Indeed, in Acts 15 as in Acts 11, the prophets’ ministry of the word and the response of the disciples in Antioch shows us that joy, encouragement, and comfort (cf. 1 Cor 14:3) belonged even to Gentiles as co-heirs, co-members of the body, and co-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus with Jews through the gospel. Such was to be the communion of Gentile brothers with Jewish brothers in every place. Their portion should be ours today too.

While preparing a sermon on Acts 15:22-35, four lessons seemed evident as I mediated on that text in its context with 15:1-21.

A lesson about church government. In the passage mentioned above we see that, in the days of the Apostles, congregations of Christ’s church were accountable to and governed by a group of officers—apostles, elders, prophets—given by Christ to His church. We also see those officers, here in concert, acting as a court with authority over the teaching and practice in their and other congregations. It’s worth noting that those congregations were not just in Jerusalem or Judea, but also in all those nations in which congregations had been established, including in Syrian Antioch and in the Roman province of Syria-Cilicia. Further, we notice that, as the Gospel mission progressed, neither congregations nor the leaders of them were viewed as independent (autonomous) ministries, but were treated as accountable to one another for their doctrine and practice. They were, in a word, connected, connected not only in doctrine and practice but also in government. This is hardly to say that conformity prevailed in the congregations of the NT, else there would have been no need for the oversight of the congregations that come into play, for example, in Samaria (Acts 8:14-17), in Joppa (11:15-16), in Ephesus (19:1-7), in Antioch (Acts 15:1-5), in Corinth (1 Cor 7:17; 11:16; 14:33), and in Asia Minor (Rev 2:11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). It is rather to say that independent teachers and congregations were not properly authorized or ordered, and that connected teachers and congregations were the standard to which the disciples were held in the NT age.

A lesson about the letter’s content and authority. We see how the Spirit worked through the court of Christ’s church in Jerusalem to adopt, publish, and explain its resolution on “the Gentile Question” as a binding standard for teaching and practice in the congregations formed during the Gentile mission among the nations.

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