Bible Strands
Acts 15:29
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.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Jerusalem council addresses Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia through a written letter delivered by Judas and Silas. They issue this decree immediately after convening to resolve the dispute over whether Gentile converts must observe the Mosaic law.
The words — The command opens with ἀπὸχεσθαι (apechesthai), meaning "to abstain," and lists εἰδωλοθύτων (eidōlothutōn), literally "from idol-sacrifices." These terms frame the subsequent prohibitions as non-negotiable boundaries rather than cultural preferences.
The thread — This four-point list first appears in Acts 15:20 as the initial Gentile directive and is reaffirmed in Acts 21:25 as a standing instruction for new believers. The warning against idol food reappears in Revelation 2:14 regarding the teaching of Balaam.
Why it lands — The text commands Gentile believers to avoid food sacrificed to idols, blood, strangled meat, and sexual immorality. It requires immediate compliance with these essential boundaries to preserve communal unity and moral clarity.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.
Cross-references
- Acts 15:20 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.
- Acts 21:25 As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they must abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality.”
- Revelation 2:14 But I have a few things against you, because some of you hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the Israelites so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality.
- Revelation 2:20 But I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads My servants to be sexually immoral and to eat food sacrificed to idols.
- Leviticus 17:14 For the life of all flesh is its blood. Therefore I have told the Israelites, ‘You must not eat the blood of any living thing, because the life of all flesh is its blood; whoever eats it must be cut off.’
- Romans 14:20 Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to let his eating be a stumbling block.
- 1 Corinthians 10:18 Consider the people of Israel: Are not those who eat the sacrifices fellow partakers in the altar?
- 1 John 5:21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
- Jude 1:24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you unblemished in His glorious presence, with great joy—
- Romans 14:14 I am convinced and fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.