Unpacking #5: Acts 15, Gentiles and the Torah

Acts 15 wasn’t a Torah cancellation. It was a salvation clarification.

The single biggest lie the enemy has ever told is this, “True success does not require discipline.”

Before Acts 15, we need to start where Jesus started.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets… For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17–18)

That sentence alone should slow the whole conversation down.

Modern Christianity often reads the New Testament as if Jesus came to reduce the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures—like His mission was to protect us from Moses. But Jesus framed His mission the other way around: He came in full alignment with the Torah and the Prophets, to fulfill—not to abolish.

So if our reading of Acts 15 requires us to hear Jesus and then quietly say, “Cool… but the apostles later canceled it,” we should pause. That’s not exegesis. That’s tradition overriding Jesus’ plain words.

Now—with that anchor in place—let’s go into Acts 15 and read it carefully.

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Let’s start inside the controversy.

A very common Christian reflex reads Acts 15 like this:

“Gentiles aren’t under Torah. The Jerusalem council freed them. Torah is a burden. And the God of the Old Testament feels different than the God of the New.”

That reading is widespread. It also collapses key details in the text, and it quietly trains people to treat Jesus’ Bible as a problem to escape instead of a story He fulfills.

So let’s slow down and let Scripture say what it actually says.

Translation hygiene: stop flattening the words

Before we even touch Acts 15, we have to stop doing the thing that creates most of the confusion: flattening biblical words into modern slogans.

Two repeat offenders are “Jew” and “law.”

In Greek, “Jew” is often Ioudaios (Ἰουδαῖος). Depending on context, it can mean:

• a Judean (geography / regional identity),

• Judean authorities (often in conflict scenes),

• or the Jewish people more broadly.

If we automatically read Ioudaios as “every Jew everywhere,” we will misread passages and turn local, first-century disputes into sweeping statements the text itself is not making.

Same issue with “law.” In Greek, “law” is often nomos (νόμος), and in Paul especially, nomos can function in more than one sense:

• Torah as God’s instruction,

• the penalty/condemnation that the law exposes in sinners,

• a principle (“a law of…”),

• or Torah misused as a justification system or identity weapon (often summarized in debates as “works of law”).

So when someone says, “Paul said we’re not under the law,” the honest question is:

Under law in which sense? Torah as instruction? Or law as condemnation? Or Torah being used as an entrance fee into the people of God?

If we refuse to do that basic work, Acts 15 will always look like a slogan factory.

What “Torah” means in the first place

When many believers hear “Torah,” they hear legalism. They picture earning, ladders, anxiety, and spiritual scorekeeping.

But Torah (תּוֹרָה) at its root means instruction—covenant teaching from a Father to His people.

Can human religion weaponize Torah? Yes. Anything holy can be twisted.

But Torah itself is presented in Scripture as good, wise, and life-giving—a covenant path. That’s why the Psalms can speak about delighting in God’s instruction without shame.

So the issue is rarely “Torah vs grace.”

The issue is Torah used wrongly vs Torah received rightly.

Acts 15: what problem are they actually solving?

Acts 15 is not a council debating whether God’s instruction is good.

It’s a council addressing a specific claim:

“Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 15:1)

That is the conflict. That is the false gospel being confronted.

The question is not, “Should Gentiles obey anything God ever said?”

The question is, “Do Gentiles have to become Jews in the flesh to be saved and counted among God’s people?”

The apostolic answer is clear: No.

Gentiles are welcomed in by grace through faith—without conversion rituals being treated as salvation requirements.

The “burden/yoke” line: what was being condemned?

Then comes the line people quote like a hammer:

“Why put God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples…” (Acts 15:10)

Many readers assume “yoke = Torah.”

But Peter doesn’t say “Torah is the yoke.” He’s rejecting the demand being imposed as a salvation requirement—a yoke “neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear” in the sense of meeting the standard as the basis of justification.

In plain terms: Torah used as a ladder to earn standing before God is crushing.

