Question: I have been reading SOME of your answer/questions on the Sabbath and diet laws. But I have not seen you mention the fact that Paul kept "preaching" on the Sabbath (as was his custom, like Jesus) long after Christ died, and that Peter never ate anything "unclean". Both these incidents happened many years after Christ died. If they did these as examples (imitators of Christ), shouldn’t we?

Nelson

Answer: Dear Nelson,

Thanks for your comments. Simply because someone in the bible, including Jesus, did or did not do something does not obligate Christians to follow. Jesus "kept" the Sabbath. Of course he did. He was a Jew. There were no Christians. No churches. Jesus would have been killed much earlier if he had started a church and worshipped on Sunday.

One of Jesus’ purposes in coming to save us was to keep the law perfectly, and to fulfill it, and then to give us his commandments – which he did. His commandments and teachings are based upon the old covenant, but they are not the same as the old covenant. Jesus kept it all, perfectly, without sin.

Peter had not eaten anything unclean because he was a Jew – a Jewish Christian, but still a Jew culturally. In fact, the whole point of Acts 10 was not that Christians should keep the dietary laws of the old covenant, but that Gentiles would be part of the church as well, and that they had a different culture, and that Christians don’t have to become Jews in order to be Christians (see Acts 15). You might want to read the account of the "discussion" that Paul and Peter had about this issue in Galatians 2.

Of course Paul preached in synagogues – for he went to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile. But he sought out those who were coming to Christ, who were leaving Judaism, and who Jesus was helping to see that He was the Rest (see Hebrews 4), not a day, not a period of time, but that He, Jesus, was Sabbath ("Come unto me, and I WILL GIVE YOU REST – see Matthew 11:28, and be sure to keep reading for the context in Matthew 12, when Jesus directly confronted the idea that worshipping a day – or worshipping on one special, unique, holy day – did not make anyone special, or holy). Paul made this point abundantly clear in the books he wrote – including Romans, Galatians, and Colossians – among others.

Hope this helps, Nelson.

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht