Based on Acts 15 Should Christians Keep Kosher?

Your second question was should Christians keep kosher based on the decree in Acts 15?

Many people are tempted to read scripture like it is a rulebook. I don't think that this is appropriate. We need to understand the context in which scripture was written and then derive principles from it. In Acts 15, the council is dealing with gentiles coming to faith and then living in largely Jewish communities. One of the main issues here is table fellowship. If gentile believers are eating with Jewish brethren, then they need to be considerate of them and their obligation to eat kosher food. This is the crux of the ruling. They were trying to find a minimum standard that would be acceptable to all.

So given this viewpoint, we should not expect Christians to keep kosher on a regular everyday basis because most modern-day Christians don't live in predominantly Jewish communities. If, however, you were to be visiting or attending a Messianic synagogue, or visiting a friend's home then you should take care to respect their practices.

Notice that the ruling in Acts does not forbid the eating of non-kosher foods such as lobsters, birds of prey, insects, etc... It only forbids food sacrificed to idols, blood (which most likely means meat with blood in it), and meat of strangled animals. (When an animal is strangled its meat is infused with blood).

It should also be noted that this list is very similar to what Rabbinic Judaism calls the Seven Noachide Laws. These are laws that God gave to Noah and thus are incumbent upon all humanity. They consist of six prohibitions and one requirement; idolatry, murder, theft, sexual immorality, blasphemy, eating flesh torn from a living animal, and to establish courts of justice.

Clearly lists like these were circulating around in Yeshua's day. The early church is basically saying that the minimal observance for Christians to to follow the commandments incumbent upon all humans.