The Big Debate: Should Christians follow Torah?

Torah plainly states that there is one Torah for Israel and the Gentile who dwells with her - yet, many try to use Acts 15 as "proof" that Christians don't have to keep Torah. That is because they don't realize that Acts 15 is referring to man-made laws and not the Torah itself....

The "million dollar question" that has successfully split the Messianic movement today is: Are Gentiles required to keep Torah? And the answer is a resounding, "YES!"

God gave the Torah to His people Israel (which includes ANYONE who believes in Him to tell them how to live their lives and how to relate to Him.

Numbers 15: 13 "'Everyone who is native-born must do these things in this way when he brings an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. 14 For the generations to come, whenever an alien or anyone else living among you presents an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the LORD, he must do exactly as you do. 15 The community is to have the same rules for you and for the alien living among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the alien shall be the same before the LORD: 16 The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the alien living among you.'"

Please re-read the above in case you missed it: Any Torah-less non-Jew/Hebrew/Israelite who does not yet believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is an "alien"/foreigner. However, if they do wish to accept Him, then they are to do exactly as those who are already belong to Him!

"Living among" means not necessarily physically, but rather, it refers to all those who have accepted the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They MUST be Torah observant, just like the Houses of Israel and Judah were with whom God made His New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:32)!

Romans 10: 12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. 13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Gentiles, who are grafted in through the blood of Yeshua are part of Israel! Yeshua was Torah observant who showed us by example how to "walk in Torah" and neither He nor His disciples ever negated Torah in any way. Therefore, anyone who chooses to believe in Yeshua is obligated to follow Torah to the best of his abilities. It doesn't matter whether you are a Jew or Gentile; in order to please God, you must be Torah-observant.

Often, people try to use Acts 15 to show that Gentiles have a different calling from Jews. How does that make sense? Those who choose to be grafted in to the Olive Tree cannot go against God's original teachings! YHWH does not have separate rules for His natural and adopted children....

The Tanach shows over and over that, in Biblical times, if a Gentile joined him or herself to Israel, they were required to give up their old, Pagan ways. You can be sure that the "strangers" who left Egypt to join Moses in the Exodus, didn't eat pork and shellfish or worship any idols!

Torah states that there is one Torah for Israel and the Gentile who dwells with her. God specifically said in Exodus 12: 49 "The same teaching is to apply equally to the citizen and to the foreigner living among you.". He even expounded on this principle by adding in Exodus 22: 21 "You shall neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt". In other words: As believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we are one in God's eyes, and are therefore required to act accordingly.

Numbers 9: 14 'If an alien sojourns among you and observes the Passover to the LORD, according to the statute of the Passover and according to its ordinance, so he shall do; you shall have one statute, both for the alien and for the native of the land.'"

Leviticus 17: 8 "Then you shall say to them, 'Any man from the house of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice, 9 and does not bring it to the doorway of the tent of meeting to offer it to the LORD, that man also shall be cut off from his people.

Deuteronomy 31: 12 "Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the alien who is in your town, so that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law.

Tim Hegg, author of "It is Often Said" writes:

Acts 15 is referring to man-made laws and not the Torah itself! The Jerusalem Council saw the need for Gentiles to submit to some of those laws. The Jewish community needed to be satisfied that the Gentiles were no longer idolators, and they they had forever turned their backs on this capital crime. In order to make such assurances, the apostles required the Gentile believers to take on the yoke and burden of man-made laws in the area of idolatry in order to give them a genuine, working relationship within the synagogue community. The Apostles knew that the Gentiles coming into the congregations would be learning the Torah more fully as they heard Moses each Sabbath (Acts 15:21).

The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 was dealing with a specific issue; was it necessary for Gentiles to become proselytes and thus take on the full weight of the man-made laws of the Sages in order to be accepted within the Jewish community. The Council voiced a unified "no" to this question. Using "circumcision" as a shorthand designation for "the ritual of becoming a proselyte," the Council determined that the Gentiles would not need to be circumcised (i.e. become proselytes) in order to be received into the Torah community.

There was, however, the need to assure the Jewish community that those Gentiles who had confessed Jesus as Messiah had genuinely forsaken any form of idolatry. Since the Greek and Roman cultures were centered around idol worship with local pagan temples, it was important the Jewish community be able to receive the Gentile believers without any suspicion of remaining idolatry. The apostles, therefore, required the Gentiles to accept the extra-biblical, man-made laws regarding idolatry. These were:

  • They should not participate in any meal that was even remotely connected to idol worship.

  • They should not participate in any gathering or ceremony that involved the misuse of blood as a sacrificial element.

  • They should not involve themselves in any ritual or ceremony that involved the strangulation of animals, and they should be careful not to eat meat from animals killed through strangulation (something not uncommon in the pagan sacrificial rituals).

  • They should distance themselves from any contact with or support of the temple prostitutes and the fornication they represented in the pagan temple precincts.

While the written Torah surely prohibited any worship of the idols, the Sages had put a good number of fences in place to distance the people from contact with idolatry. These fences were extra-biblical, yet the apostles considered them essential in showing the clear break the Gentile believers had made with idolatry.

But since they were man-made and not directly from Scripture, they were part of the yoke of oral Torah, the burden that the Sages had laid upon the written Scriptures. While the apostles were unwilling to put the Gentiles under the full weight of the traditions - something not even the Jewish people had been able to bear - they did see the need to require the Gentiles to keep this rabbinic teaching. Only such a requirement could have fully satisfied the Jewish community that the Gentile believers had made a radical break from their former idol worship.