Unity with distinction in Acts 15

The rulings of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 for Gentile believers were just four minimal rules that would allow table fellowship of believing ("Messianic") Jews with Gentile believers (Christians). Their eating together was an important sign of their unity in Christ without any discrimination against either party, yet without nullifying the Law of Moses. The Gentiles didn't convert to Judaism, and the Jews didn't abandon their Law. They continued to live as Torah-observant Jews, eating and worshiping side-by-side with Gentile believers. Now we are touching on what has been called unity with distinction, or what Mark Kinzer refers to as bilateral ecclesiology. (See my review of Kinzer's book, Postmissionary Messianic Judaism.) So there is still discrimination between (that is, "differentiation of", not "discrimination against") Jews and Gentiles - which starts in Genesis and continues to Revelation. Otherwise there was no need for the Jerusalem Council to make a ruling; they could have just said, "The Gentile believers are free from the Law just as we have been freed from the Law." But they didn't.

For a careful study of Acts 15, and Peter's mention that God made "no distinction" between Gentiles and Jews (Acts 15:9) in particular, see my paper, "Does Acts 15:9 refute intra-ecclesial Jew-Gentile distinction?"