ACTS 15:20 Does this passage indicate it is a sin to receive a blood transfusion?

Question

The Jehovah's Witnesses say this verse proves that blood transfusions are against God's will ( Aid to Bible Understanding, 1971, 245 )

" Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood"

Trustdel.. Your answer among other people from your religion makes me want to cry..for hours...and pray for you.

Why would our loving God require such a "blood sacrifice" ??

But the main offence is that JWs reduce God Jesus to a mere angel

Answer 1

if it meant blood transfusions it also means if you cut yourself you have to bleed to death because you cant touch it.

what it really means is you cant eat blood

old testament

Leviticus 17:10
And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people.

but we are not under the law so............

verse 29 same chapter is clearer

29That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.

you can read anything you want to prove any point you want.

but Gods word defines itself

Answer 2

The Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong, and the fact that they would stand by and watch their own kids die instead of giving them the Blood Transfusion they needed would only leave them to answer to God for their actions. Their blood will be on their hands.

Verse 20 ; But that we write unto them. (Them meaning the Heathen world of that day) which at that time was a common event for them to digest the blood of others. Not to have the blood transfered from one vain to another in order to save a life. They were not to eat the blood. Big difference in eating blood then receiving a blood transfusion. This is where they are confused.

Answer 3

I believe that there are two main issues here that the Russelites don't, and will not recognize. When it comes to taking in consideration the purpose(s) any author of any particular book of the Bible was written, they hardly ever do, if not never. They don't look at the Biblical text, a book as a whole, whether in the NT or the OT, and attempt to place it in its cultural and redemptive historical context. No, they notoriously commit isogesis in checkerboard fashion by reading into a phrase or sentence what they have already read elsewhere in the Bible and how they thought that particular word or phrase was used, and should continue to be used. The Bible is not a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle!

Many already mentioned here where they miss the boat so-to-speak regarding this problem. Yes, the cultural context is that the Gentiles did in fact not only sell meat on the market of an animal that was sacrificed to idols, but they also kept the drained blood from the sacrifice and sold that too! In addition, many cultic rites involved strangulation of the animal being sacrificed. It is why Paul warns the Roman church (chapter 14) to not violate another's conscience for the sake of their own Christian liberty in the Spirit concerning what they eat, drink, or don't eat or drink. He warns the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 8) more directly about this same problem, about violating another's conscience by eating meat of an animal that was sacrificed to an idol.

And get this last one, this is where most of the sexual immorality in most regions of the Roman Empire was being committed, via temple prostitution, as well! The city of Corinth is a perfect example of this. The OT tells us that this was often done with Canaanite cultic worship of Baal, Ashteroth, Molech, etc. And, given that human nature since the Fall of humanity into sin certainly hasn't ever changed, it was certainly done also in the Gentile world in Turkey, Greece and Syria of the 1st century, where most of the Gentiles we're getting saved, because the Greek gods, especially Aphrodite, were being worshipped in this manner throughout the eastern Meditteranean region.

This was one of the main reasons for the first church Council at Jerusalem in AD 50, which we find in Acts 15; that is, how to embrace the gentiles in the faith as brothers and sisters, and accept their cultural differences, since all things are clean and no longer forbidden, when done in faith (Romans 14:23), and according to Peter's vision when he was in Joppa. (Acts 10:9-23); but also not offend nor cause anyone to stumble who are Jewish in the faith. So, the inference is made by the Council of Jerusalem's decision, through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, that it would be a more culturally relevant one, addressing these issues directly by practicing abstenance from anything that can be associated or involves idolatry, especially these Greek popular cultic ritual forms of it! So this "Word" from the Spirit of God was meant specifically and directly only for the 1st century gentiles in this region of the world; not us! However, the principles of 1) not doing anything that is not by faith, and 2) refraining from whatever that would violate a fellow Christians conscience, are what is for today for the church in all cultures and for all times. This leaves the specifics of how to follow these principles as a cultural matter; not make a particularly one dimensional way to follow these principles a "word" for the church universal! This rule of thumb is clearly taught in the Pauline, Johannine, and Petrine epistles; as well as James, Titus, Timothy, and Jude. They usually do not get into restrictions, and regulations on how to keep the Law of Love, unless addressing only a local church matter.

Russellites are rigid literalist's. They really don't believe in metaphor, allegory, and idiomatic phrases of a language when it comes to interpretation. Just think how much you use these forms in your everyday English. I would say a big whopping 50% of the time; wouldn't you say? You would think that only a here and now, for all people at all times interpretation of text would be seen as wooden, narrow, and suffering from myopia. They break all the rules concerning the exigetical process with this ridiculously rigid rule they follow, as well as all the aforementioned, which means almost never, if not ever, reading the text as it was meant to be read, contextually. This they do not do. Rather they take one word from the Bible, like the word "blood" here, and make all other verses that contain the word "blood" have the same meaning for all people for all time! This is nonsense to come at the Bible like this as if it was some kind of cryptogram!

