Acts 15: Why these three things?

[Soloist]

Josh if you don’t see the men hand picked by Jesus having authority greater then other men, I have to disagree with you. I would suggest you study what Jesus told them and the obvious power given to them.

[Josh]

Josh if you don’t see the men hand picked by Jesus having authority greater then other men, I have to disagree with you. I would suggest you study what Jesus told them and the obvious power given to them.

First of all we don't even know who the elders and the others at the Jerusalem Conference were, but it seems likely that it was not just the 12 disciples plus Paul. I definitely do not think there was any special authority or power with the rest of the elders and apostles. Yet they would have been the ones making many of these decisions.

More specifically, this is what the early church believed about itself. They believed that their ordained bishops continued to have a lot of authority including to convene councils or conferences and make decisions. Most of us follow the decisions made at those councils to this day, particularly in areas of certain doctrines relating to the Trinity and christology. They also eventually decided what to place in the canon, and that was long after the apostles spoken of the in the NT were long gone.