***btchap.23pp.182-183“HearMyDefense”***
ManyStill“ZealousfortheLaw”(Acts21:20b, 21)
6 The elders then revealed to Paul that there was a problem in Judea that involved him personally. They said: “You behold, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews; and they are all zealous for the Law. But they have heard it rumored about you that you have been teaching all the Jews among the nations an apostasy from Moses, telling them neither to circumcise their children nor to walk in the solemn customs.”—Acts 21:20b, 21.
7 Why were so many Christians still zealous for the Mosaic Law, well over 20 years after it had been abolished? (Col. 2:14) In 49 C.E. the apostles and older men meeting in Jerusalem had sent a letter to the congregations explaining that believers from among the nations did not need to submit to circumcision and come under the Mosaic Law. (Acts 15:23-29) However, that letter had not mentioned Jewish believers, many of whom did not understand that the Mosaic Law no longer applied.
8 Did that mistaken thinking disqualify such Jewish believers from being Christians? No. It was not as if they had once been worshippers of pagan gods and were now continuing to follow the religious customs of their former faith. The Law that was so important to those Jewish believers had originally been given by Jehovah. Nothing in it was demonic or wrong in itself. But that Law had to do with the old covenant, whereas Christians were now under the new covenant. The observances of the Law covenant were now obsolete as far as pure worship was concerned. Hebrew Christians who were zealous for the Law lacked understanding and confidence in the Christian congregation. They needed to bring their thinking into line with the progressive revelation of truth.—Jer. 31:31-34; Luke 22:20.
Is this paragraph saying that the decree at Acts 15:29 was only for "believers from among the nations"? If so the Jews would have kept on considering that "abstain...from blood" means to not eat blood.