Acts 15:8-9 ... "God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith."
As the church leaped the boundaries of Jewish culture, and congregations that were essentially Gentile sprang up, a dichotomy developed among Christians which tested their spirituality to the utmost. For some time there was a real possibility that the church might divide into a Jewish branch based in Jerusalem and a Gentile branch based probably in Syrian Antioch. The tension did not seem to be so much a Gentile phenomenon as the effort of Jewish Christians to impose a form of Judaized Christianity upon Gentiles. The apostle Peter, himself a Jewish Christian, admitted this in v.10 (just after the above quotation) when he said, "Now why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?" Previously, some Jewish disciples had traveled all the way from Jerusalem to Antioch just to make a partisan demand of the Gentile brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved," (v.1). Being themselves products of bigoted and myopic Jewish training, Paul and Barnabas realized the danger to the church in the unbridled course of these visitors. They therefore engaged these men publicly in "dissension and debate," (v.2). At last, the church in Antioch decided they should appeal directly to the source of the problem, the brethren in Jerusalem. Consequently, they "determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue," (v.2).
When this delegation reached Jerusalem, they met with the apostles and elders to discuss the full scope of Gentile deference to Jewish Christianity. The conclusion reached by this "council" was, in reality, a judgment by the Holy Spirit (v.28); Gentile Christians were relieved of any deference to Jewish brethren beyond four essentials: -1- abstaining from the pollutions of idols, -2- abstaining from fornication, -3- not eating animals having been strangled, and -4- not eating or drinking blood, (v.29).
In his speech before this assembly Peter made the statement quoted above (vs. 8-9). It addresses a perennial problem in the church, which in turn reflects an ever present problem in the world at large. It is typical of people to look at others and think in terms of us and them, (note Peter's use of this phrase). At one time "us and them" is black and white, at another time male and female, or old and young, or rich and poor, or educated and uneducated, and so on. But "us and them" is not a Christian attitude, notwithstanding Peter's use of the phrase. (See Gal. 2:11-14 to find the trap into which it led Peter.) This attitude impedes Christian fellowship and stifles love, kindness, compassion and the other Christian graces. In Gal. 3:28 we are taught that in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." But because of the persistent "us and them" mentality we have been unable through the past to realize this ideal of "no difference between us and them ... for we are all one in Christ Jesus." Consequently, the church has divided and subdivided time and again along the lines of whatever "us and them" happen to be. As a result, the appeal of Christianity to the people of the world has been greatly diminished, just as Jesus in Jno. 17:21 inferred it would be when His advocates are divided. As Christians we must learn not to draw lines between groups of people where God has not Himself drawn them.
