When Outward Law Becomes a Snare to the Gospel

The Jerusalem council faced a crisis that threatened Christianity itself. Had the Judaisers prevailed, the faith would have collapsed into merely another Jewish sect. The peril was acute because their case possessed real force: the Mosaic law carried divine origin, centuries of venerable tradition, and profound national associations. We must not despise those Jewish Christians who clung to it—yet their eventual complete drifting away from Christianity teaches us a hard lesson about the dangers of binding outward observance to true discipleship.…