Do you think Easter is Christian?

Der Alter said:

"Acts 20:6 Paul keeps unleavened bread in a gentile city."
"Acts 20:16 he hurries to keep Pentecost." Paul was a Jew and kept Torah while he was with Jews. 1 Corinthians 9:20-21

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Goodness! You have a serious problem understanding the English language!

This is what Acts 20:6 says, "But we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days joined them at Troas, where we stayed seven days." - scripture does not imply "Paul keeps unleavened bread in a gentile city" but rather that Paul SAILED AWAY from Philippi AFTER THE DAYS of Unleavened Bread. It does not say that Paul "sailed away after observing the Days of Unleavened Bread". There's a big difference!

It's like saying, Mary left New York after Christmas Day. Does it imply that Mary celebrated Christmas in New York? Or do you assume she did, just as you assume that "Paul keeps unleavened bread in a gentile city" after reading Acts 20:6?


As for Acts 20:16, "For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he would not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hurrying to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the Day of Pentecost." - where on earth did you get "Paul was a Jew and kept Torah while he was with Jews" from Acts 20 or anywhere in the epistles? If Paul did keep the Torah, it was when he was a Pharisee before he got converted on his way to Damascus.

And if Paul did keep the Torah after his conversion, why would he write this about his previous walk as a Pharisee (who happens to be people who had the zeal for the Torah), "If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:4-8)

Finally, if Paul or the apostles did keep the Torah as you implied, why would they be rebuking the council of the Sanhedrin in the book of Acts, which were made up of religious leaders who held closely to the Torah or the laws of God? Weren't some of the apostles including Paul imprisoned for their comments about Jesus Christ? Gee, I wonder why since Paul was a law keeper as you imply.

It's truly amazing how you twist and turn scriptures to suit your carnal understanding of what's written in the Holy Bible to justify all kinds of funny assertions.

TomorrowsWorld said:

. . . 1 Thessalonians 1:14 this gentile city became imitators of the Jewish churches in Judea. . . .

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Did you read this before you posted? Is this supposed to be scriptural evidence that Jews and gentile Christians worshiped and fellowshipped together in complete accord? Here is that proof text in-context.

Chris Tan said:

Goodness! You have a serious problem understanding the English language!

This is what Acts 20:6 says, "But we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days joined them at Troas, where we stayed seven days." - scripture does not imply "Paul keeps unleavened bread in a gentile city" but rather that Paul SAILED AWAY from Philippi AFTER THE DAYS of Unleavened Bread. It does not say that Paul "sailed away after observing the Days of Unleavened Bread". There's a big difference!

It's like saying, Mary left New York after Christmas Day. Does it imply that Mary celebrated Christmas in New York? Or do you assume she did, just as you assume that "Paul keeps unleavened bread in a gentile city" after reading Acts 20:6?

As for Acts 20:16, "For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he would not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hurrying to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the Day of Pentecost." - where on earth did you get "Paul was a Jew and kept Torah while he was with Jews" from Acts 20 or anywhere in the epistles? If Paul did keep the Torah, it was when he was a Pharisee before he got converted on his way to Damascus.

And if Paul did keep the Torah after his conversion, why would he write this about his previous walk as a Pharisee (who happens to be people who had the zeal for the Torah), "If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:4-8)

Finally, if Paul or the apostles did keep the Torah as you implied, why would they be rebuking the council of the Sanhedrin in the book of Acts, which were made up of religious leaders who held closely to the Torah or the laws of God? Weren't some of the apostles including Paul imprisoned for their comments about Jesus Christ? Gee, I wonder why since Paul was a law keeper as you imply.

It's truly amazing how you twist and turn scriptures to suit your carnal understanding of what's written in the Holy Bible to justify all kinds of funny assertions.

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Der Alter said:

Acts of the Apostles 21:22-24
(22) What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come.
(23) Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them;
(24) Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.

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As usual, you do not quote nor read in context of what is written. Have you thought to quote or read from verses 15 to 21 before you decided to use verses 22-24?

Der Alter said:

Acts of the Apostles 24:18 Whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult.

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Again, context! Try reading or quoting in context as to what the apostle was relating in his defense before the governor Felix. In verse 18, the apostle Paul was talking about his past when he was a Pharisee. Goodness!

