Quotes About Community

When they had finished speaking, James declared, “Brothers, listen to me!

Simon has told us how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people to be His own.

ëAfter this I will return and rebuild the fallen tent of David. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not cause trouble for the Gentiles who are turning to God.

Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood.

For Moses has been proclaimed in every city from ancient times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

and sent them with this letter: The apostles and the elders, your brothers, To the brothers among the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia: Greetings.

It has come to our attention that some went out from us without our authorization and unsettled you, troubling your minds by what they said.

So we all agreed to choose men to send to you along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,

Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to tell you in person the same things we are writing.

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond these essential requirements:

You must abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they assembled the congregation and delivered the letter.

When the people read it, they rejoiced at its encouraging message.

Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers.

After spending some time there, they were sent off by the brothers in peace to return to those who had sent them.

But Paul and Barnabas remained at Antioch, along with many others, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord.

Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the brothers in every town where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, to see how they are doing.”

And he traveled through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where he found a disciple named Timothy, the son of a believing Jewish woman and a Greek father.

The brothers in Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him.

As they went from town to town, they delivered the decisions handed down by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey.

So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.

From there we went to the Roman colony of Philippi, the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.