^F1The ancient synagogue provided Jews with an open forum for discussion and debate on the meaning and application of Torah. In the synagogue tradition the apostle Peter, while an acknowledged messenger from God and certainly a leader, was not above criticism and challenge by the congregation.

^F2Paul's preaching was apparently confrontational and argumentative. He argued with traditional Jews in Damascus until they attempted to kill him. Later in Jerusalem there was a plot to murder him. In his travels he continually pressed his arguments in Diasporan synagogues until he alienated himself from the local Jews to the point they ostracized him usually including attempted violence on his person. While argumentation was part of synagogue culture Paul took it to new heights often resulting in his being beaten or stoned as a heretic. What could Paul have possible taught that would result in such extreme condemnation? Why were Peter, James, and John able to function quite freely among the Jews without this kind of trouble? The simplest explanation is that Paul went beyond teaching that Jesus of Nazareth was the messiah. It appears that from his early ministry he taught that the Sinaitic Covenant had ended, that circumcision was no longer necessary for Jews, and that Jews and Gentiles now jointly made up the people of God.

^F3This ancient form of Messianic Judaism, or attempt at Pharisaic Christianity, differs from today's Messianic Judaism. Messianic Jews of our day commingle contemporary Judaism and various forms of Protestant Christianity into what they regard as a fourth branch of Judaism. In their theology Christianity is for Gentiles not Jews. With respect to the doctrine of the nature of God they are Trinitarian. The Messianic Pharisees of the first century were not, firstly because the doctrine of the Trinity came many decades later, but more importantly in that they did not regard Jesus as God.

^F4 It would be a mistake to assume that all believers in Jesus Christ at Jerusalem were members of the mother church at Jerusalem or any of its satellites. Not only were there simply believers who had not perfected their faith by baptism and receipt of the Holy Spirit but there appear to have been dissident elements as well. Not all followed the lead of the apostles. As up to half Jerusalem's population at one time believed the implication is that most did not.

^F5This heresy, that one cannot be a Christian nor enter the Kingdom of God without Torah, undercuts the gospel of the Kingdom of God. By declaring that the provisions of the Torah and the Sinaitic Covenant remain in effect and obligatory for the people of God, it denies the biblical message about the material and spiritual effect of the gospel and God's gift of his son, the Messiah. Echoes of this heresy sound even today in the legalism prevalent in many groups.

^F6The gospel brought by Paul provided good news not just to Gentiles but to Jews as well. In Greek culture anyone openly displaying a mutilated sex organ, which included circumcision, thereby exposing the glans penis was not only offensive but an open invitation for persecution. Societal stress was so great that young Hellenistic Jews occasionally undertook to reverse the fact of circumcision by undergoing a painful and traumatic operation known as epispasm to "uncircumcise" themselves in order to be accepted in Greek culture. See "Epispasm�Circumcision in Reverse" in Bible Review by Robert G. Hall (Hall 1992:52-57).

^F7The Judeo-Christian population in the Roman empire in CE 50 was about 6,200 (around 5,300 ethnic Jews and 900 ethnic Gentiles).

^F8By the time John wrote his gospel this integration was common in Judeo-Christian congregations. John goes to great length to identify for his readers the feasts of the Jews evidencing that the people to whom he wrote had little knowledge of these festivals. He assumes his readers included believers who did not know much about the festivals-obviously Gentiles and Judeo-Christians of a generation removed from ritual festival observance but not Jews coming out of the synagogue. The implication is that these believers did not observe Jewish feasts explaining in part the praxis found in the second century Church of God. See John 2:6; 2:13; 4:9; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 11:55; 19:42. This did not, however, preclude the Judeo-Christian practice of meeting on annual Sabbaths in their New Covenant context. For example, observing Pentecost in a Judeo-Christian context was quite different than the Jewish observance of Shavuoth as was the Judeo-Christian observation of the Christian Passover was from the Passover of the Jews.

^F9This reversion into paganism by his Gentile converts horrified Paul. Some of them once again began to "observe days and months and seasons and years (Galatians 4:10 NASB). The context of Galatians 4:8-11 shows that after these Gentile Christians had left the slavery of paganism to know God (Galatians 4:9) they began to "turn back again" to their former pagan practices. These were pagan holidays and pagan festivals not Jewish ones. These pagan earth-religion practices, wrote Paul, were "the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you [Gentiles] desire to be enslaved all over again" (Galatians 4:9 NASB). In the New Testament its writers never refer to the Sinaitic Covenant as the "weak and worthless elemental things" nor even hint that the Sinaitic Covenant enslaved its participants. The bondage of the Jews, meaning their way of life, Paul described as guardianship for children not slavery. The contrast between Jews and Gentiles and their situations commenced at verse 8.

^F10This shows that apostles do not have to be designated by other apostles. God caused Barnabas and Paul to be set apart as apostles (messengers), apparently through instructions God sent by a prophet, wherein the Holy Spirit said "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them" (Acts 13:2 NASB). Holy Spirit here is a reference to Jesus Christ cf., Acts 20:28 where Holy Spirit = He who purchased with His own blood.

