Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 5, 2021
Daily Reading from the USCCB: Acts 15:1-6
Audio file
Paul and Barnabas had concluded from their missionary experiences that you didn’t have to be circumcised and observe Jewish law to be saved. Gentiles could belong and remain Gentile. But not everybody agreed. Some who had come to Antioch from Jerusalem claimed that circumcision and the observance of Jewish law were essential for salvation.
The question was remanded to the apostolic authorities in Jerusalem. Some Pharisee believers there were insisting that you had to be a Jew or become a Jew in order to become a follower of Jesus.
This insistence threw the Church into bewilderment. Was the community of Jesus merely an offshoot of Judaism, or something that had a nature and a life of its own? The community of faith stood at a crossroads.
