“Abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood”
Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood. (Acts 15:19–20 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A strangely mixed list: one moral rule sandwiched between food regulations.
The cultural key
The council's question was not 'how are Gentiles saved' (settled: by grace, without circumcision) but 'how do Jewish and Gentile believers share a table.' The four abstentions track the rules Leviticus 17–18 applies to the foreigner living among Israel: meat sacrificed to idols, blood, meat not drained of blood ('strangled'), and the incestuous unions of Leviticus 18 (porneia here likely carries that specific freight). Some also compare the later 'Noahide laws,' Judaism's minimal commandments for all humanity.
Recovered meaning
A table-fellowship treaty: Gentiles are in without becoming Jews, and in exchange they avoid exactly the practices that would make a kosher-keeping brother unable to eat with them. Not a new law for salvation but house rules for one household with two kitchens.