Acts 15:12 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

And gave audience to Barnabas and Paul. — The leaders of the Church had clearly reserved their part in the debate to the last, and the two Apostles of the Gentiles were now called on to repeat more publicly what they had already narrated to the Apostles and elders (Acts 15:4). It was, perhaps, with a special view to the character of their hearers that they laid stress on the “signs and wonders” which had attested God’s acceptance of their work (Matthew 12:38; Matthew 16:1; 1 Corinthians 1:22). Miracles had been wrought among the Gentiles as freely as among the Jews, and those who wrought them, unless they were casting out devils by Beelzebub (and the Judaisers appear to have shrunk from that charge), must have been sent by God (John 3:2; John 9:31-33).