A rooftop vision, a generous centurion, and a room full of leaders wrestling with change—this is the turning point where identity meets inclusion and love reorders the rules. We open the door on the lived world of early Jewish Christians, where kosher meals, ritual purity, and Sabbath rhythms defined daily life. Then we sit with the hard question: how do you welcome Gentiles into a community formed by the Mosaic Law without creating a two-tier church?
Peter’s encounter with the descending sheet reframes everything. What God calls clean cannot be dismissed as common, and the Spirit uses Cornelius’ charity to show that grace is already at work beyond familiar borders. We unpack why this wasn’t merely a menu change but a shift in what marks the people of God: from external boundaries to the “circumcision of the heart,” from scorekeeping to the law of love. Along the way, we talk guardrails and growth—how rules can be good teachers, and how maturity in Christ lets the church keep the moral core while letting ritual barriers fall.
The Council of Jerusalem comes into focus as the church’s first model for discernment and authority. Apostles and elders gather to answer the question that would shape mission for centuries: must Gentiles keep the Mosaic Law to belong to Christ? The decision clarifies a path of freedom ordered by love, rooted in Jesus’ own outreach across Judea, Samaria, and Gentile cities. Expect practical insights, honest tension, and a few laughs as we trace how unity without uniformity became the church’s distinctive witness.
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Jordan Whiteko, Father Andrew Hamilton, Father Christopher Pujol, Vincent Reilly, Cliff Gorski, John Zylka, Sarah Hartner