By William Riley
Olive Tree Ministries
ot.waxahachie@yahoo.com

Q. In Acts 28.17 it says that Paul had done nothing against the Jewish people or the “customs of our fathers.” What exactly does that mean?

A. This question illustrates the basic flaw in the premise of those teaching and being taught the Scriptures in many places today. Many today are told that Paul taught that the “new covenant” has come and believers are set free from the Law and that the Law was “done away” with by grace and so on. This could not be further from the truth. The Law is the result of God’s grace. Paul must be understood as a Torah observant first century Jewish man who would have never taught that. There are verses that seem to say that but is that what it means?

First of all the premise for most believers is wrong. The writers of the new testament were not telling people to eat pork, break the Sabbath, and teach what passes as biblical theology today. Remember, the 1^st century believers were a sect of Judaism. Yeshua himself said he didn’t come to do away with the Law. Peter said that the words of Paul are sometimes misunderstood and twisted by the unlearned and unstable, and that is what has been going on. In Acts 21 Paul was being accused of not obeying the Torah, and he offered animal sacrifices for 5 people to show he was Torah observant. If Paul taught that you didn’t have to observe the commandments and you were "free from the Law" why was he offering animal sacrifices in the Temple after coming out of a Nazarite vow 30 years after the resurrection of Yeshua?

I will not debate these things with anyone because they have no witnesses. The writers of the new testament are my sources and one taking the opposite can’t quote them because they agree with me, they are my witnesses. You can try to discredit them to keep me from using them, but you can’t quote Paul to show we don’t have to keep the commandments because Paul did keep the commandments and taught others to do so. And, if you quote him to try and prove your point you will be twisting his words. So, in essence you can’t quote the new testament at all to prove that doctrine. The only thing you can do is keep me from quoting them by discrediting Paul and the other writers.

Any creditable historian will tell you the believers of the first century, including all the writers of the new testament kept the commandments. There are false accusations by the enemies of Yeshua, Paul, Stephen and others that they didn’t keep them but those were unfounded. They found no fault in Yeshua which means he kept the Law. Paul says he followed Yeshua so Paul kept the Law and Paul says we should follow him so we should keep the Law and so on. The Law was never meant to impart righteousness to anyone, but it was how to live, it revealed our faith and who we believed in, it was seen as a betrothal contract and the list goes on and on. Unless one changes his premise to begin with and sees the Torah as God intended, verses like the above will confuse you.