Der Alter said:

1 Corinthians 9:19-21
(19) For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
(20) And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
(21) To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.

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Have you tried reading from verse 1 to 3 at the start of 1 Corinthians 9?

"Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If I am not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord."

What do you think Paul was saying here? You think he was confused as to who he was serving and a slave to? I think not.

Der Alter said:

Acts of the Apostles 21:22-24
(22) What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come.
(23) Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them;
(24) Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.

Acts of the Apostles 24:18 Whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult.

1 Corinthians 9:19-21
(19) For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
(20) And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
(21) To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.
Act 18:18 And Paul after this tarried there yet a good while, and then took his leave of the brethren, and sailed thence into Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila; having shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he had a vow.
​

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And oh, by the ways, when Paul wrote the epistles, did you know that he ceased to be a Pharisee? That's because he was the beneficiary of the wonderful grace of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Chris Tan said:

As usual, you do not quote nor read in context of what is written. Have you thought to quote or read from verses 15 to 21 before you decided to use verses 22-24?

Again, context! Try reading or quoting in context as to what the apostle was relating in his defense before the governor Felix. In verse 18, the apostle Paul was talking about his past when he was a Pharisee. Goodness!

Have you tried reading from verse 1 to 3 at the start of 1 Corinthians 9?

"Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If I am not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord."

What do you think Paul was saying here? You think he was confused as to who he was serving and a slave to? I think not.

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Wrong! Nothing you said here changes anything. In Acts of the Apostles 21:22-24, which I quoted, Paul had just returned to Jerusalem from Antioch where he, Peter, James and other church leaders determined that gentile Christians were only required to observe 4 specific things; avoid things offered to idols, blood, things strangled and fornication, which is repeated in vs. 25. Immediately before this Paul agreed to take a Nazarite vow to show the Jewish leaders he still respected Torah. That Paul chose to show respect for Torah, while with Jews, did not make him a slave to it.
In Acts of the Apostles 24:18 Paul was talking about what happened in Acts 21:20-24 not before he was a Christian.

Chris Tan said:

And oh, by the ways, when Paul wrote the epistles, did you know that he ceased to be a Pharisee? That's because he was the beneficiary of the wonderful grace of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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This was when Roman soldiers rescued Paul from a Jewish lynch mob before he appealed to Caesar and was taken to Rome, not before he became a Christian.

Der Alter said:

The decision of Peter, Paul, James and the church leaders is repeated three times and in none of the accounts is salvation even mentioned.

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Here you'll find the original question:

What is mentioned in Acts 21:24-25 the council explicitly stated that they gave no command to keep the law.

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And rightly so, as I said before: The purpose of the law is not salvatory - NO ONE has ever been saved by the law.

And there is no command that gentile Christians go to synagogue.

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The synagogue goes without saying - 'The Way' was a sect of Judaism at the time, and remained so until far after the fall of the Temple.

Act 15:19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:
20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. ​

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So it is your proposition that this alone is the governable law for all Christians? It is an absurdity on it's face.

Act 21:24 Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law. ​

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WHO is to walk orderly and keep the law? Why the men the letter was addressed to, I'd suppose:


AND WHY, if not to serve as an example for these new converts whose heads were thus shaven...

Throughout the book of Acts Paul is being persecuted for his Christian beliefs, why would gentile Christians be allowed in the synagogues? There is no record that gentile Christians attended synagogues regularly [...]

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Absolutely untrue. A short perusal of the searched word (synagogue/synagogues) in Acts is quite revealing. Paul was working out of synagogues, amost always...

And one might lean also upon the bias of the interpreters, because often in the text, 'synagogue' and 'church' are derived from the very same word.

[...] they were certainly not allowed in the temple.

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What then was the Court of the Gentiles used for?

Strong in Him said:

The forummer who said that it doesn't really matter is correct; we could get to heaven and find out that he died on a Wednesday, or Thursday, or that we should have had a fixed date for Easter. If that is correct, they are minor infringements and will, I believe, be forgiven.

