Are you absolutely sure we are not to keep "the law" (aka Torah)? I can show you over 10 examples of Paul, Peter, etc. keeping the Torah after the resurrection.
The Renewed Covenant (aka New Testament) is replete with examples proving that Paul, the disciples and Gentile converts were all
keeping the Mosaic Law after the Resurrection.
I Corinthians 5:7-8 7 “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
Why is Paul instructing Gentile converts on how to keep the Passover Feast? Isn’t that part of the Mosaic Law that was nailed to the cross?
I Corinthians 10:16 “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?”
The “cup of blessing” is a toast in the Passover Seder meal. Corinth was a prosperous, immoral and pagan city whose Christian church was dominated by Gentile converts. How and why do these Gentile converts know about the Passover celebration if they are not to keep the feasts?
Acts 6:11-14 Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, "We have heard Stephen speak words of blasphemy against Moses and against YHWH." 12 So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. 13 They produced false witnesses, who testified, "This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. 14 For we have heard him say that this Yahushua of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us."
For these people to be labeled as false witnesses what they are testifying to must be false. In other words, Yahushua of Nazareth did not change the customs of Moses.
Acts 15:19-21 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: [SUP]20 [/SUP]But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.[SUP]21 [/SUP]For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
There is a lot going on here. Paul is giving these Gentile converts “the heart of Torah” as a foundation. “The Heart of Torah” is Leviticus 17-18. It is the physical middle of Torah and also provides the foundation for “holiness”. Anyone who engages in idolatry, sexual immorality or forbidden foods is “cut off” from the community. These babes in Messiah are given very basic Torah instructions to follow because (as verse 21 connotes) “When you go to synagogue every 7[SUP]th[/SUP] day Sabbath you will learn much more Mosaic law then.”
Acts 16:20 And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, 16:21 And teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans.
Everyone knows what customs the Jews are known for teaching, they were not teaching xmas and sun-day Sabbath.
Acts18:21 But bade them farewell, saying, I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem: but I will return again unto you, if YHWH will. And he sailed from Ephesus.
Paul must keep the feast because it is a commandment, and being a Torah obedient disciple he attends the feast
Acts 20:6 And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days.
Why would Paul be concerned or even mention a Festival that was “done away with” in 30AD?
Acts 20:16 For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus, because he would not spend the time in Asia: for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost.
Repeat: Why would Paul be concerned or even mention a Festival that was “done away with” in 30AD?
Acts 24:14 But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the Eloah of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Torah and in the prophets:
Paul under oath tells us point blank that he worships YHWH by following all that is in the Torah after the Resurrection.
Acts 25:8 While he answered for himself, Neither against the Torah of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended any thing at all.
Paul again testifies that he honored Torah after the Resurrection.
Acts 24:5-6 “For we have found this man (Paul) a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes: Who also hath gone about to profane the temple: whom we took, and would have judged according to our law.”
The Nazarenes are Jews that believed Yahushua was the Messiah. Epiphanius, an early church member, has this to say about them:
"We shall now especially consider
heretics who call themselves Nazarenes; they are mainly Jews and nothing else. They make use not only of the New Testament, but they also use in a way the Old Testament of the Jews. For they do not forbid the books of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings...so that they are approved of by the Jews, from whom the Nazarenes do not differ in anything,
and they do profess all the dogmas pertaining to the prescriptions of the Law and the customs of the Jews, except they believe in Messiah. They preach that there is but One YHWH and His Son Yahushua. They are learned in the Hebrew language, for they, like the Jews, read the whole Law, then the Prophets...
They differ from the Jews because they believe in Messiah, and from the Christians in that they are to this day bound to the Jewish rites such as circumcision, the Sabbath and other ceremonies."
According to the Scriptures,
Paul is the ringleader of this sect of Nazarenes. Paul kept and taught Torah.
Even in the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Century people could easily misunderstand Paul according to Peter:
2 Peter 3:15-16 “And account that the longsuffering of our Master is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.”
You can see that “iniquity” (lawlessness, without Torah) must have begun very early in the church after the stoning of Stephen. The separation of Gentile believers from the Torah was aided by growing anti-Semitism and after the Destruction of the Temple in 70AD.
Peace