Acts 15:29, Eating Meat Sacrificed to Idols

Posted on Friday, June 20, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

//So ends the council in Jerusalem. As the story goes, the apostle Paul (who preached to the Gentiles) held some fundamental differences with the Jerusalem church–the Jewish Christians–and attended a council there to help straighten things out. One of the things they discussed was this matter of eating food which was unclean, because it was offered in sacrifice to idols and then sold in meat markets. Proper Jewish custom was to avoid any such meat; not only was Gentile meat impure after sacrifice to idols, but it was not properly prepared, as it was not drained of its blood.

Paul seems to agree with the council over this matter. But did he really? Paul’s letter to the Corinthians says exactly the opposite:

Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, –1 Corinthians 10:25

Apparently, the matter was not properly resolved. I have to side with Paul on this one.