That 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.
Thanks for addressing this. I'd like to give my interpretation of this passage: "Abstain from sacrificing to anything that isn't God, keep from tainted blood, keep from things strangled or mangled or the sort, abstain from sexual immorality and fornication. Do these and you shall prosper."
Now, how do we know that isn't the true implied meaning? We don't, this is an ambiguous passage that could have had Jewish thought applied to it, though that's a bit laughable since the auther was the Greek gospel writer Luke. However, given the time period, blood could be tainted from poisons or leprosy and for the most part people didn't know what was in a person's blood stream. Besides, many still considered the consumption of blood to be rather unclean and unsanitary (still applying old Jewish thought to the process). Given what we know now as opposed to then, I'm rather sure the author would have excepted blood transfusions since there is a health code to follow with blood donations (testing, etc.). But that's all my thought on the matter.
I invite you to this site:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/acts/15.html