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The Book of Acts relates that when Paul was brought to Rome:
After three days he called together the local leaders of the Jews; and
when they had gathered, he said to them, “Brethren, though I had done
nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was
delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans."
This statement by Paul seems to contradict the attitude in his letters in which he says that Christians, including himself, are freed from the OT Law:
While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by
the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But
now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us
captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the
new life of the Spirit. (Rom. 7:5-6)
It is hard to see how teaching that we (including Jews) are discharged from the Law is not speaking against Jewish customs. I see several ways to resolve this seeming contradiction:
- Paul himself, being a Jew, followed the OT customs but taught that Gentile Christians should not do so.
- In this passage, Paul was telling a "white lie," based on 1 Cor. 9:20 –
‘To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.’ - Paul taught that both Jewish and Gentile Christians should not follow Jewish religious law, but he did not consider this to be doing something against Jewish customs.
- Acts presents Paul as more accommodating to Jewish traditions than he actually was.
I invite other explanations as well. Which explanation best explains why Paul said "I have done nothing against the customs of our Fathers" and what he meant by this statement?
