We now turn to Paul's application of these decrees, as we find it in his first Epistle to the Corinthians. In

chapters 5 to 7 the apostle reproves the church with regard to fornication, while in chapters 8 and 10 he deals with

the question of meats offered to idols. It will obviously be profitable to consider the apostle's own interpretation of

the Jerusalem ordinances as revealed in these chapters.

It appears that the Corinthian conception of morality allowed a man to `have his father's wife', and not only so,

but the offence was made a matter of boasting. The apostle had already written to this church, commanding them

not to company with men guilty of such offences, but they had misunderstood him. He takes the opportunity now of

correcting the misunderstanding by saying in effect:

`If I had meant that you were not to company with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or

extortioners, or with idolaters: you would need to go out of the world. What I enjoin has reference to a brother

who practices any of these things - with such an one no not to eat; but I have no idea of attempting to judge the

world or of setting up a code of morals for the ungodly' (1 Cor. 5:9-12).

He clinches his exhortation by showing that the sin of immorality is a sin against a man's own body, and that

that body, if redeemed, should be regarded as a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6:13-20).

In 1 Corinthians 7 the apostle deals with the question of marriage, and explains that `for the present necessity' it

would be as well for all to remain unmarried. But these statements were not to be taken as commandments for all

time, nor even for all believers at that time. It was a counsel of abstinence, because the Lord's coming and the

dreadful prelude of the Day of the Lord were still before the Church. With the passing of Israel a change came, and

the apostle later encouraged marriage, as we find in his prison epistles. The fact that Ephesians 5 sets aside

1 Corinthians 7 does not make 1 Corinthians 7 untrue for the time in which it was written - any more than the setting

aside of the decrees of Acts 15 makes Acts 15 a compromise or a mistake. Each must be judged according to the

dispensation that obtained at the time. The dispensation of the Mystery had not yet dawned either in Acts 15 or

1 Corinthians 7.

With regard to the pollution of meat offered to idols, the apostle agrees that, strictly speaking, `an idol is nothing

in the world' (1 Cor. 8:4) - and therefore one might say, Why should I refuse good food, simply because someone

who is ignorant and superstitious thinks that its having been offered to a block of wood or stone has polluted it?

This is true, rejoins the apostle in effect, but `take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours becomes a

stumbling-block to them that are weak'. The thing that must be uppermost in the mind, is not the safeguarding of

our own so-called liberties, but the safeguarding of the weaker brother for whom Christ died. To achieve this, the

apostle is willing to go much further than `the four necessary things' of the Jerusalem decrees. in 1 Corinthians 8:13

he writes :

`If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh (even though it satisfy the most scrupulous Jew) while the

world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend'.

A further interpretation of the spirit of the decrees is found in chapter 10:

`All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify

not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth. Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat,

asking no question for conscience sake ... but if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat

not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake ... conscience, I say, not thine own ...' (1 Cor. 10:23-29).

If we can but keep in mind those words, `Not thine own', we shall have no difficulty in understanding the

principles involved in the decrees of Acts 15.

If man has failed under the law of Sinai, it is not surprising to find that he fails many times under grace. The

moderate request that the Gentiles should abstain from the `four necessary things', while the Jewish believers had

`Moses preached in the synagogue every Sabbath day' would lead, in time, wherever the flesh became prominent, to

a line of demarcation between the churches of Judæa and those of the Gentiles. This gradually grew to become `a

middle wall of partition', a division that could not be permitted in the Church of the One Body. The One Body was

not, however, in view in Acts 15. Only those things known of the Lord `since the age', only those things that