: Symeon is Peter’s first name, John 1:40-42) by discovering a scriptural precedent for the thought that God intended to include the Gentiles in the assembling of his people. This is part of the missionary message of the Old Testament.
The quotation from Amos 9:11f. is taken from the Greek Old Testament and makes two points:
One consideration of a practical nature required some attention, however. Exactly what this is depends upon how we construe 15:20-21—the text of the so-called “apostolic decree.” In the RSV there are four items of “prohibited practices,” all of them having to do with practices which mean much to orthodox Jews—viz. idolatry, immorality, eating meat from animals which had been improperly (by rabbinic standards) slaughtered—ie by being strangled, and from animals which still retained the blood. If these prohibitions were imposed on Gentile believers, the intention will have been to make possible table-fellowship between Jewish and Gentile Christians. If the latter would accept this code, the former would not be scandalized.
The difficulty with this reconstruction is that in Paul’s dealings with Gentile churches (at Rome and Corinth) he refuses to legislate in this formal way and leaves the question of “unclean foods” to be settled by considerations of conscience (see IVF New Bible Dictionary, “Idols, meat offered to”). The RSV margin, which adopts the “Western text,” may, therefore, be preferred. Then, with the omission of a reference to what is strangled, the remaining three items may be taken as parts of an ethical code, viz. idolatry, adultery (probably by marriage within the prohibited degrees of Leviticus 18), and bloodshed (= murder). Paul would have had no scruple about accepting such elementary moral regulations for Gentile believers, whereas his “fight for Galatia,” already won, is not likely to have been thrown away by his tamely accepting some ceremonial rules (on the RSV text reading). Therefore we may prefer the RSV margin; and church practice in the second century confirms this.