This
is our third study from the Book of Acts.
The answer to the above question may depend on what period in his life you are
asking about, which sources you use and your beliefs about the Bible. Our beliefs “ABOUT” the Bible can cloud our ability to accurately understand
what we are reading “IN” the Bible.
The
two primary sources of biblical information about Paul are the Book of Acts and Paul’s Epistles. The person who is traditionally thought to be the
author of Acts is Luke, who was a companion and follower
of Paul. This would indicate that Luke was a “pro-Paul” author, not an opponent.
Paul is traditionally credited with being the author of the Epistles.
When were the
books written?
Traditionally Paul is said to have written his Epistles between 50 and 60 CE, which would mean that he began over
a decade after the crucifixion of Jesus. Luke’s writings have been placed in a
period between 60 and 100 CE, with the majority of scholars agreeing on the
date of 80 CE. Therefore, Paul’s Epistles
are viewed as having been written before Luke began his work.
Now
let’s turn to the question posed in the title of this article – Was Paul a Law keeping Jew? Both Paul
and Luke agree that Paul was a Jew. As we saw in the previous study on the Book of Acts, Paul said that he belonged
to the Jewish sect called “The Way,”
which was a sect like the Pharisees,
Sadducees, Essenes and Hellenists.
Why were there
different Jewish sects? I have met many people who think that during the
time of Jesus there were simply Jews and Christians, and that all Jews were
pretty much the same. As I pointed out in the last article on Acts, the name “Christian” wasn’t
used until after the crucifixion and it came from outsiders in Antioch, not
from the followers of Jesus themselves. When it comes to Jews, as pointed
out above, there were different Jewish sects (the Way, Pharisees, Sadducees,
Essenes and Hellenists). Other sources indicate that there were twenty-eight different Jewish sects
during the Late Second Temple Period.
So, what made
the Jewish sects different? The answer is found by asking what did they all consider most important.
Yahweh said
to Moses, “Speak
to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be
holy because I, Yahweh your Elohiym, am
holy.’”[1]
Holiness, which
was a key part of ritual purity, was a top priority of all sects. The above
verse is the introduction to what is called “The Holiness Chapter” (Leviticus
19). It is followed by instructions
about how to be holy. Below are a few.
(1) Honor
your father and mother.
(2) Keep
My Shabbats.
(3) Do
not turn to idols.
(4) Slaughter
a SHALOM offering so you will be accepted.
(5) Do
not harvest all of the crop from your fields.
(6) Do
not steal.
(7) Do
not lie.
(8) Do
not deal falsely.
Jesus,
the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes all agreed that the Torah (the Law) was
the foundation of their religion. They also agreed that God wanted them to be
“holy,” which mean to do the things we read in Leviticus 19 above. But, one of the primary things that made the
sects different was their interpretations of the commandments found in the Law.
When
Jesus and his fellow Jews read the commandment – honor your father and mother – they would ask – what does honor mean? In other words, what is a child to do in order to honor his
or her parents? Each sect defined what they could do that would honor
them..
When
they read – slaughter a SHALOM offering
– they would ask exactly how are they to
slaughter the animal (step-by-step).
Their
answers differed. A Pharisee may have one interpretation, while an Essene had a
different interpretation. Both, however, had the same goal – keeping the commandment in order to be holy.
The
Torah (Law) was essential to holiness. Therefore, the accusation that Jesus was
accused of wanting to destroy the Torah (Law) was serious. Many Christian thinks
this means “do away with the Law.” Think about what that meant those of the
Jewish culture. It would destroy the way to becoming holy! Jesus clearly denied
it and then offered his own interpretations of specific commandments,[2]
which would have been his way of saying, do
these things and you will be holy!
Now,
let’s return to Paul. The following verses from Acts seem to never find their way into sermons delivered at most
churches today.
Then they (James and the elders) said to Paul: “You see,
brother, how many thousands of Jews
have believed, and all of
them are zealous for
the Torah (Law). They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses (the Law).
. .”[3]
This
is one of those places where religious beliefs override what the Bible actually
says, in many cases. I underlined certain words to highlight different points. Below
are some interesting things we learned about the Jesus Movement at that time.
(1) Many thousands of Jews had become
believers.
(2) They were still zealous for the
Torah (the Law) after believing.
(3) They had been told Paul taught Jews
to turn away from the Law.
(4) What they had been told about Paul
was unacceptable to them.
I would wager that most churches today do not have
members who are believers and zealous for the Law. But, I would
bet that most members have been taught that Paul taught Jews to turn away from
the Law.
Now
that we know that holiness was one of the most important things to Jews living
at that time, it is easy to understand why they were so upset about what they
had heard about Paul. They thought Paul was
telling Jews to turn away from the one thing that would make them holy.
This would be like a modern preacher telling Christians to stop believing in
Jesus.
The
leaders of the Jesus Movement, James and the elders, wanted to make sure that
those thousands of Jews clearly understood that Paul had not been teaching Jews
to turn away from the Law. So, they asked him to do something that would make
it perfectly clear that what they had been told about him was wrong.
There are four men with us who have made a vow. Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads
shaved. Then everyone will know there is no truth in
these reports about you, but that you
yourself are living in obedience to the Torah (the Law).[4]
Paul
took the men to the Temple, paid the cost and participated in the Temple
service with them. Let me stress that he did it so those thousands of believing
Jews have proof that he kept the Law. Keep in mind that this was over a decade
after the crucifixion of Jesus and also after Paul’s Damascus Road experience.
The
Paul that most of us hear about in church is based on the writings found in the
Epistles.
For you have heard of my
previous way of life in Judaism . . . I was advancing in Judaism beyond
many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.[5]
Judaism was the previous
way of life for this Paul. Later he states that he opposed Peter and James,
and he taught an anti-law Gospel that placed “faith in Jesus” in opposition to
“keeping the Law.” This is very different from what we read in Acts.
Are
the accounts from the Acts and the Epistles contradictions? Clearly that is
an option that many would not like to consider. Another option may be that they
were written about events that took place at different times in Paul’s life. If
that is the case, it seems more probable that Paul would have been like the
believing Jews when he first became a believer, but then changed later. So,
taking the men to the Temple would be something that he would have done earlier
in his life rather than later.
However,
after Paul started preaching “his Gospel.” theological conflicts and power
struggles followed between Paul and the other Jews. This could have resulted in
what he wrote in the Epistles. This
seems much more probable than the possibility that he considered Judaism his
former way of life first and then became a Torah observant Jew later in his
life. Maybe you can come up with some other possible options. If you do, please
let me know.
But,
regardless of when it happened, according to Acts, Paul that kept the Law and
offered sacrifices in the Temple after he became a believer, as did thousands
of other Jews. One thing that is certain is that those Jews would not meet the
requirements for membership in churches or synagogues today.
So
what did we learn from this study? First, we learned that things have changed very
much from the time of Acts and the Epistles until now. We need to know when
and why those changes happened. Second, we learned that we should adjust our BS
(Belief System) to include what we read in Acts
and the Epistles, since both are
found in the Bible. It is essential that we acknowledge the differences in the
accounts and try to learn more about them.
This
brings me to the end of the third study from the Book of Acts. Let me know if you would like to see more studies from
this amazing book or have any comments. Send them to -- jim@biblicalheritage.org
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Shalom
and be empowered!
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