this post comes from an email between a couple of immersion people. while our discussion was great it barely scratched the surface of this topic. hopefully, this will help clear up some more questions so grab something to drink, get comfy and read away:
Okay, the history of the split comes later on and i think this is worth talking about. God moves where God moves and works with those who respond to his message. In Acts 10 we have Peter receiving a vision where God tells him to eat the animals that are considered unholy by the Jewish dietary laws. He tells God that he would never do that and God challenges him by saying that all things God has made are holy. Jesus would also challenge the Jewish dietary laws in the story right before the one we talked about last night. He told the religious leaders that it is not the food that enters into people that makes them unclean but the unholy words and deeds that come out of them. Once Jesus said that the great dietary divide that separated Jew from Gentile was abolished because it meant that any Jew could act in a way unpleasing to God and any Gentile could act in a way pleasing to God. According to Jesus, the things that made the Jewish people ethnically separate were not the same things that would get them into God's good graces.
So, back to Peter, after his vision he encounters some messengers from a Gentile Centurion named Cornelius who has sent for him because he is intrigued by this new Jewish sect called The Way (what Christianity was originally called).
Peter goes to the house of Cornelius and the entire household accepts Peter's proclamation of the Gospel (do yourself a favour and read it...it's really good) and the Holy Spirit falls on them like it did for the Jewish followers of Jesus on Pentecost.
Then Saul becomes Paul and begins to bring the message of Jesus to his fellow Jews who frequently refuse to hear or believe him. In fact, some even tried to kill him. However, Paul noticed that the Gentiles were receiving the message and asking what they could do to become part of the family. Paul seems to have grasped the grace of Jesus because he did not hesitate to include them in the saving plan of God. In fact, in Romans he even stated that he thought God was using the Gentiles to shame the Jews into realizing that the pagans were figuring God out faster than those who should know better.
He seemed to be convinced that sooner or later the Jewish people would
come around.
Some of the Jerusalem church followed after Paul and tried to convince the
Gentiles converts to The Way that, in order for the message of Christ to work
for them they needed to be circumcised and thus enter into the Covenant of
Abraham that separated the Jews for all others.
Paul was incensed and fought this thinking tooth and nail. He saw this as
compromising the message of Jesus and basically saying that the death of
God on a cross was not significant enough to bring all people into salvation...and it is there that we see the crux of the Jewish Gentile issue.
God always planned to save all people. But the way in which he does it is to get one person on board. That person was Abraham. From that one man a nation was born that would be blessed by God so that they could, in turn, bless the world. He even puts them in the land that was considered the crossways of the ancient world so that every other nation would pass through and hear the message of God. Instead, the Jewish people hoarded the message and used their status to make themselves feel superior.
Thus, when Jesus came he was doing the same thing. He spoke and acted in the ways of the Jewish prophets and referred to the Torah for all his teaching. He showed himself to be the Messiah spoken about by the prophets; although eh was not the kind of Messiah the Jews thought he should be. Sadly, because of preconceived notions of what the messiah should be many Jews missed what he was saying but the dirty pagans seemed to get it (well, some of them anyway). It is a profoundly humbling message to all of us today. WE do not tell God where to go, He shows us what he is doing and invites us to follow, if we continue to refuse we lose out on what he is doing.
By the Gospel of John (A.D. 90ish) there is a noticeable gap between the Jewish community and the increasingly Gentile community of The Way (by then they had adopted the name Christian which was actually an insult leveled at them by people in Antioch...they basically said "Look at all those people trying to be little Christs...Christians!" and our forebears thought that sounded pretty good so here we are). Paul has already written to the churches that God is in the business of adoption and so the Gentile people, while not part of God's original chosen people, have been adopted in and are as much in God's family as anyone. Sadly, once the Christian community received power under Constantine (4th Century) they used their power to punish those they blamed for killing Jesus and the Jewish/Christian rift has grown ever since.
That is a Loooooooong message and it still does not capture anywhere near all the implications of what the Gentile acceptance of God's message means...in fact, that is what most of the New Testament talks about....the alteration...completion....interesting turn taken by God's salvation history.
So, back to Peter, after his vision he encounters some messengers from a Gentile Centurion named Cornelius who has sent for him because he is intrigued by this new Jewish sect called The Way (what Christianity was originally called).
Peter goes to the house of Cornelius and the entire household accepts Peter's proclamation of the Gospel (do yourself a favour and read it...it's really good) and the Holy Spirit falls on them like it did for the Jewish followers of Jesus on Pentecost.
Then Saul becomes Paul and begins to bring the message of Jesus to his fellow Jews who frequently refuse to hear or believe him. In fact, some even tried to kill him. However, Paul noticed that the Gentiles were receiving the message and asking what they could do to become part of the family. Paul seems to have grasped the grace of Jesus because he did not hesitate to include them in the saving plan of God. In fact, in Romans he even stated that he thought God was using the Gentiles to shame the Jews into realizing that the pagans were figuring God out faster than those who should know better.
He seemed to be convinced that sooner or later the Jewish people would
come around.
Some of the Jerusalem church followed after Paul and tried to convince the
Gentiles converts to The Way that, in order for the message of Christ to work
for them they needed to be circumcised and thus enter into the Covenant of
Abraham that separated the Jews for all others.
Paul was incensed and fought this thinking tooth and nail. He saw this as
compromising the message of Jesus and basically saying that the death of
God on a cross was not significant enough to bring all people into salvation...and it is there that we see the crux of the Jewish Gentile issue.
God always planned to save all people. But the way in which he does it is to get one person on board. That person was Abraham. From that one man a nation was born that would be blessed by God so that they could, in turn, bless the world. He even puts them in the land that was considered the crossways of the ancient world so that every other nation would pass through and hear the message of God. Instead, the Jewish people hoarded the message and used their status to make themselves feel superior.
Thus, when Jesus came he was doing the same thing. He spoke and acted in the ways of the Jewish prophets and referred to the Torah for all his teaching. He showed himself to be the Messiah spoken about by the prophets; although eh was not the kind of Messiah the Jews thought he should be. Sadly, because of preconceived notions of what the messiah should be many Jews missed what he was saying but the dirty pagans seemed to get it (well, some of them anyway). It is a profoundly humbling message to all of us today. WE do not tell God where to go, He shows us what he is doing and invites us to follow, if we continue to refuse we lose out on what he is doing.
By the Gospel of John (A.D. 90ish) there is a noticeable gap between the Jewish community and the increasingly Gentile community of The Way (by then they had adopted the name Christian which was actually an insult leveled at them by people in Antioch...they basically said "Look at all those people trying to be little Christs...Christians!" and our forebears thought that sounded pretty good so here we are). Paul has already written to the churches that God is in the business of adoption and so the Gentile people, while not part of God's original chosen people, have been adopted in and are as much in God's family as anyone. Sadly, once the Christian community received power under Constantine (4th Century) they used their power to punish those they blamed for killing Jesus and the Jewish/Christian rift has grown ever since.
That is a Loooooooong message and it still does not capture anywhere near all the implications of what the Gentile acceptance of God's message means...in fact, that is what most of the New Testament talks about....the alteration...completion....interesting turn taken by God's salvation history.
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