The people who start preaching circumcision are Christians. There was certainly questioning when Peter went to the home of a Gentile, but upon hearing the story, they all agreed that God opened the door to the Gentiles and praised God. Unity was preserved among the believers.

We see the first real division in the church with the Judaizers. They were teaching you had to, in effect, convert to Judaism to be able to become Christian. They were teaching that you had to be circumcised according to the tradition of Moses.

God poured out His Spirit on uncircumcised people. What they were saying about circumcision was certainly not true.

A group ends up needing to go to the council in Jerusalem to address the issue. It has stopped the preaching of the gospel.

Most believers were thrilled in the Gentiles receiving the gospel. Those arguing for circumcision are described as Pharisees. You need to remember both that these are Christians and Paul was a Pharisee too.

God uses Peter again to silence the opposition over the Gentiles. He was God’s chosen original head of the church. Though there are other elders in charge of this council, they listen to Peter and the opposition is silenced. Peter preaches salvation by grace to the assembled leaders.

This is the key doctrine of our faith. We are saved by grace, not by works. It’s not things we do that get us saved. It’s our faith that saves us. We demonstrate our faith through things like baptism and assembling with the believers. Our works show our faith.

The council gives a few requirements to the new Gentile believers. Three of the four have to do with food.

Paul, who was at the meeting, will preach later that it’s okay to eat meat sacrificed to idols, even though the council says to stay away from it. Paul will teach a higher law, as Christ did, that the goal is love of the brethren, not following a list of rules. That said, he gladly didn’t eat meat in order to not burden a brother in Christ.