A rooftop vision, a generous centurion, and a room full of leaders wrestling with change—this is the turning point where identity meets inclusion and love reorders the rules. We open the door on the lived world of early Jewish Christians, where kosher meals, ritual purity, and Sabbath rhythms defined daily life. Then we sit with the hard question: how do you welcome Gentiles into a community formed by the Mosaic Law without creating a two-tier church?
Peter’s encounter with the descending sheet reframes everything. What God calls clean cannot be dismissed as common, and the Spirit uses Cornelius’ charity to show that grace is already at work beyond familiar borders. We unpack why this wasn’t merely a menu change but a shift in what marks the people of God: from external boundaries to the “circumcision of the heart,” from scorekeeping to the law of love. Along the way, we talk guardrails and growth—how rules can be good teachers, and how maturity in Christ lets the church keep the moral core while letting ritual barriers fall.
The Council of Jerusalem comes into focus as the church’s first model for discernment and authority. Apostles and elders gather to answer the question that would shape mission for centuries: must Gentiles keep the Mosaic Law to belong to Christ? The decision clarifies a path of freedom ordered by love, rooted in Jesus’ own outreach across Judea, Samaria, and Gentile cities. Expect practical insights, honest tension, and a few laughs as we trace how unity without uniformity became the church’s distinctive witness.
If this conversation helps you see law, love, and belonging with fresh eyes, share it with a friend, hit follow, and leave a quick review. Your support helps more listeners find thoughtful, faith-filled conversations like this one.
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Jordan Whiteko, Father Andrew Hamilton, Father Christopher Pujol, Vincent Reilly, Cliff Gorski, John Zylka, Sarah Hartner
Episode Transcript
You're listening to the Catholic Act of Podcast.
We discussed the act that Jesusperformed that has done his
disciples.
Great to be back, Jordan.
SPEAKER_00 (00:09):
You don't know us by now, you're never gonna know.
SPEAKER_01 (00:12):
I'm Jordan Waco here with Father Hamilton and Father
Fujil.
SPEAKER_02 (00:16):
Alright, Jordan.
SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
Bring us back.
We're back again.
New show.
SPEAKER_02 (00:21):
New Jordan.
Episode seven.
New wine, new one.
SPEAKER_01 (00:24):
We're breaking barriers.
Peter, Cornelius, and theCouncil of Jerusalem.
So, as we talked about in aprevious episode, most early
Christians still practice someaspects of Judaism.
What would these practices havebeen?
Father Chris.
SPEAKER_02 (00:39):
Well, the early Christians being faithful Jews
first, you know, they would havestill continued ritual purity
laws.
So eating kosher, um, not mixinguh dairy and meat, they would
still, you know, ceremoniallywash their vessels and make sure
everything's cleaned, avoidthings that could make them
ritually impure, such as blood.
SPEAKER_01 (01:01):
Um what are some examples of kosher?
Because like right now, all I'mthinking about is pickles.
SPEAKER_02 (01:08):
They're kosher.
SPEAKER_01 (01:09):
Yeah.
Give me some more.
SPEAKER_00 (01:11):
Um, a certain way in which that you handle the foods
that that come about, that theyare like properly handled, that
they don't mix and touch otherthings, and they're processed
correctly.
SPEAKER_02 (01:20):
So, like, it would be really even down to the
humane killing of some of theseanimals.
And so you would have animalsthat would in the Old Testament
sacrificed at the temple, andthen they would be either burned
or consumed by the priests atthe temple.
And so, even in this period ofgrowth for the early church,
there would be certain customsof how the animal would be bled
(01:42):
out.
Because if there is any sign ofblood maintained in the animal,
that meat would not be kosher.
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
Life is in the blood.
So it wasn't to be eaten in thatway from the Mosaic Law.
But you have to figure that theearly Christians are coming out
of, as we said, uh Judaism.
And so what they're following isthe Mosaic Law and in many ways
different schools of thought.
So, say, for example, like thePharisees, what St.
Paul was really trained in, theyknew all of the laws around the
(02:11):
original Ten Commandments thatwere built up as the Levitical
laws.
So the 613 other impositionsreally upon the Jewish people
that helped you not to even comeclose to breaking the ten moral
commandments of God in the OldTestament.
SPEAKER_01 (02:26):
So, why would it have been difficult for
non-Jewish people to embracethese customs?
SPEAKER_00 (02:31):
Like they're it's the way you live.
I mean, everything that you dois based around those laws.
If you lived a law every singleday and habituated yourself to
that, it's very hard to stopdoing that.
