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You've got a poor translation. This is most certainly not in the imperative sense. It is not an order imposed by the Jerusalem Church OR its apostles and elders (as those who would like to convince you to believe of the beginning of Romanism and removal of the autonomy of the local church).

Rather, it is a request, a word of wise counsel, a strong suggestion to negate attempts to institute Torah law, that the church at Antioch consider adopting the same rule for themselves, and go no further improvising rules of conduct. The idea was that false <>, claiming to have been sent from Jerusalem, may have their counsel nullified, declined, and told to take their religious rule-making attempts elsewhere.

Nonconcur; but typical for local church centered theology. The Jewish Apostles had the authority of Messiah over all the local churches, which, in communion with the prophets and other departed righteous, comprised the holy catholic apostolic church. I assume you revere the KJV. And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.

And they wrote letters by them after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment: It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.

But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches.

The note to Antioch, a strong church without Judean oversight, was aware of the special role of the Apostles, but they understood Christ's authority was vested one by one, in the local church leadership. I take the grammar, since the verb was not in the imperative mode, to be a recognition of Antioch's autonomy in sending out their own disciples, and governing themselves under the Holy Spirit's guidance without crawling to the Jerusalem church for direction.

In fact, the Apostles wound up not doing what Jesus commanded them to do, and that was to go and make disciples of all ethnos. Instead, they built themselves a nice little nest, which God had to kick over and destroy to get them out into the fields white with harvest, as Paul and Philip were doing.

When Peter came to Antioch, he disgraced the gospel so blatantly that Paul had to publicly scold him for his behavior. This is why Peter was never permitted to lead the Jerusalem or any other church. I could keep on, but I just will never buy the whole Platonic catholic paradigm as it is always presented, but refused by the overall context.

The note sent to Antioch from Jerusalem was not an order. It was with verbs cast in the middle voice or middle deponent as a strong suggestion as to what they ought to adopt on their own decision, not on command by Jerusalem.

The church at Jerusalem did not reign over other churches, and the ministry to the gentiles was deliberately not allocated to Peter. Christ personally gave that to Paul.

The note was sent precisely because it was men going out from Jerusalem attempting to exert an authority over the Syrian and Cilician churches that they did not have that caused the Jerusalem leaders to unanimously retract any such presumed authority over the surrounding churches. The beginning of the Christian era was with churches planted by the Apostle-disciplers and their disciples, an association of coequal, like-minded constituents, with every regenerated believer a priest. It was not a revision of the old Jewish now-dead-to-God priest-over-the-lay people (nikao laoi) religion with a Christian flavor, governed by its own central Sanhedrin (Vatican) and residence of a Highest Priest, as the Romanists would desire.

The model you propose is not one that I see in the context of the New Testament. Believe what you want, but the other shoe will eventually drop. And the further I go in studying His Precious Word, the clearer the local-autonomous-church model becomes, where Christ is predominant and His Word the absolute authority for belief and practice.

As a last matter, my comment was actually to Elsie, and a cautionary note regarding the kind of translation she was using. Imposing your comment on it is exactly what I expected to occur. But it does not change the grammar of the Greek.