Albert Barnes Commentary Acts 21:25

"But as touching the Gentiles that have believed, we wrote, giving judgment that they should keep themselves from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from fornication." — Acts 21:25 (ASV)

As touching the Gentiles. This refers to the Gentile converts. It might have been advisable for Paul to do what could not be required of the Gentiles. They could not command the Gentile converts to observe those ceremonies, yet it might have been proper, for the sake of peace, for the converts to Christianity from among the Jews to regard them. The conduct of the Christians at Jerusalem in giving this advice, and of Paul in following it, can be easily defended.

If it is objected, as it has been by skeptics, that this looks like double-dealing—that it was designed to deceive the Jews in Jerusalem and make them believe Paul actually conformed to the ceremonial law, when his conduct among the Gentiles showed he did not—we may reply with the following points:

1. That the observance of that law was not necessary for justification.
2. That it would have been improper to have required its observance from the Gentile converts as necessary, and therefore it was never done.
3. That when the Jews urged its observance as necessary for justification and salvation, Paul strenuously opposed this view of it everywhere.
4. Yet, as a matter of practical wisdom, he did not oppose its observance by the Jews or by the converts made among the Jews.

In fact, there is other evidence besides the case before us that Paul himself continued to observe at least some of the Jewish rites; his conduct in public at Jerusalem was in strict accordance with his conduct in other places . The sum of the whole matter is this: when the observance of the Jewish ceremonial law was urged as necessary for justification and acceptance with God, Paul resisted it. When it was demanded that its observance should be required of the Gentiles, he opposed it. In all other cases, he made no opposition to it and was ready himself to comply with it, and willing that others should also.

We have written. See Barnes on Acts 15:20, 29.