Acts 16:21

21 They are Jews, and are teaching customs which we, as Romans, are not permitted to adopt or practise."

Acts 16:21 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 16:21

And teach customs
The Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions read in the singular number, "custom or law"; referring to the doctrine of salvation by Christ, in whose name the spirit of divination was cast out of the maid, and whom they took for a new deity; and so concluded that the apostle and his company were introducing a new religious law or custom, the worship of another God: which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being
Romans;
for the city of Philippi was a Roman colony, and so the inhabitants of it called themselves Romans; or these men might be strictly such, who were transplanted hither; and with the Romans, it was not lawful to receive, observe, and worship, a new or strange deity, without the decree of the senate ^F12.

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FOOTNOTES:

F12 Tertull. Apolog. c. 5. Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 2.

Acts 16:21 In-Context

19 But when her owners saw that their hopes of gain were gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them off to the magistrates in the public square.

20 Then they brought them before the praetors. "These men," they said, "are creating a great disturbance in our city.

21 They are Jews, and are teaching customs which we, as Romans, are not permitted to adopt or practise."

22 The crowd, too, joined in the outcry against them, till at length the praetors ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods;

23 and, after severely flogging them, they threw them into jail and bade the jailer keep them safely.