Answer 4

This verse goes along with Leviticus; don't eat meat with blood in it; don't drink blood--satanists do that and that is why; it breaks God's law; no priest is to touch a dead body. These are the things it refers.
I had 4 blood transfusions a little over a year ago, I would have died without it. I do not believe that God wanted me to die; God had my doctor advise me to go to the hospital to begin with; and I was supposed to see that doctor two weeks prior and if I had I wouldn't have seen him that day and chances are good that I might not have gone to the hospital that day and could have died instead.
God is involved in all of our details of life, and I know He worked these details out the way it went.

Answer 5

A good example of reading into the text what is not there.

These things would have been offensive to the Gentile Christian's Jewish brothers and sisters in table fellowship.

It had to do with consuming blood.

The JW's, through their eisegesis, have set up a condition where they, instead of showing proper parental love for a child whose life would be saved by a transfusion, sacrifice that child in the name of God.

They may as well have passed them through the fire of Molech.

God is not interested in human sacrifices as performed by the JW's.

.

Answer 6

It specifically referred to the eating of animal blood, or meat that hadn't been bled.

To eat meat requires some eating of blood; one couldn't "abstain" from blood in the total sense if he ate meat.
I notice several examples of abstaining from nuts, alcohol, etc. in which it is said that you would stay clear away from it. That's true - but the comparisons aren't fitting ones because the very nature of meat eating indicates a 'concession" about taking blood into your body.

If your doctor said to abstain from alcohol, you wouldn't take a steak, soak it in alcohol, then try to clean it up, and eat it anyway. So the "abstaining from" examples here aren't really fitting because meat, by its nature, contains blood.

The verse specifically referred to not eating animal meat with blood in it. If humans were edible, we could assume this prohibition would also apply to human blood because God would probably want the blood of the humans back.

As it stands, though, humans aren't edible, and it isn't their blood that God wants back - he wants human life returned to him; giving him back their blood just isn't good enough. You can't kill and eat a human like an animal, and stay in God's good graces by not eating his blood.

The way I see it, God asks back human LIFE. With animals, he asks back the blood of animals INSTEAD of their life. If you return human life to God, (by not committing murder) the symbolic ritual of pouring out his blood on the ground is unnecessary - in fact, it's impossible, because you didn't shed his blood in the first place.

Answer 7

This is the type of thing that happens when you take a single text from the bible in order to establish doctrine. The bible tells us to add text upon text, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little to find truth. If we follow the instructions of the bible that I just stated we find that this text is simply telling us not to eat blood...

Leviticus 3:17 (NIV)
"This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live: You must not eat any fat or any blood."

Answer 8

That does not mean blood transfusions. It refers to eating and drinking blood like vampires for a lack of better example.

Besides, the Jehovah's Witnesses have alot of weird claims.

Answer 9

Nina,

Here is another translation of the verse and it will help you understand better.

"But we should write them a letter asking them not to identify with paganism by eating things sacrificed to idols, not to adopt the sexual practices of the world with its many perversions and not to eat meat with blood still in it, or meat from strangled animals."
Acts 15:20

Now reread that verse in the version you read and compare and you will see and understand. The JW's completely misunderstand this verse. It's not saying what they think it's saying.

Answer 10

YHWH sanctified the blood only for the use of atonement for His people. For the cleansing of His people. Then came the ultimate sacrifice Christ Jesus.
"The righteous from God comes through faith in Christ Jesus to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of "atonement", through faith in his "blood".

The life of a creature is in the blood. Blood is sacred to YHWH, and anyone that eats of the blood becomes unclean.

If anyone eats of the blood, they have to go through a "full body cleanse" in order to be clean again. If not YHWH will cut you off of being His people.

"Why would our loving God require such a "blood sacrifice"?
Blood is a symbolic meaning for life. An atonement for our life. YHWH is a "loving God".
Leviticus 17:14 "For the life of every creature is its blood, and I have told the Israelites; you will not consume the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood, and anyone who consumes it will be outlawed."

EDIT: I would like to add that the Blood Law is NOT a "forever-stick-to-you sin or a death sentence". People that eat or take in blood can become clean again. The Mosaic Law states it in Leviticus.
Leviticus 17: 15, 16 "Anyone, citizen or alien, who eats an animal that has died a natural death or been savaged, must wash clothing and body, and will be unclean until evening, but will then be clean. (16) But anyone who does not wash clothing and body will bear the "consequences" of his "guilt".
Like I first mentioned; you have to cleanse your body internally. A "full body cleanse". Once you go through your cleansing days; you become clean again. There is NO sin after that.

Ummm, I see here two people disagree with what I am saying. Tell me what I am saying is incorrect.

Holy Bible