Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 16:3

"Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and he took and circumcised him because of the Jews that were in those parts: for they all knew that his father was a Greek." — Acts 16:3 (ASV)

Why, after all the discussion in Jerusalem, would Paul circumcise Timothy?

Some commentators even question whether Paul actually did this. But while Paul stoutly resisted any imposition of circumcision and the Jewish law upon his Gentile converts (e.g., Titus), he himself continued to live as an observant Jew and urged his converts to express their Christian faith through the cultural forms they had inherited (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:17–24). As for Timothy, because of his Jewish mother, he was a Jew in the eyes of the Jewish world. Therefore, it was both proper and expedient for Paul to circumcise him. As Paul saw it, being a good Christian did not mean being a bad Jew. Rather, it meant being a fulfilled Jew. Paul had no desire to flout Jewish scruples in his endeavor to bring both Jews and Gentiles to salvation in Christ. Similarly, there is no reason to think he would have refused to deliver the decision of the Jerusalem Council to his Galatian converts and every reason to believe he would—particularly if he had written Galatians to them earlier and was now able to say that the Jerusalem leaders supported his position.