Acts 15:27-29 (NASB) “Therefore we have sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will also report the same things by word of mouth. “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials:  that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.”

Recently I have been having discussions over foundational doctrines. It seemed to me that the next step in this progression would be to identify the essentials. Obvious foundational doctrines are firm ground, our firm foundation, truths that are immutable. So what defines essentials?

Here in Acts 15 we discover essential language used in the NASB version of the bible. The KJV identifies them as “most excellent”. This is nothing to quibble over if we can discover what it is that these essential or most excellent instructions do for us. In that we discover the answer.

Adherence to essential instructions keep us from becoming entangled in things which will bind us, put or liberties at risk, and effect our witness. I say witness because of the last bit of passage here that say “you will do well”. The lost observing our behavior is our witness.

Many of these instructions are contained within the Old Testament and identified as law. It is the New Testament in which we live and the law has completed its good work in us and now that our relationship with the God Triune is established in Christ Jesus, these instructions take on a new language. They have been transitioned from law to essentials. Our noncompliance no longer puts us at risk of losing salvation.

Noncompliance does however put us at risk of slow growth, dangerous entanglements, and a failing witness performance.

Romans 2:17-21 But if you bear the name “Jew” and rely upon the Law and boast in God, and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth,  you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal?