What did James decide as moderator regarding Gentile converts?
As moderator, James decided not to trouble Gentile converts who had turned to God, but to write them to abstain from pollutions of idols, fornication, things strangled, and blood. He attached these requirements as strings, noting such things remain anathema to God and still hold true today.
Les explains that Peter is not the conference moderator; James is. He suggests this may not be the James of the Twelve, who had already been beheaded, but the other James. Peter has slipped out of his place as the head man, and now it is James. James points to Simeon, that is Peter, declaring how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name, and he refers to the words of the prophets written after this, including God's promise to return and build again the tabernacle of David, which points to His Second Coming. James then gives his decision as moderator: not to trouble the Gentiles who have turned to God, but to write them to abstain from pollutions of idols, from fornication, from things strangled, and from blood. Les notes these things were repeated and still hold true today; God has never given the human race permission to do any of these things, and they are still anathema to Him. Verse 21 gives the reason.
Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: