But just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of some crime or serious piece of villainy, I would have been justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews, but since it concerns points of disagreement about words and names and your own law, settle it yourselves. I will not be a judge of these things!”
Acts 18:14-15 NET
Acts 18:12-17 records an event that is interesting for two reasons. The first is that it helps us to tie Paul’s missionary work to a specific date. Gallio was the proconsul of Achia in A.D. 51-52. This supplies a firm date to Paul’s work in the city of Corinth and allows for dating much of the rest of his travels.
However, the more significant result of this event was setting a legal precedent. The Jewish community in Corinth brought charges against Paul before Gallio. They charged that he was “persuading people to worship God in a way contrary to the law” (Acts 18:13). It is possible that the law they referred to was Roman law, but it was more likely the Torah, the Jewish law.
Gallio understood this dispute to be an internal affair within the Jewish community. And he refused even to hear their case. He told the Jews that they needed to settle it for themselves. Gallio’s ruling made no distinction between the Christians and the Jews.
To Gallio, and thus, in the eyes of Rome, Judaism and Christianity constituted only a single religion. A position the two parties seemed to agree with. It was only later, with the destruction of Jerusalem and the increasingly Gentile nature of this Jewish sect, that Christianity became known as a distinct religion.
We could potentially identify many other causes for the split between Judaism and Christianity. But, as Christians, we should never forget the deep roots we have in Judaism. And we should pray for them to come to know Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah, healing the split between us (Rom. 11:11-24).
