When was the last time you saw a “knock down drag out” fight? I’m sure you remember where you were and what you were doing. Heated disputes are usually riveting, sometimes frightening, and have a way of enhancing our memories. After all, loss, injury, or even death are real possibilities.

In the account given in Acts 15, the apostle Paul, along with the Antioch Church, engage a faction of Hebrew Christians in an epic dispute that was frightening in its implications. This fight threatens to kill the Gentile church in its infancy.