How do we know the Jews in the early chapters of Acts were still under the Law?
In the early chapters of Acts, believers still worshiped at the temple, prayed at set hours, and kept legal requirements; no one told them the Law had ended. Peter and John went to the temple at the hour of prayer, a Jewish practice, showing they recognized Christ as Messiah but were not released from the Law.
Les explains that Jesus' three-year earthly ministry was to the Jew and under the Law. He never told anyone to stop temple worship, nor told a Jew to stop giving sacrifices, so they were still under the Law. Even after His death, burial, and resurrection, the early chapters of Acts show the same situation: all the language is still the Jews under the Law, and no one had told them they were not under it. Everything remained legal. In chapter 5, Peter and John go up to the temple at the hour of prayer. Les points out that Christianity did not demand going to the temple three or four times a day to pray—that was Judaism. They were still under the demands of the Law even though they had recognized Christ as their Messiah and believed, but they were not released from the Law. Those early chapters are still God dealing with the nation of Israel, and the language is plain.