In ch. 15 of the Acts of the Apostles we read of the First Jerusalem Council, summoned in about AD 65 to debate the issue of whether Gentile converts had to become fully observant Jews in order to join the community of believers in Jesus. The gracious decision, under the inspiration of the Spirit, was that Gentile believers in Yeshua would NOT have to follow Jewish customs, but merely to avoid certain pagan and dietary practices so that table-fellowship with their Jewish brethren could be maintained.
Tragically, over the next few hundred years, as the Gentile component of the united Church grew dominant, it failed to reciprocate that generous ruling, and progressively excluded Jewish believers from the Church, leading eventually to persecution and pogroms.
TJCII believes that there should now be a Second Jerusalem Council, a mirror of the First, where the Gentile churches should come together to repent of their treatment of the Jewish people, to recognise that Gentiles were “grafted in” to the original rootstock of the Jewish Church (Romans 11:17), to repudiate the error of “replacement theology” and to welcome Jewish believers-in-Christ (the Messianic Jews) as equal partners in the Body of Christ – without requiring them to become baptised Christians.
This international and ecumenical Council should meet at Jerusalem, which would then achieve its intended place as the centre of the united Church – the “One New Man” of Ephesians 2:15.