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8. Is the Torah for Gentiles?

The overwhelming evidence of Scripture testifies that Gentile believers are just as obligated to stop sinning (walking in sin) once they receive Christ as a Jew is! Therefore, that means they, along with believing Jews, are to stop blatantly, willfully, violating the Laws of God (i.e. the Torah); however, the only way they can do this is to FIRST have faith in Jesus Christ. But, once they have faith, and receive a new heart of flesh (with the Torah written right on it according to the New Covenant relationship they have with Messiah), they are also free from their bondage to sin and enabled to submit to God's commandments with both a right heart and with right actions.

The Word of God itself testifies numerous times here and elsewhere saying,

"There is to be one Torah (Law) and one ordinance for you and for the alien (Gentile) who sojourns (attaches himself/herself) with you” (Numbers 15:16), and

“The same Torah (Law) shall apply to the native as to the stranger (gentile) who sojourns (i.e attaches himself/herself literally in this context as well as by faith in Israel's God, which applies in our context also today) among you (i.e. Israel, God's covenant people not just “Jews” or physical descendant from the House of Judah, aka the three tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi)” Exodus 12:49.

Many of the laws of Torah explicitly obligate the “sojourner (gentile) who stays with you” (Exodus 20:10) to follow the exact same rules that are applicable to those of faith within natural born Israel. And of course this makes perfect sense because we know God is no respecter of persons (Rom 2:11). All of God’s children have to live by the SAME HOUSE RULES, just like any adopted kid would have to obey the same house rules as the natural born kid.


The illogical idea that God would expect different rules to apply to different people based solely on their ethnicity is complete hogwash and not supported by the biblical text. The story of Ruth the Moabite and Boaz the (Hebrew) is a prime example of both Jew and gentile acting in faith to the God of Israel (as one new man) not simply by the letter of the law, i.e. meeting the very minimum requirements to check off the box that they obeyed some specific nuance of a command in the Torah, but through their lives we see their HEARTS of LOVE lived according to God's Torah (Law) by FAITH, and demonstrated in the numerous ways Ruth and Boaz WALKED out their FAITH in obedience to God's commandments by the literal interpretation, BUT ACCORDING to the SPIRIT of the Law (written on the heart) in accordance with the letter of the Law, written on paper.  Without an application of BOTH the letter (literal physical application) and the Spirit (letter written on the heart and walked out according to God’s intentions behind the command in the first place), Ruth and Boaz would not today be the shining examples of people of faith that we know that they are.


The Prophets testify of a coming Messianic age when all nations will learn the Torah (Law) of God (Isaiah 2:2–3) and they ALL will keep the Appointed Times of God detailed in the Torah, like the Sabbath (Isaiah 66:23) and Feasts of the Lord (see Zechariah 14:16–17).


Obedience to God’s Torah is a component of discipleship. Yeshua/Jesus demonstrated HOW his disciples were to understand and obey the Torah (Law) of God and live it out such that they could through their actions proclaim the Gospel message! If the Gentile believer desires to imitate Jesus and DO WHAT JESUS DID, than a large part of that process in the daily life of the believer is going to be studying and understanding the Torah (Law) of God and bringing it to bear in their life. Jesus commanded His disciples to “make disciples of all the nations … teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). Among the commandments of Jesus is the commandment to uphold and practice the laws of Torah (Matthew 5:17–19), according to His "halachah,” (from the root word that means to walk), which means according to the manner in which Yeshua/Jesus lived out (or walked) and obeyed God's commandments.

In Acts 15, where the Apostles debate the question of a Gentile's inclusion within the community of faith, they decide to require four basic minimum standards for fellowship while Gentiles learn the truths of Torah within the synagogues. This ruling, at the very least, places Gentiles on a trajectory toward Torah observance; however, they were clear to make sure their ruling was not to be understood as "conditions for SALVATION," clearly these are conditions of fellowship within a greater historical context to which these previous pagans were going to enter in:


"Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood. For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he [i.e. The Torah] is read in the synagogues every Sabbath." (Acts 15:19–21)

Clearly the assumption made in the verse above is that Gentiles coming to faith will have the natural opportunity to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) as they hear the Torah read each week in the synagogues in cities everywhere, and that this process of growth will occur as a natural part of their discipleship under the Master Himself through the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Therefore, no further prerequisites [specifically not ritual conversion (or in the short hand language of that day, “circumcision”) to gain the status as a Jew] nor any other externally forced observances should be placed on gentiles coming to faith as a "condition" before they may enter into the community and fellowship within the synagogues.


It was the job of the Holy Spirit alone to do the transforming of the new believer, not other men; however, the art of true discipleship is achieved when the pupil looks, acts, walks and talks like his Master. Therefore, any believer who desires to act, walk, talk and be "like" His Master, Jesus, will have to confront the fact that discipleship of Jesus means walking by God's commandments according to the Torah of God.

John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.


”John 14:21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who love Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.

”John 14:23-24 “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My Word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My Words; and the Word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.”

John 15:10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”


I don’t know how much more clear Christ could be (both in Word and personal deed), and John even gives us the full effect in his text by choosing to repeat what Christ must have likely said on numerous occasions (i.e. “keep my commandments”) and very likely Christ said this even more times than that which John records here.


It is obvious to me that when a believer “keeps God’s commandments,” he/she is enabled to continue to “abide in Christ;” however, this process MUST start from a position of faith (salvation) having been declared clean by Christ, otherwise our efforts to abide will end up in legalism, manipulation or distortion of God’s commands, and/or all manner of religious mumbo-jumbo that counts for nothing.