Men came from Jerusalem to Antioch as if they were envoys of the apostles and tried to impose themselves and their consciences on others. They might have meant well, but it was because of them that the issue of circumcision of the Gentiles arose. These Judaizers wished to govern over the individual Christians and congregations and saw themselves as being a group with authority over others. And no wonder, for they had left a Jewish system where there were local courts and a supreme court, the Sanhedrin.
They wished to implement this in the Christian congregation. They totally missed the point that Christ was now the only ruler over individual Christians. It is this pattern, not the first century one set by the apostles, that has been restored by the Watchtower society.
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