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Forgiveness is not the point. The point is the preservation of the whole message - of the original images that YHWH created in HIS feasts - How you may choose to keep christmas and easter is wholly a matter of indifference - It is the distraction they cause from that which YHWH declared and appointed. The magician and the con artist use distraction.

prodromos said:

Paul was witnessing to the believing Jews and Gentiles in the Synagogues on the Sabbath because hardly anyone would have been there on the other days of the week.

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Did you ever stop to think about how he was given the floor to speak?

prodromos said:

He was an apostle for Christ, which supersedes whatever he was before. Also not sure he could have ever been a rabbi seeing as he was unmarried.

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He can hardly have been an 'Hebrew among Hebrews' without having been married. The question will never be solved, but it is likely he had been married, as the norm demands in his culture.

Chris Tan said:

Are you serious? Is that what your pastor told you to quote saying that the Sabbath is to be kept by Christians today?

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My pastor? No, my Master, Yeshua, said it in his very own words. I follow HIM. He ratified Moses into the new covenant with those very words. Heaven and earth have not passed, not all is fulfilled in either the Law or the Prophets - So the Law remains.

Let me demonstrate to you your erroneous understanding of some of the verses you quote. For example Matthew 5:19. Was Christ saying that the Christian must keep all the laws that is written in Leviticus? Did you not read Matthew 22:34-40

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Believe it or not, he was teaching Torah with that statement.

So what is the "two commandments" that Christ is referring to when there are more than six hundred commandments in Leviticus for you to follow?

It's the commandment to "LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" and "LOVE your neighbor as yourself". It's the command to LOVE!

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The 'big two' are a summary of the 'big ten', which are a summary of the whole Law, as any Jew can tell you. The question then becomes, HOW do you love YHWH with all your heart, and HOW do you love your neighbor as yourself?

NOTE: The verses you quoted does not even have a command to keep the Sabbath which happens to be in the ten commandments. Are you saying keep only the Sabbath and the rest is insignificant?

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Sure it says to keep Sabbath - It says to keep the whole Law. Not one jot or tittle shall pass until all is fulfilled - that's all of the Law, and all of the Prophets... Which should answer the second part of your question sufficiently.

Did you not read James 2:10, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all." However, you have taken it to another level. Wow!

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I AM guilty of all, and so are you.

Chris Tan said:

Seriously? I would sure love to see where in the Garden did God tell Adam about keeping the Sabbath.

Please show me.

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What does it mean to 'sanctify' it?

Does repentance to God comes first to mind after knowing that you have sinned against Him? Or do you have no need of that to be reminded?

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Close... So close. So isn't part of repentance to 'go and sin no more'? How do you know what sin is without Torah?
For instance, if your church says homosexuality is just fine, but Torah says it is an abomination, You can judge those teachers by the Torah, and know they aren't speaking the truth.

Once again, please show me which apostle who wrote Acts and the epistles were telling Christians that they are to keep the Torah. And for your information, the Torah were given to the Jews. But that aside, show me where the apostles told the Christians in the NT that they were to keep the ten commandments and the many other laws written in Leviticus. Please I beg you.

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There are many examples of His disciples keeping Torah. James says to keep the law. Paul says to keep the Law, John says to keep the Law... There are many examples of them keeping the Holy Days...

But that really isn't the point - As disciples, they must preserve the words and deeds of their Master - They cannot gainsay what he said or did, or they are no longer disciples. Yeshua absolutely said to keep Torah. And he taught Torah every day.

And further more, they MUST keep Torah, or it is commanded *not* to listen to them. Torah is the eternal touchstone.

Chris Tan said:

"What the disciples were doing WAS lawful on the Sabbath?" Was it lawful to do anything let alone work on the sabbath? According to the command of observing the Sabbath in the OT, Gold instructed Moses:

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Show me in the Torah that it is 'work' to peel heads of grain and munch on them as you walk along. I will save you the trouble - it isn't there (But it is specifically and exactly noted in the Talmud).

And according to your reply, I suppose you think it is true that the cow cannot be milked, nor the animals fed and watered on the Sabbath... How is it 'doing good' for the animals to suffer on your account?

nomadictheist said:

Circumcision was part of the Torah, as was only eating specific kinds of meat. So were sacrifices. So were many elements that were only a shadow of things to come.

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Hold on there...

Of the other commandments, Jesus speaks clearly things such as "You have heard that it was said, 'you shall not commit adultery,' but I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart..."

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Typical midrash - He is 'fulfilling' Torah.

Of the Sabbath, however, He says "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."

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Right... as he has always been... So how is it that you take it to mean something less?

He says also "is it lawful to do good or to do evil on the Sabbath?"
And "Have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless?"
Also, "Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

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Right... with you so far... and all of that squares perfectly with Torah. Do you find somehow that it doesn't?

Now, insofar as keeping the Sabbath, we see in the Old Testament that it is to be commemorative of redemption:

"And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day."

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It is but one aspect of the command - A free people gets a day off. An enslaved people does not.
The main aspect remains what it always has been, as it is written:


The Sabbath is foremost a celebration of the Creation - that is why it is forbidden to 'create' on it, to the point of not even building a fire...

But let's say that it is the Sabbath, in the dead of winter, and the fire died during the night - And a gust of wind blew out the candle, lit before the Sabbath began... Are you to freeze to death, or suffer the terrible cold, or should you build a fire anyway?

The Pharisee would say. "Die or be damned!" But I don't think that has ever been true.

So the early church began meeting on the first day of the week - in commemoration of the day that our Lord arose from the grave and thus completed His work of redemption. Thus, the first day of the week was referred to as the "Lord's Day" by the early church, and even by John in the book of Revelation.

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The Early church was meeting in a Havdalah - Saturday evening - An extension of the Sabbath, and likely where the Christian penchant for potluck comes from.

And John was not referring to Sunday.

TomorrowsWorld said:

Actually the correct translation is " but the body of Christ" ... Which is the church of God..
Paul is saying don't let others judge you based on how you keep the Sabbath ... Let the body of Christ, or the church judge you on these things..

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Actually, I would take it as 'the body is of Messiah'- That it follows it's Head. Yeshua is the example.

roamer_1 said:

Hold on there...

Col 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
Col 2:17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

(e-Sword:KJV)​

Typical midrash - He is 'fulfilling' Torah.



Right... as he has always been... So how is it that you take it to mean something less?



Right... with you so far... and all of that squares perfectly with Torah. Do you find somehow that it doesn't?



It is but one aspect of the command - A free people gets a day off. An enslaved people does not.
The main aspect remains what it always has been, as it is written:

Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Exo 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
Exo 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. ​

The Sabbath is foremost a celebration of the Creation - that is why it is forbidden to 'create' on it, to the point of not even building a fire...

But let's say that it is the Sabbath, in the dead of winter, and the fire died during the night - And a gust of wind blew out the candle, lit before the Sabbath began... Are you to freeze to death, or suffer the terrible cold, or should you build a fire anyway?

The Pharisee would say. "Die or be damned!" But I don't think that has ever been true.




The Early church was meeting in a Havdalah - Saturday evening - An extension of the Sabbath, and likely where the Christian penchant for potluck comes from.

And John was not referring to Sunday.

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Every biblical scholar up until recently said differently. We know that Christians as early as the first century AD called Sunday "the Lord's Day," so there is absolutely no reason to believe this is not what John was talking about.

The Bible makes reference to the church meeting on the first day of the week. There has been no reason for anyone to doubt this for... what - 18 centuries? And then suddenly scholars come along and say "aha! We've learned better than those who actually lived in those times!"

I'll go with the church fathers, whose understanding of these events dates back to less than a century after they occurred.

roamer_1 said:

Hold on there...

Col 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
Col 2:17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

(e-Sword:KJV)​

Typical midrash - He is 'fulfilling' Torah.



Right... as he has always been... So how is it that you take it to mean something less?



Right... with you so far... and all of that squares perfectly with Torah. Do you find somehow that it doesn't?



It is but one aspect of the command - A free people gets a day off. An enslaved people does not.
The main aspect remains what it always has been, as it is written:

Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Exo 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
Exo 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. ​

The Sabbath is foremost a celebration of the Creation - that is why it is forbidden to 'create' on it, to the point of not even building a fire...

But let's say that it is the Sabbath, in the dead of winter, and the fire died during the night - And a gust of wind blew out the candle, lit before the Sabbath began... Are you to freeze to death, or suffer the terrible cold, or should you build a fire anyway?

The Pharisee would say. "Die or be damned!" But I don't think that has ever been true.




The Early church was meeting in a Havdalah - Saturday evening - An extension of the Sabbath, and likely where the Christian penchant for potluck comes from.

And John was not referring to Sunday.

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Define "early Church."

roamer_1 said:

Forgiveness is not the point. The point is the preservation of the whole message - of the original images that YHWH created in HIS feasts -.

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The point is that Easter is the time when we remember our Saviour's atoning death on the cross and his glorious resurrection - when he lay down his life to save us from death and hell.
Christmas in the time when we remember and celebrate that God himself came into our world - the word became flesh.

roamer_1 said:

How you may choose to keep christmas and easter is wholly a matter of indifference -

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I would have thought it was a matter of great importance.
If someone doesn't believe in God, or Jesus, then they might treat Good Friday like any other day - except for hot cross buns, which they may eat for no reason other than that they taste good. Similarly, Easter Sunday may just be about eating chocolate eggs/rabbits/chickens, wearing Easter bonnets or whatever.
If you are a Christian, however, you may go to services on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Your church may hold a 3 hour devotional on Good Friday, around the cross. Jesus dying for our sins and being raised to life again is the heart of the Gospel.

roamer_1 said:

- It is the distraction they cause from that which YHWH declared and appointed. The magician and the con artist use distraction.

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I don't find them distracting - not unless I choose to celebrate them as the world does.

Satan creates distractions too, and if he can't stop the church from remembering the time when Jesus defeated him on the cross, he whispers things like, "it's a shame that that lot down the road have got the wrong day, or month; you really should go and tell them and show that you have the truth." Then he can cause arguments between churches, or in the same church, and people get so intent on proving that they are right, they take their eyes off the cross and forget about taking the Gospel to a needy world. Job done.

roamer_1 said:

Here you'll find the original question:

Act 15:1 And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.
Act 15:2 When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.

(e-Sword:KJV)​

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Irrelevant! The "original question" is never mentioned again after Acts 15:1 and is not mentioned in any of the three statements including the letter which was sent out to the gentiles.

And rightly so, as I said before: The purpose of the law is not salvatory - NO ONE has ever been saved by the law.

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Irrelevant. Salvation is never mentioned after vs. 1. The letter which was sent to the gentiles said simply no command was given to keep the law, nothing was said about salvation.

The synagogue goes without saying - 'The Way' was a sect of Judaism at the time, and remained so until far after the fall of the Temple.

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Assumption, with no supporting scripture.

So it is your proposition that this alone is the governable law for all Christians? It is an absurdity on it's face.

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That is not my position at all.

WHO is to walk orderly and

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keep the law? Why the men the letter was addressed to, I'd suppose:

Act 15:23 And they wrote letters by them after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia:​

AND WHY, if not to serve as an example for these new converts whose heads were thus shaven...

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Nonsense, twisting scripture out-of-context. "Walk orderly and keep the law" was not in a letter sent to gentile Christians, that was a conversation between the elders in Jerusalem and Paul


Only Paul and the four men who made the vow with him shaved their heads. This passage specifically says the elders gave no such command to keep the law as Paul did.

Absolutely untrue. A short perusal of the searched word (synagogue/synagogues) in Acts is quite revealing. Paul was working out of synagogues, amost always...

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Paul as a circumcised Jew could come and go freely in the temple and synagogues, and he said "unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews;" 1 Corinthians 9:20.

And one might lean also upon the bias of the interpreters, because often in the text, 'synagogue' and 'church' are derived from the very same word.

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I think not! the word "church" occurs 80 times in the NT it is always translated from ἐκκλησία/ekklesia. The word "synagogue" occurs 41 times and is always translated from συναγωγή/sunagoge.

What then was the Court of the Gentiles used for?

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Gentiles were not allowed into the temple proper and there is no unequivocal evidence that gentile Christians regularly attended synagogues. I don't think Jesus was wrong when He said that His followers would be thrown out of the Synagogues. John 16:2.