The church in Jerusalem warmly welcomed Paul and Barnabas and invited them to speak about the first missionary journey in church history.  As they described how God had opened the hearts of Jews and Gentiles, many in Jerusalem were glad.  But some, who had previously been legalistic Pharisees, disagreed.  Like those who had  visited Antioch, they rigidly demanded that all new Christians must also become Jews and keep the Jewish laws (Acts 15:1-2).

The way forward was to seek the truth and submit to apostolic authority.  The elders and apostles listened to all the information; and then Peter spoke.  Now, Peter had already seen how the gospel had awakened Cornelius, the Roman centurion, to the truth about Jesus and how the Holy Spirit had been given when the Gentile household believed (Acts 10:44-48).  Peter himself had also been criticised, and the Jerusalem church discussed whether or not it was God's will for Gentiles to be saved and baptised in the Name of Jesus (Acts 11:1-3).  At that time, the church had accepted that God had been at work, enabling Gentiles to repent and receive eternal life (Acts 11:17-18).

But religious legalists are stubborn: they certainly believed in Jesus, but they were resisting the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51).  Had they forgotten Peter's experiences?  Had they accepted that Gentiles could be saved, but now they wanted to bind them with religious regulations, which Jesus had condemned (Matthew 23:13-33)?  So Peter reminded them that the gospel is for everybody who is willing to believe the gospel and repent.  All such people are given the Holy Spirit, and eternal life, and the guarantee that they are included in the body of Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14).  Salvation is through grace and faith alone, not human ancestry or religious rituals.  The Christian life can never depend on law keeping, because we all fail, but on God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8-9).

God welcomes every new believer as a chosen child.  He does not discriminate according to ethnic background, colour, language, gender, employment status or wealth (Galatians 3:28; Revelation 5:9-10).  So why do some Christians still want to place legalistic burdens on the backs of new believers (Matthew 23:4)?  The desire to control people, setting rules which Jesus never authorised, demanding that the church bows to the whims of legalistic leaders, replicating their own harsh upbringing … none of these are perfumed with the grace of Christ.  Cults behave like that, not churches that are alive in Christ.  The Lord knows those who belong to Him; we all have the responsibility to leave wickedness behind, and help those who are burdened (2 Timothy 1:9; Galatians 6:2).