Acts 21:19-25

The Catholic Church with all its’ adherence to Church Law and the traditions handed down for centuries was founded on Peter. The Protestant Churches are branches of the Catholic Church. Under the tutelage of Paul the Gentiles carried out their faith without the restrictions of Jewish Laws......Peter’s Jewish Christians adhered to the laws of the Jews.....This sounds so similar to the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches of today. Will we ever be one in unity? When we define Christianity isn’t it one body of people under God united through the salvation He gives in Jesus Christ and accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit? There is a place for all of us in God’s Kingdom. 

The evidence of how God changed the lives of Gentiles was presented to the Christians in Jerusalem. The strongest evidence was the Gentile believers themselves who had accompanied Paul to Jerusalem. Reports were circulating that Paul had been urging Jews to abandon Mosaic traditions. However, Paul never derided his Jewish heritage nor demanded that Jewish Christians renounce the Law of Moses. The spiritual unity of the body of believers is realized in its diversity, not in its conformity. From our diverse backgrounds and cultures we honor the same Lord.

Acts 21:19-25

¹⁹ When he had greeted them, he told in detail those things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. ²⁰ And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many myriads of Jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law; ²¹ but they have been informed about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs. ²² What then? The assembly must certainly meet, for they will hear that you have come. ²³ Therefore do what we tell you: We have four men who have taken a vow. ²⁴ Take them and be purified with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads, and that all may know that those things of which they were informed concerning you are nothing, but that you yourself also walk orderly and keep the law. ²⁵ But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written and decided that they should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.”