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
So even like if you look So like they're getting a
like they can get away witheating more now, but it's hard
because it's breaking tradition.
SPEAKER_02 (02:50):
Well, but even if you look at like some of the
Orthodox Jewish communities wehave here in the States, during
you know, the celebration of theSabbath, they have food prepared
so that they don't actually haveto cook.
They have special light switchesso that they don't break the law
of working on the Sabbath.
So if you're following the lawto its uh really exact letter,
(03:12):
yeah, letter of the law, thenit's a very strict and
burdensome uh way of living.
And so now we have uh Peter, whois Jewish, embracing a Gentile
community, and that Gentilecommunity didn't grow up with
these laws, they aren'tconcerned about being ritually
(03:34):
impure, and so there has to bethis conversation now how do we
move forward to both welcome theGentile community while
maintaining our identity asJewish people, and not setting
up a tiered system where we wereJewish and we are circumcised,
we follow all the laws of theMosaic covenant, and Gentiles
are a second-tier Christian.
SPEAKER_00 (03:55):
But you can see this in certain communities in a bad
way that this can break out inspirit, where the more that I
do, the better I am thansomebody else.
Yeah.
Quantitatively covering allthese things rather than the
qualitative, right?
And what Jesus is really askingthroughout his own teaching and
then later through the apostles,is circumcision of the heart a
sign of interior transformation,not just following the law for
(04:17):
the sake of the law and gettinga grade at the end of it, like a
report card, but rather how areyou actually living out the
essence of the law?
And so that becomes the earlydebate in the church, and this
is where we see Peter as a Jewreally needing to come to a
greater understanding of wherethe law of Christ is not
supplanting the law of Moses,but bringing it to its
(04:40):
fulfillment.
SPEAKER_02 (04:41):
We even see this in Jesus' own ministry if we think
about that time when he'swalking through a field full of
grain with his disciples, andthe Pharisees come after him and
say, Your disciples aren'tfollowing the Sabbath because
they're picking grain to eat asthey walk.
Now, in our minds, we wouldn'tthink of that as work.
(05:03):
And when you're free from thelaw or freed by the law, then
you have a differentperspective.
But really, the the leaders atthe time were very imminent in
in supplanting.
SPEAKER_00 (05:16):
In the teaching of that is man is not made for the
Sabbath, but Sabbath for theman.
The whole point of the OldTestament laws were to try to
help guide as guardrails towardsliving out freedom in Christ.
So, for example, children,whenever they're young, you need
more rules around children, whatthey're to do, how they're to
live, what time they should goto bed, how they use their
(05:36):
phones.
If they do that with properdiscipline in those early rules,
then some of the rules can fallaway, and then you're much
better.
Think of like an analogy ofbowling.
You need the bumpers becauseyou're probably going to throw
tons of gutter balls, Jordan.
You used this analogy lastseason.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (05:51):
Well, Jordan still has a bedtime, too.
It's a good analogy.
Yeah.
It is a good analogy.
SPEAKER_00 (05:55):
Let's use it again.
And uh, and because of that, andif you can remember what episode
that was from, you get a freet-shirt.
SPEAKER_01 (06:01):
We have to make t-shirts, but sure.
SPEAKER_00 (06:04):
But once once you master kind of those early
skills and become an expertbowler, you don't need them
anymore.
The guardrails don't need to bethere, and you're throwing
strikes.
And so that's the way of thegrowth of maturity in Christ.
And you could see Israel in theOld Testament is like a father
with an immature child that'snot listening.
And so there has to be morerules.
And then as you come to maturityin Christ, now the church
(06:26):
doesn't need the Levitical lawsin the same manner, and so they
fall away in the fulfillment ofthe law.
Are you a bowler?
SPEAKER_02 (06:32):
Because after using a lot, I mean, he used one of
those slides that you line upand drift slide through.
You remember wee bowlingwhenever you'd throw it.
So you're a big wee bowler.
SPEAKER_00 (06:42):
I was like one of those guys that like at least
three times, like you rememberthe remote, and then the ball
would just fall down, and theneverybody would be real sad.
Spin around in the back.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (06:50):
And maybe you were gonna say you hit the TV with
the remote.
SPEAKER_01 (06:52):
That's what I thought.
I thought you were gonna losegrip and it was gonna smash a
TV.
Like we basically.
And then you're like, this iswhy children need rules and
adults.
This is why there's justpunishments.
Um, so you both mentioned uhPeter.
Uh, according to the Acts of theApostles, Saint Peter had a
vision which shaped thewelcoming of non-Jewish people
into the church.
Could you tell us about thatvision?
