Christians are free from most of the Old Testament Laws. Here is why

TL;DR: Because of the cross, echoed in Acts 15.

The answer is more complex than that, and I’ll briefly explore a little bit below, but what Jesus Christ did on the cross set us free forever from the heaviness of the Old Testament laws. That includes foods, garments, hairstyles, prayers, festivals, worn accessories, tattoos, etc. There are 613 laws in the Old Testament, mostly attributed to Moses, that God sent to instruct Israel on how to separate from the other tribes. God said to Israel to be holy, which means set apart or separated, from the rest of the known world.

When God used Moses to set the Israelites free from Egypt and lead them into the desert toward the promised land, God gave Moses many laws recorded in the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible. Mostly, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, since the first book, Genesis, is mostly a narrative. These laws were used to make God’s people distinct from other tribes, so Israel could truly follow God and God alone. That’s why certain foods were prescribed at different times. For instance, in Genesis, God says to Adam to eat the fruit of every tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, making Adam a vegetarian (Genesis 2:16-17). Later, with Noah, God gave him permission to eat any living thing (“Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.” - Genesis 9:3), and with Moses God restrict the food again: “You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud” - Leviticus 11:3, also in verses 4-47, and Deuteronomy 14:3–21. For the Nazirite, for instance, an even more consecrated Israelite, they couldn’t eat grapes, raisins, seeds, or skins (Numbers 6:1–4). To Ezekiel, God made him eat bread for almost a year, using poop to bake it: “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. Also measure out a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at set times. Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.” - Ezekiel 4:9-13. Some dietary instructions also came to Isaiah and Daniel. However, in the New Testament, we clearly see Jesus changing that, saying that “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them” - Mark 7:15. The culmination of the Israel dietary restriction is finally set free in Acts 10 when Peter had a dream/vision where God said to him that “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” (Acts 10:9–16).

If you are new to the Bible and open it randomly, without knowing the context, you can interpret anything from dietary restrictions to cooking your food with poop or being allowed to eat anything. Which one is the right one? The secret to reading the Bible is understanding its context, content, and connections. That’s why many people accuse the Bible of supporting slavery, misogyny, and many other absurdities. It is not because it is written there that it is still valid, and to understand that you’ll need to 1) read the Bible (many accusers never read it) and 2) understand it. These are not trivial tasks, but if you don’t take into account that the Bible is a set of books written by 40 different authors over a period of 1500 years, in three different languages, in a very different culture, you won’t get it. That is to say that the Bible is a complex set of books that tells different stories to different people, but the good news is that the Bible stories always point to Jesus Christ, the culmination of everything that we humans should believe. Jesus is the reason we should read the Bible: to know Jesus Christ better, to believe in Him, and to tell others about Him. Everything else is secondary to this premise. God wants to save all humankind from destruction:

This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. - 1 Timothy 2:3–6

Ok, but where does the cross and Acts 15 come into this?

The cross is the culmination of all the laws in Jesus, who accomplished the law perfectly, and gave His innocent life as a ransom to pay for our transgressions. That means you and I don’t owe anything to God because Jesus paid our debt. We are free from the just condemnation that a just God would impose on sinners who broke His perfect law. We are not condemned thanks to Jesus Christ, and that is the good news. Moreover, Acts 15 reinforces that Gentiles (non-Jews) are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ alone, not by keeping the Law of Moses, and prescribes a few things Gentiles of that time were told to abstain from: food polluted by idols, sexual immorality, meat from strangled animals, and blood. That was to, again, differentiate the Christians from pagan god worshippers. As Paul puts it: “Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he? “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.” (1 Corinthians 10:18-24)

All rituals, common practices, repeated prayers, rites, and Jewish laws are abolished in Jesus Christ Who fulfilled the law. However, the moral laws are still present (do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not lie, flee idolatry, live in holiness), where God promised to Jeremiah and Ezekiel (echoed in Hebrews) that He (God) will write down His law in our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10; Hebrews 10:16; Ezekiel 36:26–27). Thus, the article title: we are not entirely free, but free from most laws, and to be bound to the moral law is a great thing. For instance, I like to be bound by the laws of gravity so my body won’t fly aimlessly away. It is not that God wants us to be captive, but that He shows us what is best for us. Jesus summed up these laws into two: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40). Thus, love is the key. When you love people, you don’t do them any evil.

The key to understanding this can be explained with an example. I like some Classic Rock songs. At the last AC/DC concert, I saw people posting photos on social media wearing two red horns on their heads. Would I wear them? No. Would God send me to hell if I did? No. So why wouldn’t I wear them? Because they symbolize the devil, and wearing something that suggests I support or like the devil is something I don’t want to do. Can I wear them? Yes. Would I? No. Why? Because it conflicts with my beliefs and my love for God. You might say it has nothing to do with the devil. You might claim it’s just a funny thing. To me, it isn’t, so I won’t wear them, but I also won’t judge anyone who does. That’s between them and God. Today, it’s very hard to ignore these things. The car I drive isn’t a Christian-made car, nor are my clothes or food. But there’s a difference between consuming generic items and supporting something I know has an evil purpose.

People still throw verses on social media without context, and the vast majority don’t even understand what they’re posting. They said the Bible forbids this or that, or supports this or that, without context to whom the message was given, when, why, and whether it is still valid today. No, the Bible doesn’t support slavery, nor can it be accused of misogyny, although these accusers have never read the Bible before. For us, Christians, our duty is to study the Bible and make sense of it, because 1) there is no contradiction there, and 2) this is the word of God to humanity, and should be handled with extreme care and respect.