"After there had been much debate,
Peter stood up and said to them,
'Brethren, you know that in the early days
God made a choice among you,
that
by my mouth the Gentiles would hear
the
word of the gospel and believe.
And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them
the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and
He made no distinction
between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith'"
(Acts 15:7-9).
Peter's testimony at the Jerusalem Council
offers crucial insight into the literary structure of
Acts and its theological message.
Acts
can easily be divided into two halves.
The first half
focuses primarily on the apostle to the circumcision
(Acts 1-12), and
the second half
focuses exclusively on the apostle to the uncircumcision
(Acts 13-28).
The two halves,
however, are not proportional.
Not only is the second half of the book longer
(2,360 more words than the first half),
but Paul's conversion
(563 words) is described in
Peter's half of the book
(Acts 9).
One could easily say that even
Peter's half of the book was written for
The
purpose
of supporting and defending
Paul's message and ministry
since nearly every episode in Peter's life
finds its parallel
in the life of Paul.
From cover to cover, the book of Acts is
Luke's (God's)
defense of Paul,
and consequentially, of two-thirds of the writings of the New Testament!
The greatest witness to the fact that
Paul's gospel
is as completely "kosher" as Peter's!
Long before Paul was dragged front and center into
the debate about the law
in
Acts 15,
the apostle to the circumcision
already preached this selfsame gospel to the Gentiles:
salvation by faith alone, in Jesus alone, through grace alone
(Acts 10-11)!
"But on the contrary, seeing that
I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised,
just as Peter had been to the circumcised
(for He who effectually worked for Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles),
and
recognizing the grace that had been given to me,
James and Cephas and John,
who were reputed to be pillars,
gave to
me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship,
so that
we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised"
(Gal 2:7-9).
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