SPEAKER_00 (07:12):
Yeah, so Peter's vision is really coming on the
back end of what's important forCornelius, who's a Gentile.
So he's a centurion.
He has a vision of three mencoming to him and talking about
because of his charity that hehas already shown, right?
Charity is the highest of thevirtues.
Even though he's not baptized,he's showing good charity, and
that's a prayer to God.
(07:33):
And from there, he's told tosend out these, uh, or to send a
messenger to find Peter, who'sstaying with at the time Simon
the Tanner around Caesarea, andto find him so that therefore uh
they could have a conversationeventually.
But Peter has a vision as he'sgoing along and he goes up on
top of a roof during uh thenoontime for prayers that Jewish
(07:55):
people would say throughout theday.
SPEAKER_02 (07:56):
The hottest time of the day.
SPEAKER_00 (07:57):
Yeah.
And uh in that, then he sees avision as he's praying of a
sheet, and the four corners comedown and they touch the earth,
and on the sheet are all thesedifferent reptiles and birds and
animals of four legs, and themessage that's given to him is
slaughter and eat.
Rise, slaughter and eat.
And he actually rejects thatoriginally, which you could see
(08:20):
from his training in the theJewish law.
SPEAKER_02 (08:23):
Because it would be a complete reversal of
everything that he learned andstudied and understood to be
able to eat these things,especially those animals with
split hooves that are on kosher,so like pork, you you know, and
and now they're being told gofor it.
SPEAKER_00 (08:39):
Slaughter and eat.
Yeah.
Because ultimately everythingthat comes from God is good.
And it does say that he's alsohungry there, so it's not just
hungry visions and so forth, butit's real from God.
Like going to the grocery store.
Yeah, you're going to thegrocery store and you're hungry
and you want to buy everything.
SPEAKER_01 (08:53):
I that I have that problem.
I get yelled at all the time.
By your mom?
No.
I was gonna I didn't I was gonnasay yeah, I get when I go to the
grocery store with mygirlfriend, she hates when I'm
there hungry because I will buylike three bags of tortilla
chips and salsa.
That's my favorite go-to, ischips and salsa.
That's a good throwback.
But then everything else.
Okay, well, I didn't say Ididn't buy cheese, but chips and
(09:15):
salsa is Minecraft singles.
No, you gotta get the shreddedlike.
SPEAKER_02 (09:20):
That's like that government cheese.
SPEAKER_00 (09:23):
So you mentioned the sheet, the sheet coming down
from the sky with all theanimals on it, slaughtering.
What were the animals you said?
These four-legged animals,especially with um, but you
mentioned birds as well.
SPEAKER_01 (09:34):
So what did I say?
But you said birds.
Yeah, there was there'sfour-legged, what four-legged
bird is there?
SPEAKER_00 (09:39):
Four four-legged creatures, birds, and reptiles.
Gotcha.
Okay.
I thought it was all thefour-legged creatures.
Yeah, it's a newfound.
It's a newfound bird.
We don't have it.
But nonetheless, so that reallyis a change from what Peter's
used to.
And he comes out of that afterbeing kind of rebuked multiple
times to do so, even though herejects.
(10:01):
And then after that, whenever hemeets those messengers from
Cornelius, he starts torecognize that the church going
forward is not just Judaism, butis bringing in the Gentiles as
well who have not followed theMosaic Law.
And the question becomes in theearly life of the church: are
Gentiles supposed to follow theMosaic Law coming into the law
(10:21):
of Christ, or is being broughtinto the church through baptism
automatically enroll one intothe life of Christ without all
of the prescriptions of theMosaic Law?
SPEAKER_01 (10:31):
So, what was the reaction of others uh in the
church to St.
Peter's actions?
SPEAKER_02 (10:38):
Well, I think you would have had a clear group
that was disappointed, if notangry, and disenfranchised,
because what he's saying is thathe has a better way than than
what the Jewish people are andare doing.
And you know, that ultimately isone of the reasons that God
Christ killed.
And so you have that that partof it, but you also have those
(11:02):
who start to see this liberationfrom the law.
And if if we think about thegreatest law, which Christ
teaches us is to love God and tolove your neighbor, then
everything else we do shouldenhance that.
And so if we're able to enhancethat by easing up on some of
this dietary restrictions andsome of these purification laws,
(11:26):
then what it's showing is thatGod is not contained by a law,
but rather God frees us by hislaw, which is love.
SPEAKER_01 (11:33):
So why couldn't they bring everyone together to make
a decision about how to welcomenon-Jewish people into the
church?
I mean, I know like it took thea council to do this.
SPEAKER_00 (11:42):
It's people that are proud, you know, in a way.
