4. (a) What controversy arose in the first-century congregation? (b) According to Acts 15:1-6, what theocratic action was initiated?

⁴ Unity of action in Jehovah’s organization is illustrated for us at Acts chapter 15.

The record is found in Acts chapter 15.

It will be highly beneficial to consider these and other developments recorded at Acts 13:1–16:5, for Jehovah’s Witnesses are now experiencing similar growth and spiritual blessings. (Isaiah 60:22) (In private study of the articles on Acts in this issue, we suggest that you read the passages from the book indicated by boldface type.)

The Bible provides only limited detail about the composition of the early governing body, most of the information being in Acts chapter 15.

Individual congregations had appointed overseers, or elders, and ministerial servants. (Acts 15:6; Philippians 1:1)

Some Christian Jews felt that Gentile converts should get circumcised and keep the Mosaic Law, but others disagreed. (Acts 15:1-5)

To settle it, Paul and others went to Jerusalem to consult the Christian governing body.​—Acts 15:1, 2.

Its decisions were binding upon the entire organization of Christians in that day as we see in the fifteenth chapter of Acts.

Otherwise they could not gain salvation. (Acts 15:1)

So we find that Paul and Barnabas were sent to the “apostles and older men in Jerusalem regarding [the circumcision] dispute.”​—Acts 15:2.

Acts chapter 15 shows that first Paul and Barnabas outlined the question.

They felt that circumcision was essential for salvation and that all Gentile converts to Christianity had to get circumcised.​—Acts 14:26–15:1.

After there had been much discussion of the subject, the congregation in Antioch “arranged for Paul and Barnabas and some others of them to go up to the apostles and older men in Jerusalem regarding this dispute.” (Acts 15:2)

As the apostle Paul indicated, God ‘delivered anointed ones from the authority of the darkness and transferred them into the kingdom of the Son of his love.’​—Colossians 1:13-18; Acts 2:33, 42; 15:2; Galatians 2:1, 2; Revelation 22:16.

When the circumcision issue was decided, that body evidently included “the apostles and older men in Jerusalem.” (Acts 15:1, 2)

Yes, the early Christian congregations cooperated with one another under the direction of a governing body comprised of the apostles and older men at Jerusalem.​—Acts 15:1–16:5.