Torah used as a conversion gate is crushing.

Torah used as a superiority badge is crushing.

That isn’t a rebuke of God’s instruction. It’s a rebuke of a distorted gospel.

And it matters that Jesus Himself lived in full fidelity to the Father. If our theology forces us to treat obedience as inherently “oppressive,” we’re going to end up calling what Jesus embodied a problem.

The four instructions: not a ceiling, a starting point

Acts 15 gives Gentile believers four instructions:

• abstain from idolatry-related pollution

• abstain from sexual immorality

• abstain from what is strangled

• abstain from blood

Some people treat that list like a final ceiling: “Only four things. Done.”

But the passage hands you the interpretive key many skip:

“For Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.” (Acts 15:21)

That line strongly suggests the four instructions are a starting point—immediate boundaries that:

• sever ties with pagan worship,

• establish sexual holiness,

• and make table fellowship possible in mixed Jewish/Gentile communities.

Gentiles weren’t being asked to absorb everything overnight. They were being brought into covenant life in a real community, with a real weekly rhythm where Scripture was already being read and taught.

So Acts 15 isn’t “Torah is canceled.”

It’s “Salvation is not gated by conversion markers, and discipleship has a wise beginning.”

If you want one clean sentence to keep your bearings:

Acts 15 doesn’t erase Torah; it erases Torah-as-entry-fee.

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The strongest pushback: “Paul says we’re not under the law”

Let’s steelman the objection.

A thoughtful reader will say: “Paul says we’re not under the law. Galatians warns against going back. Romans says we’re under grace. Aren’t you rebuilding what the apostles tore down?”

That’s the central question.

And it’s also where word-flattening causes damage: “law” (nomos) is not used as a single, mechanical category in Paul. “Not under law” does not automatically mean “Torah has no role in discipleship.”

In Paul’s letters, “under law” often functions like a status phrase—under condemnation, under penalty, under Torah being treated as the basis of justification, under boundary markers being used as the gateway into covenant membership.

Paul is not attacking Torah as divine instruction. He’s attacking Torah used as a means of being justified.

You can see this without gymnastics:

• Paul calls the law holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7).

• He says faith does not overthrow God’s law; it establishes it (Romans 3:31).

• His fight is not “obedience is evil.” His fight is “obedience cannot save you.”

That’s why Galatians is so intense. The moment Torah becomes a justification-platform, it stops functioning as instruction and becomes a rival gospel.

What about the “guardian/tutor” language (Galatians 3)? A guardian isn’t evil; a guardian preserves and guides until maturity. Messiah doesn’t make the Father’s righteousness obsolete; Messiah makes covenant faithfulness forgiven, embodied, and livable by the Spirit. The administration changes; the God behind it does not.

Put it plainly:

Paul rejects Torah as a ladder.

Paul does not reject Torah as light.

Grace doesn’t make rebellion safe. Grace makes repentance possible.

So no—Acts 15 isn’t contradicting Paul, and Paul isn’t contradicting Moses. The contradiction is between:

• salvation by Messiah

  and

• salvation by conversion + performance

The apostles destroy the second. They never destroy the first.

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Objection two: “But Acts 15 only gave four requirements…”

Yes—and that’s exactly why this is a discipleship passage, not a Torah-abolition passage.

Acts 15:21 matters: Moses is read weekly. That signals process and formation, not “that whole world is irrelevant now.”

Acts 15 is how you begin grafted-in Gentiles with clarity and seriousness—turning them from idolatry and sexual chaos immediately—without demanding instant cultural conversion or turning boundary markers into a salvation test.

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Objection three: “But Colossians 2:16 and Peter’s vision…”

Colossians 2:16 is often treated like a command to stop caring about God’s calendar and instructions. But the text itself reads like a warning against being condemned by outsiders or hostile critics regarding food and festivals—not necessarily a command to abandon them. At minimum, it’s not a clean prooftext for “God no longer cares about holiness or covenant rhythms.”

