Acts 15:19 - Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

“Wherefore my judgment is, that we trouble not those who from among the Gentiles turn to God.”

Having satisfactorily settled from Scripture that God had promised in the last days to call many Gentiles to Himself, and that therefore the calling of the Gentiles as Gentiles was Scriptural, James now gives his own judgment, and that is that in general they do not trouble Gentiles who turn to God with the details and intricacies of Jewish Law. God has called them as Gentiles, not as Jews. They are not therefore under the Law, but under grace (compare Galatians 5:4).

‘My judgment is.' There is an emphasis on ‘my'. (Literally he says ‘I (emphasised) judge that --- ‘). James knew how important his view would be to those who were most likely not to approve of abandoning the need for circumcision. But his view showed how closely he sought the mind of God, and having come to that mind, he wanted all to know that as far as he was concerned it was decisive. It was his judgment as one who had sought the mind of God. And it was seen as that because all knew James, and what he was. It was not that he had not listened to all the arguments. It was that in the end compared with the mind of God they were superfluous.

Acts 15:19

19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: