There is a difference between then and now. The rabbis have had almost 2000 years to warp Judaism into an anti-christian cocoon wrapped around the Jewish people.
Thats a really awful thing to say.
You did not mention buying something to eat. Sitting in McDonald's and using your laptop is not breaking Shabbat unless you are doing business on it. Or, unless you buy into tradition.
Using a computer on Shabbat is a violation of doing work all in itself. This is a universal understood by
all Jews. How would
you define מְלָאכָה
mlachah (used most commonly in the Torah to refer to craftsmanship or handiwork)? Traditionally, it is defined in 39 categories of things that were performed in the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness. The commandment specifically says that you will do no
mlachah on Shabbat. In fact, even
sitting in McDonalds is enough to violate Shabbat, since those who pass by (if they know me not that anyone in New York knows me!) would
assume that I had bought something to eat. (I didnt of course. I was sitting there because of the free Internet, with my computer and book that Im reading.)
Set Peter and Paul into today. The gentiles they were with were not just any gentiles off the street, but those who were followers of Yeshua and the Torah, namely messianics of today.
What we see in the Acts of the Apostles is a letter written to forbid Gentile believers from eating three things: (1) meat offered to idols; (2) blood; and, (3) the meat of strangled animals. This is a far cry from the kosher standards of Jewish food, even assuming differences between then and now. We can actually be certain that Paul didnt teach even
these restrictions, since he stated outright in his writings that we know an idol is nothing and that anyone who eats the meat sacrified to idols does so with faith and is not guilty before God. He specifically said that those who do not eat should not judge those who do, and those who eat should not look down on those who do not eat whom he described as weak of faith.
1 Corinthians 8:4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that An idol is nothing at all in the world and that There is no God but one. 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many gods and many lords), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
7 But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. 8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.
9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idols temple, wont that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. (NIV)
There is no reason to imagine that Paul did not teach this very thing in his congregation in Antioch, and it was the weak conscience of those who came from James that caused Peter, Barnabas and the rest of the Jews to fall into hypocrisy (in Romans 14, he does not say weak
conscience but weak
faith that keeps someone from eating all things).
If messianics can eat clean today, and some even keep fully kosher, why couldn't those that Peter ate with? The problem wasn't with the food, but the company he kept which broke the tradition of not eating with non-Jews.
The problem was
very much with the food. A Jew who ate in the home of a Gentile was considered defiled because of the types of things that they brought into their homes as food in addition to the stereotypical practices of Gentiles at the time. Your failure to acknowledge this is striking. The issue was
certainly that James emissaries had come to see what was going on in Pauls congregations, and when they found Peter and the others eating things that were forbidden, they called them out for it and at their instigation, Peter withdrew from fellowship with the congregation. Paul was steamed and called him on the carpet for it, stating that he was essentially destroying the work of God. Elsewhere (in Ephesians) it is at least claimed that Paul wrote about the work of God bringing down the division between the two bodies Jews and Gentiles and he states that this division was brought down through the cross.
Ephesians 2:14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two [that is, the circumcision (Jews) and uncircumcision (Gentiles) as expressed above in this chapter], thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with Gods people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. (New International Version)
The fact that Peter, Barnabas and the rest withdrew from the Gentiles represented to Paul a failure to recognize the completed work of God, and it was all about their insistence on the importance of keeping Torah. Paul opposed them staunchly and vehemently, making it clear that Jesus death was an abolishment of the Torah and the Mitzvah (commandment) and that through the cross there was no longer any dividing barrier between Jew and Gentile, but that all would have access to God in the same way and that was
without Torah.
Romans 3:21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. (New International Version)
The phrase apart from the law here in Greek is χωρὶς νόμου, without law. The righteousness of God that Paul preached was without the Torah. He said it so often and in so many ways that it should be clear enough.