And Peter’s vision in Acts 10 is interpreted inside the chapter: Peter learns he must not treat Gentiles as defiled outsiders. The core point is people and fellowship, not God changing His moral nature.

Later in Acts, you can feel how real the boundary tensions were. In Acts 21, Paul is accused of bringing Greeks into the Temple—an accusation tied to the fact that Gentiles could be in certain areas (outer courts), while deeper access had boundaries. That’s exactly the social pressure Acts 15 is relieving: don’t make boundary issues the gospel, and don’t turn identity markers into salvation gatekeeping.

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New covenant doesn’t mean “new God”

Now to the deeper claim: “Old Testament God vs New Testament God.”

That idea isn’t a harmless misunderstanding. It’s a theological fracture.

Scripture doesn’t allow a split-God reading:

• God does not change (Malachi 3:6).

• Messiah is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

• God has no shifting shadow (James 1:17).

The God of Israel is holy and merciful across the whole story.

The human problem is the same across the whole story: idolatry, self-justification, and stubborn hearts.

Jesus didn’t come to rescue us from His Father.

He came to reveal the Father—and rescue us from sin.

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What changed in the covenant?

I’m gonna keep this simple.

God didn’t change.

Holiness didn’t change.

What pleases Him didn’t change.

What changed is how covenant access works, because Messiah is the faithful one, the atoning sacrifice, and the High Priest who brings us near.

We don’t draw near through a temple system, because Messiah is our atonement and High Priest.

We don’t become God’s people by ethnic boundary markers, because Gentiles are grafted in by faith.

We don’t obey to be saved—we obey because we are saved, and covenant life has a shape.

Jeremiah’s new covenant promise wasn’t “I will erase my instruction.”

It was: “I will write it on their hearts.” (Jeremiah 31)

So the new covenant isn’t Torah-less.

It’s Torah internalized—lived from the inside out—through Messiah.

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A simple way to read Acts 15 without overcalculating

• Salvation: by grace, through faith, because of Messiah—no conversion ritual as a gate.

• Identity: Gentiles are welcomed in—grafted in—full members of God’s people.

• Discipleship: begins somewhere, grows over time, hears Moses weekly, matures into covenant faithfulness.

• Fellowship: requires immediate separation from idolatry, sexual corruption, and practices that fracture the table.

Acts 15 is not permission to stop listening to God.

It’s protection from a false gospel.

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Closing gut-checks (common sense, no games)

Let’s be honest for a second.

Do we really think the God of the Hebrew Scriptures and the God revealed in the New Testament are different?

If so, which one are we worshiping—and why would we trust either one?

And what did Jesus actually come to do?

He didn’t come to erase His Father. He came to reveal Him.

He didn’t come to abolish Torah—He said plainly He did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. He lived covenant faithfulness out loud and showed what it actually looks like when it’s not performance, not ego, not ladder-climbing—just love that obeys.

So here’s the challenge: if your theology makes obedience suspicious, if it requires God to mellow out and evolve, if it turns the New Testament into a replacement book instead of a fulfillment story—then you’re not reading Scripture. You’re repeating a tradition.

God’s expectations haven’t changed. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Same heart. Same holiness. Same mercy.

And the New Testament isn’t “Plan B.” It’s the fulfillment—the Hebrew Scriptures coming to life in Messiah, the promises taking on flesh, the covenant moving from shadow into substance.

Now one more thing—because you don’t want to miss out.

The Bible is pretty clear: our heartbeat belongs to obedience. Not to earn salvation, but because love obeys. This isn’t a loose game. It’s a strong one. That’s why the road is narrow. That’s why Jesus calls for surrender, not slogans.

So be honest with yourself: are you following Messiah… or are you following a system that trained you to treat the Father’s instruction like a problem?

Grace brings you in.

And covenant instruction teaches you how to walk once you’re home.

May the shalom of our Abba guard you —

shalom v’shalvah.

Your brother in the Way,

Sergio.

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© 2026 Sergio DeSoto. All rights reserved.

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