Acts 24:14

But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call a sect, serve I the God of our fathers, believing all things which are according to the law, and which are written in the prophets.

The way which they call a sect ... The "way" as a designation of Christianity occurs frequently in Acts. See under Acts 9:2; 16:17,25; 18:26; 19:9,23; 20:4; 24:14,2. Implicit in such a name is the trueness and rightness of it. There are many ways of sin, but only one way of eternal life.

Sect ... "Tertullus applied this name to the Christians in a bad sense (Acts 24:5)";[15] but "Christianity was never a SECT, is not a SECT today; and Paul did not here refer to it as a sect."[16] God shall finally sum up all things in Christ; therefore, the wholeness is in him. The whole family in heaven and upon earth compose the one perfect entity of the body of Christ; and any thought of that precious and eternal spiritual body as, in any sense, a "sect" is a denial of sacred truth.

The God of our fathers ... Conybeare observed that Paul's use of this expression, having the meaning of "our hereditary God," had the design of establishing the legality of Christianity under Roman law.

Thus, Paul asserts that, according to Roman law which allowed all men to worship the gods of their own nation, he is not open to any charge of irreligion.[17]

This thought is further reinforced by Paul's declaration in connection with it, namely, that Christianity is the way of worshiping which is in all things according to the law of Moses and the writings of the holy prophets. Throughout all of Paul's epistles, as here, Paul never failed to present Christianity as fully identified with all the types and shadows of the Old Testament, being in fact the fulfillment of all that was intended by everything in the old institution. Christians are the true Israel. Christ is the Prophet like unto Moses. Christ's teaching is the New Covenant. And yet the New is identified with the Old.

[15] J. R. Dummelow, Commentary on the Holy Bible (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937), p. 849.

[16] H. Leo Boles, op. cit., p. 382.

[17] W. J. Conybeare, op. cit., p. 608.