What does this mean about Peter:
as being in regard to incorrectly identifying Gentiles
When did Peter incorrectly identify Gentiles?
So why doesn't the settlement letter of Acts 15 mention circumcision? Yet it's got 3 lines about foods.
Interesting to hear the line about proving a prophet, when I only recall the one about proof of his predictions.
Acts 10:28 “And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.”
The primary role of a prophet was not to make predictions but to speak for God, which was mainly in the capacity of calling the Israelites to repent from idolatry or taking advantage of the poor, the widow, and the orphan, and to return to obedience to the Torah. I grew up being taught to have a negative view of obeying the Torah and used to use Acts 15 to argue against it as being a heavy burden that no one could bear, but I began to see things that didn’t add up, such as with that meaning that the Jerusalem Council were false prophets.
The Psalms express an extremely positive view of obeying the Torah, such as with David repeatedly saying that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, so I eventually came to realize that if I was going to continue to believe that the Psalms are Scripture, then I needed to also believe that they express a correct view of obeying the Torah and that I therefore needed to change my view to match the Psalms. For example, in Psalms 1:1-2, blessed are those who delight in the Torah of the Lord and who mediate on it day and night, so I couldn't continue to believe in the truth of those works as Scripture while not allowing them to shape my view of obeying the Torah. Moreover, the Jesus and the Apostles considered the Psalms to be Scripture, so they should be interpreted in light of the fact that they were in complete agreement with the view of obeying the Torah that he express, especially because Paul also said that he delighted in obeying it (Romans 7:22).
Jesus and the Apostles quoted from the OT hundreds of times in order to support what they were saying, so it doesn't make sense to interpret them in a way that turns them against following what they considered to be an authoritative source. For example, Jesus quoted three times from Deuteronomy in order to defeat the temptations of Satan, which included saying that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, yet people commonly interpret him as speaking against living by things that have come from the mouth of God, such as what God spoke in Deuteronomy 14 in regard to refraining from eating unclean animals. Likewise, if someone believed that a set of instructions were accurately described in Psalms 19:7-11, then they would jump at the opportunity to come under them, but that is incompatible with also viewing those instructions as being heavy burden that no one can bear.
In Acts 15:10-11, it make it clear that the heavy burden that no one could bear does not refer to the Torah, but to a means of of salvation that is an alternative to salvation by grace, namely salvation by circumcision that was proposed by the men from Judea in Acts 15:1. If Paul had been speaking against circumcision for any reason, then according to Galatians 5:2, he caused Christ to be of no value to Timothy when he had him circumcised and Christ is of no value to roughly 80% of the men in the US. The reason why God commanded circumcision was not in order to become saved, so the Jerusalem Council upheld the Torah by correct lying ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect reason. In Exodus 12:48, Gentiles who want to eat of the Passover lamb are required to become circumcised, so the Jerusalem Council should not be interpreted as ruling against Gentiles correctly acting in accordance with what God has commanded as if they had the authority to countermand God.
In Acts 15:6-7, Peter argued that Gentiles had heard and believed the Gospel, which called for repentance and obedience to the Torah (Matthew 4:15-23), so he was affirming that Gentiles should obey it in agreement with the Pharisees from among the believers (Acts 15:5). In Act 15:8-9, Peter argued that Gentiles had received the Spirit and had their hearts cleansed, which in in accordance with Ezekiel 36:26-27, where God will take away our hearts of stone, give us hearts of flesh, and send His Spirit to lead us in obedience to the Torah, so again, he was in agreement with Gentiles obeying the Torah. Christ spent his ministry teaching his followers to obey the Torah by word and by example, so the issue they were debating was not whether Gentile followers of Christ should follow Christ, but whether salvation is by circumcision or by grace. In Psalms 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Torah, and he chose the way of faith by setting it before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith.
Either Acts 15:19-21, contains and exhaustive list of what is required for mature believers or it does not, so it would be contradictory for someone to treat it as being an exhaustive list in order to limit which laws Gentiles should follow while also treating it as being an non-exhaustive list by taking the position that there are obviously other laws that Gentiles should follow. In Acts 15:19-21, it was not given as exhaustive list for mature believes but as a list intended to avoid making things too difficult for new believers, which they excused by saying that Gentiles would continue to learn about how to obey Moses by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues, so the intention was to avoid overwhelming Gentiles by teaching them over time, not to rule that Gentiles followers of Christ shouldn't follow over 99% of what he taught.
