The early Church had to wrestle with the role that the Jewish law would play in the life of the followers of Jesus. St. Paul was adamant that it was faith, not the law that mattered. In St. Matthew’s Gospel Jesus stresses the eternal significance of the law. “Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” The seemingly simple message of Jesus provoked controversy right from the beginning. Those first Christians had to enter into discussion, dialogue, discernment to come to a proper understanding of what following Jesus entailed. In our time we must deal with disagreements in a similar way.
