Acts 15: Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. 3 The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
Listening to Fred Franz talk in 1975 at the Gilead graduation, he emphasized that the incorrect teaching of circumcision came from Judea. Paul and Barnabas were sent by the congregation in Antioch to go to Jerusalem to straighten out the incorrect teaching. After hearing the discussion James said 19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God".
Basically, the Christian Jews from Judea that came to Antioch had their teaching questioned or challenged. Paul and Barnabas from Antioch handled correcting the Jews in a nice way.
The following is from Ashbury Bible Commentary:
A. The Nature of the Issue (15:1–5)
The crucial question was whether Christianity was understood as the heart and center of Judaism or whether Judaism was the center out of which Christianity emerged. In the first perspective it was obvious, since Christianity was a central circle within the larger circle of Judaism, that those outside the circle of Judaism must first become Jews before they could become Christians. In brief, Christianity was subsumed under the larger context of Judaism. It was the representatives of the strength of Judaism, the Pharisees, who held this view. In the second perspective, however, it was just as obvious, since Christianity was the larger circle within which Judaism was encompassed, that Gentiles came into the new covenant community the same way as Jews, through faith in Jesus as Messiah. As Luke notes, This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. It is to be noted that Paul and Barnabas prepare for their encounter in Jerusalem by telling how the Gentiles had been converted.
B. The Jerusalem Council (15:6–29)
Luke provides us only the focus of the council, which centers on a brief summary of Peter's presentation (vv. 7-11) and James's decision (vv. 13-21). Peter recalls the conversion of Cornelius, the God-fearer, focusing on the fact that God cleansed the heart by faith and gave the Holy Spirit. While Peter lifts up the crucial issue, he implies that Gentile equals God-fearer. James sees this as a point of compromise, since the Jerusalem church has already acknowledged the work of God with Cornelius (11:18). James's decision is that Gentiles who come to faith are to observe the minimum requirements that were placed upon God-fearers to enable them to worship with the Jewish community (v. 20). In other words, Gentiles did not have to become proselytes (and be circumcised), but they did have to become God-fearers and thus be brought within the widest possible boundary of Judaism.
The Jerusalem church and the representatives from Antioch sense this is of the Holy Spirit (v. 28), although the issue is not resolved, as history shows. The circumcision party obviously saw this as a bare minimum requirement and continued to press Gentiles toward the stricter requirements of the Law of Moses. Paul and his followers obviously saw this as an unrealistic maximum requirement that was itself questionable at some points (1Co 8). From this point, the Christian movement moved down two different roads: Paul leading the majority movement into gentile Christianity, Jewish Christians leading a minority into gradual extinction. (Maybe this is where the "Governing Body" of jw's is leading the congregations)
