Joan of Bark

[bolding mine]

This is the common apologist argument, but I'm not buying it.

Notice in the passages I quoted Jesus doesn't say: "For now I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel", or "I'll get to the gentiles later, but I'm busy with the lost sheep of Israel for the time being". He doesn't tell his disciples: "preach only to the lost sheep of Israel first, and when you're finished, turn to the gentiles and Samaritans".

The preaching to Israel could never have been completed in the short time between the day Jesus sent out His disciples and the time of the crucifixion -- not with the primitive communications of first-century Palestine.

Christians are always taking Biblical statements and then arguing that they mean something else in order to justify later beliefs. How else can Jesus be perfect?

sugarhitman

Just because you dont buy it doesnt mean its not true. Even in Jesus' own ministry he preached to Samaritans, and at his birth was announced to be a "light unto the Gentiles" (Luke). His primary ministry was (and is) to the House of Israel...because "Salvation is for the Jew FIRST, then the Gentile." (Saint Paul) This fits well with Zechariah 12-14 where the Messiah saves national Israel during a time when all nations are striving with Israel over the Jerusalem Issue. After which, the Gentile World is subdued, and accepts the Jewish Messiah as King of the world...which corresponds to Yeshua's statement that he returns after a period of Gentile trampling of Jerusalem, ending the "times of the Gentiles."



Gentile believers are also grafted into the "commonwealth" of Israel....And Paul reveals a "mystery" in Romans 11:25-29...that is National Israel is destined for salvation..and remains the Chosen Nation. So you see even the NT is an Israel book (many has missed this)...it simply expands more so than the OT to include Gentiles.....:wave:

Joan of Bark

Jesus makes absolute statements about His mission, and Christians are happy to take His statements at face value ... until they contradict contemporary Christianity.

Of course, God could have avoided all this confusion if He'd simply used a more efficient and effective way of passing on his 'essential' message. Human language is a highly subjective form of communication, as the existence of 1000+ Christian denominations proves.

sugarhitman

No contradiction as the NT Gospels themselves claimed that Yeshua was to be a "light unto the Gentiles"....cant be that if Gentiles are barred from Salvation. Jesus' ministry was to the Jews first...Israel is the FirstFruit nation. No contradiction. Jesus also said "I have other sheep who are not of this fold, them must I also bring in." Gentile believers are ofcourse of the House of Israel, who are not ethnic members of Israel. The point of the Gospel is to graft Gentiles into the 'commonwealth' of Israel before "the times of the Gentiles" come to a close.


You see the whole Gentile world is destined to be enemies of Israel (we are now getting a glimspe of this in the current dispute over land and Jerusalem) and will attack Israel. The Plan is to gather as many Gentiles as possible before the Salvation of National Israel...because according to Prophecy the Gentile world will invade Israel and persecute the Jews one final time, that will result in their own undoing.....thats the Mystery Paul wrote of in Romans 11...thats the destiny written in both the OT and NT prophecies.....so yes Jesus is only sent to the House of Israel...which includes Gentiles, fufilling the promise to Abraham..."I will make you a father of many nations, and through your seed ALL nations of the earth shall be blessed."

Andykiwi

They were written after that had started to happen, so they could make that claim.
Most Jews did not like the new Jesus cult but many Gentiles were happy to believe it.
The Gospel was adapted to suit them.

sugarhitman

In otherwords the Apostles wrote those into the Texts to suit the Gentiles, while leaving Jesus' statement about himself being sent to Israel only...and supposedly not the Gentiles, unchanged...pretty shabby reasoning. So I guess when Jesus said "I have other sheep who are not of this fold, them I must bring in also" about Gentile believers who are not ethnic Israelis, this too was written afterwards to "suit" the Gentiles?



I accept the opposite view....you guys dont have a clue.

Andykiwi

"The lost sheep of Israel" are only referred to in Matthew, which was written for Jewish Christians.

storytime

Question who was to be preached to in "all nations". Both Jews and Gentiles or just Jews, thus separating Jews from the uncircumcised who Yahweh never included in his covenant with Abraham, or allowing Gentiles who were seen as an abomination.

Why would knowledgeable Jews have believed the story Peter told? There is no valid argument for it in the OT.

storytime

Wouldn't this follow along the lines of "and the Gentiles also have a place in the world to come"? However, the rabbi's failed to make it clear that the world to come did not mean Gentiles were Israel or equal to the Jews. Lawlessness[no laws] or covenant excluded Gentiles. I think the rabbi's were trying to placate the Gentiles in their round-about way of including them "in the world to come".

mountainman

But it was also written in the common Greek language for a prospective faithful flock. The sword could well have been used to separate the sheep and the goats. It's an interesting observation that "The Shepherd of Hermas" was considered to be part of the orthodox "proto-Canon" in the earliest Greek new testaments and may have been published in Constantine's 50 original bibles for the "pulpit church" of his time.

But I think it was more a process of separating the sheep and the goats by means of a binary YES/NO gateway driven by the sword of Constantine. Are you a lost sheep of the One True Flock, or are you something else perhaps? What sort of answer would one conceivable provide to this question asked by one of the heavily armed agents of the "Thirteenth Apostle", Bishop of Bishops and "Pontifex Maximus" - the Lord God Caesar Himself?

My take is that the Greek LXX was hijacked by the writers of the Greek NT. Likewise the NT was hijacked by the writers of the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts", but the Greek books were too hot and had to be preserved in Coptic and Syriac. The Great Commission of Jesus may not have resonated around the universe inside the Hubble Limit in the 1st century of the common era, but one thing is for sure, Constantine took this commission very personally in the 4th century. He was buried as the 13th Apostle. How lucky was that?