Like we wouldn't want to give uplike all our own.
I always say that it's like ifyou've ever seen the movie Happy
Gilmore.
Of course.
And uh so Happy is facing offwith Shooter McGavin, right?
Shooter McGavin hits the balland then it lands on this big
guy's foot that has a shirt onthat says guns don't kill
people.
I do, right?
(12:03):
Play it where it lies.
And the rule from the judge isplay it as it lies.
You have to hit it off of hisfoot.
So he does, right?
Later, Happy's on the green andan entire media tower falls down
in front of the hole and he asksfor a ruling on it.
And Shooter McGavin says, I hadto play it off of Frankenstein's
fat foot, play it as it lies.
You have people in society inlife like that, right?
(12:25):
Where it's like, if I had tofollow all of these Jewish laws
about food and all these othercustoms and so on and so forth.
Like, if I had to do it, you gotto play it off of Frankenstein's
fat foot, too.
So that was maybe a group therein the early church that really
said, like, if I had to do it,you have to do it.
And it's like, you're not gonnahave it easier than we had it.
SPEAKER_01 (12:44):
That was the perfect analogy.
SPEAKER_00 (12:45):
I think you're welcome.
See, bowling.
SPEAKER_01 (12:47):
I wish I would have worn my happy Gilmore shirt now.
SPEAKER_02 (12:51):
Um and groups always have their clear identities.
I mean, what's funny is evenlook at some of our parishes,
right?
On the same street, we'll havean Italian, a Polish, and a
German church, because even theycouldn't get along when they
were building their parishes.
And so it's it's an age-oldreality that to be able to come
together is always a difficulty.
SPEAKER_00 (13:12):
So who is the council of Jerusalem?
It's those early apostles andthe others that were the leaders
of communities coming togetherto then figure out, okay, what
is the teaching, right?
We call the apostles togetherand the bishops of the world
that are the continuation of theapostles, the magisterium,
meaning from like the Latin ateaching office or to be a
(13:32):
teacher.
And so just like you had theSanhedrin in the Jewish uh Old
Testament, right?
The Sanhedrin, the same onesthat condemn Jesus as well as
Stephen and so forth, they werea council of different
individual leaders in Judaismthat helped to teach the people
and enforce laws.
And so what you see with theapostles is in a real way,
they're the new Sanhedrin,right?
(13:53):
They're the the new magisteriumthat sits in the seat of Moses
and teaches and binds the peopleproperly for their salvation.
So they have to come togetherand they have to hash these
things out, which becomes a longtradition as we look in the
history of the church, that thisis the way in which councils
come together to clarify andsettle questions and and
(14:14):
clarify.
So that's the effect that thecouncil of Jerusalem had on the
growth of the church.
It starts basically setting upwhat is the interplay between
Jew and Gentile.
Did Jesus come for only theJewish people as the fulfillment
of the Messiah, or did he comefor Jew and Gentile alike?
And if we trace that back inJesus' own teachings, that the
(14:34):
apostles would have been therelearning from Jesus for years.
Jesus went to Gentile lands andJewish lands.
He went to Samaria, he went toJudea, he went to the decopolis
of the Greek cities.
He was speaking not just for thelost sheep of the house of
Israel, but to all people.
But to all people.
Thanks for listening to theCatholic Accent Podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (14:53):
Don't forget to follow, like, and subscribe to
our show.
So we have the Council ofJerusalem to thank for bacon
cheeseburgers, essentially.
Is what it boils down to.
SPEAKER_00 (15:07):
Maybe, but I'm not I'm not a uh big bacon
cheeseburger guy.
I actually think bacon's waybetter off of a cheeseburger.
SPEAKER_01 (15:13):
That's true.
You did make that uh But do youlike a cheeseburger?
SPEAKER_00 (15:16):
I like the cheeseburger, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:18):
But you want bacon on it?
SPEAKER_00 (15:19):
No, not really.
So you'll only take it.
It doesn't, one, you pay morefor it.
It doesn't really add that muchto the flavor.
It's overshadowed by the otherthings on it.
So the bacon's better to justand he is good at making bacon.
I've had his bacon.
SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
I've had his bacon as well.
When you made those uh homemadecroutons.
I did, yeah.
You fried the you fried thebread up in the in the grease
from the bacon.
SPEAKER_02 (15:36):
Oh, that's a blast from the past.
That can be found on ourdiocesan YouTube page.
SPEAKER_01 (15:40):
Yeah, it can be.
So make sure you subscribe.
SPEAKER_02 (15:42):
We need a hundred thousand subscribers at least.
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