New insight from a Troubling Passage

I planned to write this post today, and then a rather strange thing occurred. You see, a friend shared some insight on a passage we studied in our Tuesday morning Bible study which I thought was brilliant. I shared her insight with several people and marveled at it, and planned to blog about it today. Last night I told her that I thought she had the best explanation for a difficult passage that I had heard. She said that she did not come up with the insight,that it came from a Bible study we did years ago, she just remembered it when we got to the passage this week, but that originally I was the person who told her. We both got a good laugh about that. I have often said that Teressa remembers things I say that I do not remember, and apparantly this is one. So, now it is a little strange to post, because I was apparantly the one who first shared it, but, still, I felt that it was helpful, so here goes.

The troublesome passage is Acts 15. The gospel has spread to the Gentiles, many have believed, and churches have been established in many cities. Then, some men from Jerusalem began to tell these new Christians that to follow Jesus, they had to first be circumcised and follow the Jewish laws. This caused a great uproar, and the church in Antioch sent Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem to find out. The leaders had a big conference,where some "Pharisees who were believers" argued that new followers truly must submit to circumcision and obey the law. Peter stood up and reminded the group that God had opened the door to the Gentiles, sending Peter to a Gentile home and showing him that God indeed meant for Gentiles to come to Him without having to be Jewish first. Then Paul and Barnabas shared their experiences of seeing many Gentiles put their faith in Christ, and seeing God perform miracles among them.

NOW we get to the problem. James, the half brother of Jesus, who by this time seems to be the leader of the church in Jerusalem, stands up and says this:
“And so my judgment is that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from eating food offered to idols, from sexual immorality, from eating the meat of strangled animals, and from consuming blood.
-Acts 15:19-20

That bothers me. Paul strongly says that we are free from the law, so why does James demand that Gentiles do these things, and the other leaders agree. Our study had a possible explanation, that these would help with unity because Jewish Christians could freely eat with Gentile Christians. That is ok, but what about pork, or all the other unclean animals? I read other commentaries which made sense, but did not quite satisfy me.

On Tuesday, Teressa said that all three of these things were associateed with the worship of idols. In their idol worshipping past, these Gentile Christians would have sacrificed food to an idol, then eaten the food as an act of worship. Sexual activity was a part of idol worship throughout the Roman Rmpire, with temple prostitutes part of the culture. And the use of blood sacrifice was a common part of pagan idol worship, which sometimes included drinking the blood.
These practices would have possibly been a normal part of life for the new Gentile believers, with strong ties to idolatry. It was the thought of James and the other leaders that, because of past of the Gentiles, it would be healthier for them to refrain from these things.

That is the best explanation I have for this passage, that James was concerned for the well being of the new believers, not for the protection of the Jewish law. I feel much better about James now.