“But that we write to them, that they abstain from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood. For Moses from generations of old has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath.”
Four major principles were, however, to be required of Gentile Christians. The first two were basic. They involved the avoidance of open contact with and participation in idolatry, including the avoidance of meat offered to idols and thus constituting part of the sacrifices made to them, and the avoidance of all sexual misbehaviour, the latter often being directly connected with pagan worship. The former would have been a denial of the oneness of God, and have involved them in contact with evil spirits. The latter was basic to the maintaining of human society on a godly basis, and especially necessary as a requirement in a Gentile world where casual sex was treated carelessly and even sometimes approved of and made into something which brought religious benefit. We can see how easily the latter could arise and be misused in a religious context in Revelation 2:20 where committing fornication and eating food sacrificed to idols is seen as very much the result of Jewish-Gentile syncretism.
But in wanting to get over this latter point the Christians could hardly limit the restriction to religious fornication. That might have given the appearance of allowing non-religious fornication. The ban thus had to be absolute.
The second two were necessary if Jewish and Gentile Christians were to be able to eat together, and as Christians were to have ‘all things in common' this was essential. The two complement each other. The eating of blood had always been forbidden because it represented the life, and the life belonged to God alone (Genesis 9:4-6). And to eat meat that had only been strangled, and not slaughtered in a way that would let the blood drain out, would have been to eat the blood. No Jew could eat with a non-Jew unless he could be sure that the meat had been properly drained of blood. Thus the importance of the regulations. It was not a question of whether these things were necessary for salvation. It was whether they were necessary for fellowship in common.
A later generation would seek to make these precepts more relevant. While retaining the first two it turned the food precepts into a reference to blood violence, and it added the golden rule.
‘For Moses from generations of old has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath.” This might be intended to indicate that these requirements would be necessary because there would always be in every city those who proclaimed Moses, and there would therefore always be Jewish Christians who, having been brought up to these principles, would assiduously attend on such teaching. The result would then be that for them fellowship with fellow-Christians would not be possible unless the requirements were strictly observed. Thus in order to maintain the important fellowship meal the correct slaughtering of meat would be essential. Indeed his words might also be seen as an encouragement by him to Jewish Christians to make use of such facilities as those provided by the synagogues in order to demonstrate their loyalty to Moses.
Or he may be intending to point out in a conciliatory fashion that this did not mean that Moses would therefore be forgotten as there would always be those who preached him in every city every Sabbath. While Christians also used Moses and the prophets as their Scriptures just as much as Jews did, their emphasis would be very different. But Jewish Christians would not be devoid of help with the Law from a Jewish viewpoint because they could also go to the synagogues. There was therefore no danger of Moses not being preached as an aid to Jewish Christians.
He might simply have been indicating that anyone who wanted to know what the Pharisees taught could find out in the synagogues, while it was no part of Gentile Christians to promote Pharisaism The intention may have been to soothe the ruffled feelings of those to whom the proclamation of Moses' Law was important by emphasising that there was still a vehicle for its propagation.
Note On Whether Baptism Replaced Circumcision.
The question is often raised as to whether baptism was to be seen as replacing circumcision. But this is quite apparently not so.
1) When Christian Jews had children they continued to circumcise them as they had always done. There was no thought in their case that baptism had replaced circumcision.
2) Paul revealed his agreement with this position when he arranged for Timothy to be circumcised. It is difficult to believe that it was simply a cynical ploy.
3) The fact that the idea of their equivalence is never suggested, neither here where it would have been a powerful argument in favour of the case being established, nor by Paul in his letters when dealing with the question of circumcision, where again it would have been a powerful argument against circumcision, must count strongly against it.
4) Indeed it may be argued that in the case of Cornelius and his fellow-Gentiles the argument against the need to circumcise them was in fact that God had already made them clean. But if that was so, and baptism simply replaced circumcision, the argument would also have applied against baptising them. For if baptism is at all seen as making men clean it would, on Peter's argument, have been wrong to baptise what God had already cleansed. The reason that it was justifiable was because baptism was not seen as representing cleansing but as an outward sign of participation in the Holy Spirit Who had been poured out on them.
We must therefore conclude that baptism and circumcision were seen as two totally differing ceremonies with different aims in mind.
End of note.