May 2021 4 164 Report
JW’s, was there a central governing body in Jerusalem? Did Paul belong to it?

The words of Fred Franz 1975….

So you see the Lord Jesus Christ was acting as the head of the congregation and taking action directly; without consulting anybody here on earth what He could do or what He could not do. And He acted in that way with regard to Saul and Barnabas, and they were both apostles of the Antioch congregation, and so they went out to the work and had great success. And in the course of time they completed their first missionary tour, and where did they go? Where did they report? [To a Jerusalem based governing body perhaps?] Well there’s a record, you can read it for yourself in the closing of verses of the 14th chapter of Acts. They went back to Antioch, to the congregation there and the account says, “they related things in detail to them, to this congregation that had committed them to the undeserved kindness of God for the work they had performed”.

So there’s where they reported! So, the record also says, now they stayed in Antioch “not a little time”. Well note what happened. All of a sudden something occurs and Paul and Barnabas they go up to Jerusalem. Well, what’s the matter? What brings them to Jerusalem?

Well, is it the body of the apostles and the other elders of the Jerusalem congregation that have summoned them up there and said, look here! We have heard that two men have gone out on a missionary tour and you’ve finished it and you haven’t come up here to Jerusalem to report to us! Do you not know who we are? We’re the council of Jerusalem! Don’t you recognize the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ? If you don’t come up here in a hurry we’re going to take disciplinary action against you!

Is that what the account says?

Well if they had acted that way toward Paul and Barnabas because they reported to the congregation by means of which the Holy Spirit had sent them out. [Which was in Antioch, not Jerusalem.] then this coulcil of Jerusalem and other elders of the Jewish Congregation would have put themselves above the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ!

It is clear that Paul, Barnabas nor the church in Antioch were never under any control of any central council in Jerusalem or anywhere else.

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