In Acts 15 we come to the council at Jerusalem and the letter they wrote, that Paul took to the Believers further north. This letter includes, "you are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols" which seems clear enough until we get to 1 Corinthians 8 where Paul explains that it does not matter if we eat or not because idols are nothing. Verse 8 says, "food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.” This apparently allows us to eat food sacrificed to idols (with the knowledge an idol is nothing) and seems to contradict Acts 15.
The best explanation I have heard for this is that Acts 15 was a temporary concession to the Jews. There are two concerns I have with this answer. First it raises the question of what else is a temporary concession and how can we know what is required of us today. And second, that the temporary concession is reversed again in Revelation 2:20 where eating food sacrificed to idols is comparable to sexual immorality.
I remember hearing a story of a Arranging Brethren's Meeting (the Christadelphian term for a church leaders committee meeting) when hot cross buns were offered to eat during a refreshment break. Much to the consternation of the hostess who had prepared them a particularly fundamentalist Arranging Brother refused to eat them and exhorted the other to follow his lead. Others didn't have a problem with eating hot cross buns. I can only think that each group was referring to a different part of the Bible when coming to their conclusions. With one group translating the teaching of Acts and Revelation across 2000 years of historical and cultural change to decide that eating hot cross buns is sinful.
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