Not precisely, no. However, they did leave room for grace without throwing out the Torah.
There's a dynamic going on in that debate that I don't think we're very sensitive to as a result to a major cultural difference: We in the West admire and aspire to rugged individualism. The culture of the Bible, both Jewish and Greek, was very collectivist. Everyone belonged to and derived their identity and protection from the groups they belonged to; there were no universal rights or protections.
As examples:
- A subject could be beaten at the whim of the Roman officials, but a citizen could not be scourged before a trial, a fact which Sha'ul employed to his advantage twice.Now consider the plight of a new Gentile Christian coming from a pagan background. He has to give up all idolatry, which most likely loses him his guild status, his family, and may mark him as an enemy of the Empire when he refuses to call Caesar Lord. He has no Constitutionally-guarunteed right to dissent or freedom of religion; the only protections he has is if he is brought under the protection of the Jewish umbrella, so to speak.- A person identified as a Jew received special exemptions from Roman Law, such as being allowed not to burn incense to idols of the emperor, being granted their special feastdays off from service (including Sabbath) and not being expected to join in the pagan rites.
It's frankly hard to be a Jewish proselyte, and there are darn few who can turn their lives on their heads overnight, but until they do, keeping not only the written Torah but the traditions of one of the major Jewish sects, they are not given the protection of a community. The potential convert is pretty much out in the cold unless they happen to be blessed with the resources to weather the storm during the transition. It's like joining a fraternity: Until you've jumped through all the hoops and gone through initiation, you don't get to live in the fraternity house or get any of the other benefits ofthe brotherhood. The difference is that one can survive college without a fraternity; most ancients couldn't survive life without a community to protect them.
The reason for making new converts jump through the hoops is to preserve the integrety, character, and mission of the group. This wasn't unique to the Jews; guilds and mystery religions had their own initiation rites, always involving subjecting the potential member to their rules and their gods. The difference was that joining a guild or a mystery religion didn't require you to abjure all other gods or to risk being called a traitor for not worshipping the emperor. Being a "God-fearer" did.
So in the face of this situation, what do the Apostles do? Those who wanted new converts to become circumcised within the Church wanted to preserve its character and integrity; the motiviations of those who were not believers in the Messiah were less noble (Gal. 6:12-13).
What they did was show a radical kind of love. They saw that the Spirit was coming to the Gentiles, and they trusted God to finish what He had started. Therefore, they accepted the new Gentile members only on the condition that they separate themselves from the pagan temples and feasts (which are what the strictures given in Acts 15 were designed to do) and proclaim that Yeshua the Messiah is Lord--that is, is YHVH. They opened their arms and offered the protection of the community, the ekklesia, freely, just as the Lord had offered His protection and community freely.
Did they expect them to stop at simply not participating in idolatry? Clearly not! The exortation of the Apostles was always to live holy lives, and yes, even to observe the Feastdays of YHVH (1 Cor. 5:8). In Acts 15, we see the expectation that the new believers would enter the synagogue and learn about the Torah there (v. 21). The four commands given were clearly meant as a beginning, a minimum requirement for fellowship, not an end to the person's growth.
Does that growth necessarily include keeping kosher? No. But I do believe it includes sacrifice, giving things up to, or back to (as you are quite correct that God gave them to us and owns them to begin with--just as He owned the lambs that were sacrificed on Passover), God. This may be pleasures that we come to see as sinful. This may be our freedom, should we be arrested or otherwise persecuted for our witness. This may be property, lost in persection or given up as an offering to further the Lord's work. One's leisure time has a way of evaporating quickly when one is doing his Master's work; that too is a sacrifice of praise.
If you truly have never known the Lord to call upon you to sacrifice something of value to you, then you should probably wonder what's wrong with your walk. If He has, then you should have no problem understanding why another might make a sacrifice of what they eat.
So after two thousand year now what? Gentiles still find it difficult to be "Jewish proselytes"? Are you going to go on record as saying all Christians need to become Jewish proselytes or else they are not as "spiritual"? That is what you and a few others are implying. You're making the claim that most Christians find it too difficult to follow this path but you, and a few others, are making this "sacrifice".
Honestly, don't you see just a tad bit of problem with this attitude? Gentiles have been grafted in with the Jews. Shouldn't everyone follow the same code?
But in fairness to you, what's equally astonishing is other Christians saying, "Well, if that's Buggman's thing of "sacrificing" to God then more power to him. I "sacrifice" in other ways." There remains no more sacrifice. The sacrifice has been paid.
I'll publicly go on record and say there isn't anything that I sacrifice to God. If I fast tomorrow I'm really not giving up anything that God hasn't first given to me.
BTW-Please note in regards to your comment on western and biblical cultures that it is my position all Christians belong and derive their identity and protection from the group, just as you claim was the biblical culture. There is no different between Jews and Gentiles. The Gentiles have been grafted into the Jewish believers who trust God through faith. By taking the position that some can be Messianic Jews and other Gentiles, you are taking the western path of rugged individualism.