‘But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If indeed it were a matter of wrong or of wicked villainy, O you Jews, reason would that I should bear with you, but if they are questions about words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves. I am not minded to be a judge of these matters.” '
Gallio was a discerning and wise ruler and having looked over their case he immediately came to the conclusion that both sides were simply disagreeing about the interpretation of the same religion. He drew the proceedings to a close before Paul had even had an opportunity to speak and pointed out to the plaintiffs, that is, the Jews, that interpreting their religion was not the purpose for which he had been appointed. If they could produce evidence of Paul breaking the law, or committing some villainy then he would be quite happy to act. But when it came to such things as interpretations of what ‘the word' was, and disagreements about particular names connected with it, such as ‘Jesus' or ‘Christos', and whether their Instruction (Torah) should be observed by certain people or not, that was a matter for them to decide between themselves. He was not prepared to judge such matters. They must argue it out among them.
We may presume that in building up their case in order to demonstrate that Paul was not preaching Judaism, they had distinguished their Scriptures from ‘the word' preached by Paul, had distinguished their idea of the Messiah from Jesus Christos, and had pointed out that contrary to Judaism Paul taught that Gentiles did not have to keep the Law of Moses. Gallio simply saw both sides as interpreting the same religious ideas in different ways. Interestingly both were right. It simply depended on how it was seen.