Today’s first reading in Acts 15 was on the council of Jerusalem, where Church authority declared Gentile converts must follow four fundamental ordinances. Three were about idolatry and one about marriage. Their exhortation concludes: “If you keep free of these you will do what is right” (Acts 15:29).

I find it interesting that they mention violations of the first three Commandments (re: idolatry) and the sixth & ninth (re: adultery) – but not the other moral precepts of the natural law in the Ten Commandments. Why might this be?

Here is one possible explanation, which I find reasonable. In order to live the entirety of natural moral law confirmed by God in the Commandments and clarified by Christ and His Church, one must practice the fundamental lynchpins of the moral life. In other words, it’s impossible to build a house without first creating its foundation. The apostles chose two general precepts to forward as a lifestyle practice necessary to enable the Gentiles to “do what is right” (Acts 15:29): to love God (Cs 1-3) and respect self (6, 9). If you do not worship God as He wills, we will not respect ourselves as we should; and we will fall away from the faith.

Can we test this hypothesis? Yes. What happens when a person or society fails to practice true worship (Cs 1-3)? They rationalize sexual vice (6, 9). All you have to do is look at the western world of the past 70 years and you will see this. The first casualty of ignoring God is the rationalizing of sexual sin. Does the same principle hold the individual? Just think. What happens immediately after one stops the lifestyle of attending Sunday Mass and sacramental Confession? A lifestyle of sexual sin. For the married, this usually means contraception and divorce, and for the unmarried, fornication and pornography. Our post-1960s “relationship” culture is all about the sin of fornication, as is today’s cohabitation culture.

Cultic prostitution often went hand-in-hand with pagan religions. There is definitively a link between religious worship and sex on the deepest level of human nature. And it’s why the devil continuously fights to have the progressive Left’s agenda implemented in society. In a sense, sexual sin is a sacrament to the evil one in Hell.

If, by God’s grace, we practice right worship and right sex, the other precepts of natural law will easily follow. If, however, we stop attending Sunday Mass and capitulate to the world’s lies about sex and marriage, we have chosen the opposite road of Heaven.

Therefore, if you want to follow God and do His will, look beneath the surface in what the apostles told the gentile converts in Acts 15. If you live proper worship (Sunday Mass, regular Confession) and proper sexuality (sex only in marriage, open to life), you stand on the foundation that enables you to follow the wholeness of the moral law to attain salvation. Without this foundational practice, it’s virtually impossible.

This is the moral/religious foundation one must practice in order to begin living a life pleasing to God. One might say it is the first step in accepting St. Paul’s exhortation to “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12).