15:1
Thus far there has been great progress, and the gospel is now clearly breaking out into the Gentile world. This began with Peter and Cornelius, but has gathered pace with Paul and Barnabas’s missionary trip, and the church at Antioch is revelling in the new growth. However, virtually all the initial members of the church, which started in Jerusalem, were Jewish, and some of them were Pharisees. These people had a deep attachment to the Law, and thought that the Gentile believers should be circumcised in order to satisfy the Lord and become “full” members of God’s kingdom. So a group of these “Judaisers'' came down to Antioch from Judea.. They taught that the Gentile believers needed to be circumcised in order to be saved.
15:2
Paul and Barnabas were in sharp disagreement with this false teaching, and debated with the Judaisers. The leadership in Antioch seems to have taken a sensible approach, by sending Paul and Barnabas, along with some other believers, to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders in Jerusalem about the matter.
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