^F11Christian authors almost without fail and erroneously define the deliberations recorded in Acts 15 as an Apostolic Council. There appear to be similarities between the conflict reported in Galatians 2:11-14 and the occasion for the convening of the proceeding at Jerusalem as given in Acts 15:1-2 but these are illusory and require a close reading. In context, however, Acts 15 provides an account of a first-century Judeo-Christian synagogue hearing on matters of Torah held before its overseer James in classic synagogue style. See The Jerusalem Conference.

^F12The view that the apostle Paul subordinated his ministry to the Jerusalem headquarters leadership is not a popular one. Some prefer to characterize the apostle Paul�s ministry as a wholly independent one. While such an exegesis might provide justification for independent ministries in the post-fifteenth century world it does not alter the biblical reality of the apostle Paul subjecting his ministry to apostolic review lest he was mistaken in the gospel he taught.

^F13Fellowshipping with uncircumcised persons, particularly by dining with them, defiled Jews (Acts 10:28; 11:3; John 4:9; 18:28). It was impossible for Torah-observant Jews, due to halakah, to dine with Gentiles and to remain "ritually" clean. Why? Because by Jesus' day the Pharisees, seeking holiness, sought to integrate the priestly standards of ritual cleanliness and Temple purity into their private lives (Neusner 1973:89).

^F14At the time Paul wrote Galatians, CE 49, the ministry of the apostle Peter was to the children of Israel (Galatians 2:7). His position among the original Twelve Apostles was at least first among equals. It appears that all of the original apostles devoted themselves to bringing the gospel to the Israelite people whether in the Jewish homeland or in the Diaspora.

^F15Galatians 2 records Paul's visit to Jerusalem to confer with the mother church apostles. That event, occurring a few months before the hearing in Acts 15 , was an "Apostolic Conference" and not an "Apostolic Council". The notion of a Council is a precept in the exegesis of Orthodox Gentile Christians in later times. The meeting reported in Galatians 2 was not an assemblage of bishops brought from afar to deliberate policy and doctrine.

^F16There are some who argue that even though God brought the Sinaitic Covenant to an end at Jesus' death the Ten Commandments continue to remain in full force and effect. They usually submit two arguments. The first argument is that the Ten Commandments were in effect before Moses and they cite passages from the Pentateuch that show that sin existed from Adam to the time God gave the Ten Commandments and define such sin as the contravention of one or more of the Ten Commandments. Their second argument is that God incorporated the Ten Commandments in whole into the New Covenant and that Christians must keep them in letter and in spirit. The purveyors of these arguments fail to recognize that the royal law of Christianity, the Law of Christ, deals exclusively with the intent of the heart and not on physical acts as God places his very nature, character, and values into his begotten children through the indwelling of the Spirit of God. When people live by the Law of Christ, through the indwelling of God's Spirit, they never come within the reach of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments, based solely on tangible deeds and not the intent of the heart, were for governing carnal minds. The Law of Christ, the royal law, is for converted minds. As only Christ living in humans can in fact keep the royal law sin has literally been present in humans from Adam to the present day irrespective of the Ten Commandments.

^F17Their argument was that the four prohibitions were a peacekeeping device to allow Christians to live peacefully with non-Christian Jews thereby minimizing needless reproach. All four of these prohibitions, in their thinking, already were part of the New Covenant but comprised far more hypersensitive issues with non-Christian Jews. Moreover, while the Sinaitic Covenant spelled out these restrictions, it was prudent to bind them as applications of God�s law in its New Covenant administration by the authority resident in the apostles that there be no doubt and to forestall criticism in the community.

^F18Unfortunately, the consequence of this heresy lives on today. Not deprecating the moral and ethical value of the Ten Commandments, would that humanity would so live, but many Christian dominations and independent groups inflict unwarranted and unbiblical legalism on their members, burdening them, and misdirecting apostolic theology by mandating them. Some have fallen into Sabbatarianism, such as mandating Sunday keeping and the forcing of Sunday closing laws on the public by political means. This legalism produces self-righteousness, smugness, and vanity in their members which in apostolic theology is unproductive. They fail to recognize that the Ten Utterances of the Sinaitic Covenant, which they uphold and promote wholly out of context as Ten Commandments from God binding on Christians, were exclusive to the Sinaitic Covenant. God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel not to the rest of the world (Leviticus 27:34, cf. Leviticus 26:46). Torah and the Ten Commandments were for the ancient Israelites as their part of the covenant God made with them not with Gentiles nor with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moreover, Messianic Jews, still clinging to the Sinaitic Covenant, combine contemporary Judaism and Protestant Christianity into a confusing blend of religious doctrines and miss the mark as well. The standard of the New Covenant is not the Ten Commandments but rather the law of Christ.

Page last edited: 11/28/04 08:44 AM

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