“These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews, and are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.” Acts 16:20-21  NASB

Being Jews/ being Romans – This century is the second first century.  It is exactly like the first century view of religious practice twenty centuries later.  If we don’t understand this parallel, we will entirely miss the point of the complaint against Paul and Silas.  We will think that these Gentiles, the Roman citizens of Philippi, are illegitimately complaining against the salvation message of the gospel.  We will read this story as if it is about our worldview based on the truth of the Bible.  Therefore, we won’t comprehend the real reason for this legitimate complaint and we won’t see that the 21^st century is repeating the same story as the 1^st century in Philippi.

The crux of the argument of the citizens of Philippi hangs on these two phrases, “being Jews” and “being Romans.”  Why should this make any difference?  Wasn’t Philippi a pagan colony of Rome, replete with pagan gods and their devotees’ practices?  Who would care if one more deity showed up?  No one – except if the new practitioners claimed that all other gods were fictitious, useless lies.  You see, in Roman civilization you could have as many gods as you wished as long as you didn’t impede others from worshipping whatever gods they wanted to worship.  Religion was not a matter of conversion.  It was a matter of birth.  Every person was born into a particular cult and Rome was quite willing to embrace them all.  The real offense was the claim that there was only one God!  That was a crime because it threatened the peace of profligate polytheism.  Believe whatever you wish – just as long as you don’t start telling others that they have to believe it too.  Paula Fredriksen remarks, “For pagan Gentiles, multiple religious allegiances were entirely normal; indeed, traditional polytheism encouraged this sort of openness.”[1] Hmm.  Does that sound like today’s “Your beliefs are yours and mine are mine.  You have no right to tell me what to believe!”?  If we want to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah, no problem as long as we don’t push that belief on others.  Once more we have arrived at the first century where religion is a matter of cultural bias, place of birth and nationality.

Once we clearly understand the impact of this first century point of view, we can settle the constant confusion about the Jerusalem council in Acts 15.  The decision to hold Gentile converts to four things is not about a minimal Torah!  It’s about the first century accommodation to polytheism.  Gentiles would have been more than happy to embrace the teachings of Yeshua and the God of Israel as long as they didn’t have to give up any of the other gods.  That’s what James requires.  To have table fellowship with followers of the Way, you must abandon the behaviors of pagan worship.  Exclusivity is the big issue in that day.  It is the same today.  There is THE WAY and then there are all the pretenders to THE WAY.  You simply can’t have it all.  You have to choose.

Topical Index:  polytheism, Gentiles, Acts 16:20, Acts 15