Acts 15:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But since at that time it seemed to some Christians from the Jews that the decision of the question could not be entrusted to Paul alone, and since they turned their eyes to the apostles in Jerusalem, Paul went there.

He went not to learn something greater, but to convince those who spoke contrary to him that the apostles in Jerusalem also decided this question in agreement with him and Barnabas.

By divine revelation he was assured that such an explanation was now necessary for the good of the Church (Gal. 2:2). Thus, in the fourteenth year after his conversion, as he himself says in Galatians, he went up to Jerusalem.

He intended to set before the most highly esteemed apostles the manner of his preaching of the Gospel among the Gentiles. He wished them not to think that all his labors had been in vain.

Rather, he wished them to know that he preached the same Gospel as they did. This Gospel was working with the same divine power among the Gentiles as among the Jews.

To present a living example of the Gospel's work among the Gentiles, Paul took with him Titus, a young man of Gentile origin whom he had converted. Later Titus became his particular fellow-worker in preaching.

In Jerusalem, before the public examination began, private communications took place. Paul gave the apostles Peter, John, and James (Gal. 2:9) a detailed account of how he preached the Gospel to the Gentiles and of the fruits of his labor.

They acknowledged the divine character of his calling and were far from thinking that they should instruct him. They agreed that he should continue to labor independently among the Gentiles.

They asked only that he not forget to exhort the newly converted churches to help the Church of Jerusalem in its bodily needs (Gal. 2:1-10).

Even in separate communities, where Paul and Barnabas told what God had done among the Gentiles through their preaching, their reports were received with joyful sympathy.

But some of the converted Pharisees began to insist that the Gentiles receive circumcision together with the Gospel. Only on this condition did they agree to recognize them as their brethren. For this reason they even demanded that Titus be circumcised.

Paul defended the equal rights of the Gentiles with the circumcised in the Kingdom of God, on the basis of faith alone in the Redeemer. Therefore he did not yield even concerning Titus, since his concession would have been counted as agreement with their teaching.

Since Paul in Galatians speaks only of private communications, κατ ίδίαν, this at first glance seems to contradict the narrative of Acts. But the contradiction only proves that the two narratives are not speaking of one and the same thing.

First there could have been private communications, and afterward a common deliberation. Therefore both narratives can refer to the same matter.

Christianity had first been planted there, and perhaps they had even come from Jerusalem, the center of Christianity, where the foremost apostles still continued to live and act. The Judaizers covered their false teaching with the authority of the apostles, although the latter had not entrusted them to teach in this way (v. 24).

Therefore the Church of Antioch decided to send to Jerusalem for a decision on the question that had been raised. First, they sent Paul and Barnabas, as the chief preachers, in word and deed, of the freedom of Christians from the yoke of the Law.

For this reason they were personally concerned in the outcome of the struggle that had arisen within the Christian Church itself. Second, they sent certain other members of the Church of Antioch.

These could be impartial witnesses for their brethren concerning what would happen when they came to Jerusalem, and what the Jerusalem apostles and the whole Church of Jerusalem, with its presbyter-leaders, would say about the question that had been raised.

In the Epistle to the Galatians (2:1-2), the Apostle Paul says that in the present case he went to Jerusalem according to a revelation. From this we must conclude that, besides the external circumstances that impelled Paul to undertake the journey to Jerusalem, there were also inward motives for him.

There was also a divine indication that he should go to Jerusalem to the foremost apostles. The historian here speaks of the external circumstances, and of the will of the Antiochian community, which arranged to send precisely Paul and Barnabas.

Among the “certain others” (Acts 15:2) from the Antiochian brethren who went to Jerusalem with Paul and Barnabas, Paul himself mentions Titus, his disciple from among the Greeks.

Finally, the Apostle Paul also indicates the time of this journey to Jerusalem. It was after fourteen years, either after his conversion to Christ, or after his first visit to Jerusalem following his conversion.

The most probable chronology in this period of apostolic history places the apostolic council in Jerusalem in the year 50-51 after the Nativity of Christ.

They, the brethren of v. 1, that is, the whole Church of Antioch (cf. v. 3), decided that Paul and Barnabas should go to Jerusalem. In Antioch this dispute could not be resolved. The divided community could not be judge in its own case.

Although Antioch was the mother of many churches from the Gentiles, Jerusalem still remained the mother of all Christianity. There were the apostles, though perhaps not all of them. In the Christian Church there was no authority higher than theirs.

Together with the presbyters, they constituted the highest administrative and judicial place, like the Jerusalem Sanhedrin. There every question relating to teaching and life could and should receive a decision.

Moreover, these new teachers had come to Antioch precisely from Judea. They probably scandalized the brethren not only by their own authority, but by the authority of the churches in Judea and Jerusalem. Perhaps they even cloaked themselves with the authority of the apostles themselves.

Therefore the question they had raised had to be resolved there, in Judea and Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas were chosen precisely because they were the chief workers in the conversion of the Gentiles in Cyprus and Asia Minor (chs. 13 and 14).

Consequently they were especially interested in the matter, and could personally relate much from the events of the Gentiles’ conversion for the resolution of the question. Some others from the brethren were sent with them, as impartial representatives of the Antiochian Christian community.

To the apostles and presbyters: as leaders and representatives of the mother of the churches, the Church of Jerusalem.

They also understood that it concerned not only the mother of the Gentile churches, Antioch, but the whole Christian world. Therefore they unanimously decided to send Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem.

There this matter would be examined by all the apostles and presbyters of the Church, the Church of Jerusalem, mother of all Christian churches. According to the explanation of Blessed Theophylact, “Paul went to Jerusalem not in order to learn something greater, but in order to convince those who spoke contrary to him.”

And the apostles in Jerusalem decided this question in agreement with him and Barnabas.