Jewish Believers in the New Testament

 

Let me encourage you to carefully read the book of Acts, wherein you'll see that the very first, original church of Christ, led by The Twelve, kept their Jewish ways, and were surprised in Acts 11 to find that Gentiles could be saved, and decided in Acts 15, after much debate, that the Gentiles did not have to "worship on Saturday...[offer] animal sacrifices... and [follow] all of the guidelines set forth in the book of Leviticus" (as someone has worded it). In fact, that church council decided that Gentiles only had to obey the very limited portion of Leviticus 17-18 which governed how Gentiles living among the Jews should live - refraining from food sacrificed to idols, and from things strangled, and from blood, and from sexual immorality.

 

In Acts 21 you will read that the Apostle-trained elders of the original church of Christ, years later, spoke approvingly of tens of thousands of Jewish Christians who remained zealous for the law of Moses and their Jewish customs such as circumcision, and asked Paul to prove that he was one of them, "also walking according to the law" of Moses. Paul agreed, and underwent temple purification rituals, and was in the seven-day waiting period between his announcement of the end of his "old covenant" Nazirite vow, requiring that he shave his head, and the sacrifices of several different animals to formally end that vow, as described in Numbers 6, when he was wrongfully arrested.

 

You will read in later chapters that Paul had not broken the law of Moses as he was accused, that he currently "is" a Pharisee, that he came to Jerusalem to worship, and to give gifts to the needy of his nation, and to make "offerings" (sacrifices), in the midst of which he was found purified in the temple, and subsequently arrested, and that he had done nothing against the people of Israel or the Jewish customs.

 

Paul and Peter and James and all the early Apostle-led church kept the law of Moses. They recognized two things: 1) keeping the law of Moses is not what saves a person; 2) the Gentiles are not expected to keep the law of Moses or the Jewish customs, although they themselves did.

 

Originally published at:

https://kentwest.blogspot.com/2026/02/jewish-believers-in-new-testament.html