Matthew 5:18 ASV, John 19:30 ASV and 1 Corinthians 8:7-9 ASV

I notice that a lot what people talk about around Matthew 5:18 consists of implying or flat-out saying that "not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law" (I'm quoting from the NIV; your wording may vary) means that Christians are under the law. People don't talk as much about the next phrase: "until everything is accomplished." Someone who has a more thorough grounding in the Biblical languages may be able to correct me on this, but the first thing that came to my mind when I read that was Jesus, about to die, crying out "It is finished" (John 19:30). Perhaps the "everything" that needed to be accomplished was the completion of the switch from the Old Covenant, based on Law, to the New Covenant, based on Christ as our perfect sacrifice; this change would have been completed when Jesus died. As far as I can tell, it lines up, and allows later Biblical downplays of the Law (like circumcision and unclean foods) to not be a contradiction.

Paul explains something related to this in his letter to the Corinthians. He makes it clear that in and of itself, eating meat that had been sacrificed to an idol is not a problem--this was a big change for people to make in their thinking because at the time eating a sacrifice was thought of as participating in that idol's worship--because we have "freedom." BUT, that still isn't a license to do whatever we want: Paul also warns us not to "be a stumbling block to the weak" by doing something that others think is wrong in front of them, being what they think is a bad example, tempting them into doing what they think is wrong, and leaving them with the guilt of rebelling against what they believe is God's law.

What this means is that we are no longer required to live by the Law, but by the rule of love and consideration for the rest of God's children and thoughtfulness about how our actions will affect them. In this way, we will end up following a lot of the Law anyway (like don't kill, don't steal, and don't mess around with your neighbor's spouse, for example), and for that reason, if we are in doubt about the right thing to do, the Law might be able to point us in the right direction.