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For this is what the Lord has commanded us: “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”
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When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.
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But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.
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There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them.
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On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.
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The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad.
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Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”
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After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.
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Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?
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The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.
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Simon has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles.
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that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things’—
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“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.
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The Council’s Letter to Gentile Believers
Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers.
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With them they sent the following letter: The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings.
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But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
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Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’”
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Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
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They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs.
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As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.”
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“Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ”
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I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them
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First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.
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that the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles.”
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“Therefore I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!”
