He did. There were new people being added daily to it. Acts 2:47.
Was Jesus then talking about an old church that He was going to add to? (I lost track of this thread, so forgive me if I've asked that already.) The text allows for that, I think, when Jesus says He will "build my church", but I don't think it does when talks of building it on the foundation of Peter's confession (which is the same as building it on the foundation of Jesus Himself).
They're two different churches.
Again, if 2 different churches, was one founded in the wilderness? or was that a third church? I understand you think Paul introduced a new church, but that doesn't jive with the Gentiles being grafted into the thing the Jews had been cut off from.
Romans 11:16 NKJV - For if the firstfruit [is] holy, the lump [is] also [holy]; and if the root [is] holy, so [are] the branches.
Romans 11:17 NKJV - And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree,
(Is the olive tree one of those churches? If not, what is the olive tree? How are the Jews broken off from it, i.e., they were already part of it, then they became NOT a part of it?)
Romans 11:18 NKJV - do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, [remember that] you do not support the root, but the root [supports] you.
Romans 11:19 NKJV - You will say then, "Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in."
Romans 11:20 NKJV - Well [said]. Because of unbelief
(Lack of faith, not lack of works) they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.
Romans 11:21 NKJV - For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.
(The Romans can be cut off, too, so it can't be about salvation--that true believers that have been grafted in are now in danger of being cut off.)
Romans 11:22 NKJV - Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in [His] goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
Romans 11:23 NKJV - And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
Romans 11:24 NKJV - For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who [are] natural [branches], be grafted into their own olive tree?
Romans 11:25 NKJV - For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Why is that so hard for you to accept?
Jesus only talked about the first one because the second one was still at that time a mystery kept secret.
Because Paul talked about the middle wall of partition being broken down between the Jews and Gentiles, such that the Gentile become fellow heirs with the Jews.
Ephesians 2:14 NKJV - For He Himself is our peace, who has made both
(both what? Both churches?) one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation,
It was only after His people (as a whole) rejected Him, that He revealed the second one.
Or that He revealed that Gentiles can belong to the first one, since the natural branches were broken off.
And Paul wasn't the foundation of the second. He was simply the first member of it.
I appreciate that distinction.
Nor were the Twelve the foundation of the first. Leadership, yes, particularly James, and not so much Peter. But not the foundation.
Agreed, whether it is one or two, Jesus is the foundation:
1 Corinthians 3:11 KJV - For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
When you come to the text with the belief that there is only one church, and that Jesus and Paul brought people into it, it's no wonder that you end up confused.
But that isn't what Scripture describes. It's certainly not what Paul teaches.
I've shown that it is what Paul teaches. You disagree, and that's ok--it's good to talk through our disagreements so that we all come to the best understanding.
You wouldn't be laughed at so much if you actually thought through what it is you're asking. This isn't that hard to understand.
The laughy faces are scorn, for not believing the same thing. Yet you (and others) have not presented a strong enough case, in light of scripture that speaks of the two groups becoming one. If those groups are two churches, that's fine, I guess, but Paul spoke of the two as if they were part of the same thing (see citations above).
Some hold that Jesus and Paul both taught that there were multiple churches--that there was a church in Jerusalem, and one in Antioch, and one in Ephesus, and one at Corinth, etc. (and they reject the idea that there is a universal church, although they just call it something different, they call it "the Kingdom of God"). But I think you are saying there was a universal Jewish church and a universal Pauline church. Scripture can easily be read, with no contradictions, in such a way, including Paul's letters, that those two groups were part of a single Christian church, with the "mystery" being that Gentiles would be invited into it (and Jews would be excluded from it if they didn't believe). Jesus taught this. Paul taught this.
