You're thinking of Matt 5:17-20. I'm not an expert on the early church, but I think what happened is that the early Christians were still observant Jews (which at that point meant involvement in the Jewish sacrificial system, as we're pre-70 AD and the Roman destruction of the Temple, so Judaism looked quite different to how it does today).
In the book of Acts, which is Luke's sequel to his gospel detailing what happened after Jesus had left, you can read about the Christians getting converts who were god-fearers (Gentiles sympathetic to Jewish thought) and just plain Gentiles. The apostle Paul founded a lot of Gentile churches, and it looks like he was telling them that if you're a Gentile, you don't need to become Jewish to follow Jesus. Some of the Jewish Christians gave conflicting advice to Paul's to some of the Gentile Christians, so you get letters like Galatians where Paul tells Gentiles that if they allow themselves to be circumcised "Christ will be of no value to you at all" (he also famously says he wishes the Jewish Christians who've been saying this would go the whole way and cut their dicks off).
Anyway, at some point (I'm not sure whether it's before or after Paul writes to the Galatians) there's a summit meeting in Jerusalem (where the Jewish Christian church is), and, if you believe Luke, they agree that the Gentile Christians don't need to keep the whole Law, only the really important bits.
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dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-10 10:14 am (UTC)In the book of Acts, which is Luke's sequel to his gospel detailing what happened after Jesus had left, you can read about the Christians getting converts who were god-fearers (Gentiles sympathetic to Jewish thought) and just plain Gentiles. The apostle Paul founded a lot of Gentile churches, and it looks like he was telling them that if you're a Gentile, you don't need to become Jewish to follow Jesus. Some of the Jewish Christians gave conflicting advice to Paul's to some of the Gentile Christians, so you get letters like Galatians where Paul tells Gentiles that if they allow themselves to be circumcised "Christ will be of no value to you at all" (he also famously says he wishes the Jewish Christians who've been saying this would go the whole way and cut their dicks off).
Anyway, at some point (I'm not sure whether it's before or after Paul writes to the Galatians) there's a summit meeting in Jerusalem (where the Jewish Christian church is), and, if you believe Luke, they agree that the Gentile Christians don't need to keep the whole Law, only the really important bits.