The early church and Ecclesiology

Jacob

Jacob

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Today is Sheni (Second) Ziv 22. It is Boker, Morning. It is Yom, Day. Omer 37.

Can a person speak of the early church being entirely Jewish? Is it true?
 
nikolai_42

nikolai_42

Well-known member
Jacob said:
The church being Jewish or Jewish people making up the church?

Jews.
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Cultural or religious? In other words, there are Jews who are ethnic but are not observant. But there are also those who may not be born of Jewish stock that follow Judaism. But if you mean ethnically, then it is clear that the gospel was first preached to the lost sheep of the House of Israel and so it would stand to reason that the earliest churches would have been more Jewish than Gentile. For how long that was true....I don't know.
 
Jacob

Jacob

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Banned
nikolai_42 said:
Cultural or religious? In other words, there are Jews who are ethnic but are not observant. But there are also those who may not be born of Jewish stock that follow Judaism. But if you mean ethnically, then it is clear that the gospel was first preached to the lost sheep of the House of Israel and so it would stand to reason that the earliest churches would have been more Jewish than Gentile. For how long that was true....I don't know.
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the disciples, how many, and Yeshua, yes
I am not thinking what you were thinking
I am thinking about Israel
To which and of which I belong as a proselyte and a convert
 
nikolai_42

nikolai_42

Well-known member
Jacob said:
great!

no
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Israel (in the bible) is a national identity but it is also a religious identity (in the OT, one who was of Israel was necessarily supposed to be a religious Israelite). Israel in the time of the NT had to answer the question of who the Messiah is (or, rather, was). Those that rejected Jesus (Yeshua) were still nominally Jews. But when Paul taught, he taught that the true Jews accepted Yeshua as the Messiah.

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.
Romans 9:3-8

So Paul distinguished between Israel after the flesh and the true Israel.

Then he told the Galatians - the church that wanted to go back to the Law to be saved - the same thing, basically :

Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
Galatians 4:21-31

Those that held to a national identity (who were Jews because they were born into Israel) and those who were Jews because they followed the Law - Paul said both of them were not of Israel. Only those of the promise were to be considered truly in the church that Christ built. Many of those in the early church would have been from Israelite tribes - but just because they were of those tribes didn't make them automatically of Israel.
 
Jacob

Jacob

BANNED
Banned
nikolai_42 said:
Israel (in the bible) is a national identity but it is also a religious identity (in the OT, one who was of Israel was necessarily supposed to be a religious Israelite). Israel in the time of the NT had to answer the question of who the Messiah is (or, rather, was). Those that rejected Jesus (Yeshua) were still nominally Jews. But when Paul taught, he taught that the true Jews accepted Yeshua as the Messiah.

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.
Romans 9:3-8

So Paul distinguished between Israel after the flesh and the true Israel.

Then he told the Galatians - the church that wanted to go back to the Law to be saved - the same thing, basically :

Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
Galatians 4:21-31

Those that held to a national identity (who were Jews because they were born into Israel) and those who were Jews because they followed the Law - Paul said both of them were not of Israel. Only those of the promise were to be considered truly in the church that Christ built. Many of those in the early church would have been from Israelite tribes - but just because they were of those tribes didn't make them automatically of Israel.
Click to expand...

The people and or nation of Israel. We are a people.

עם

is Am pronounced Ahm

it means people or nation

We are a nation

made up of Jews

the definition of a Jew is therefore important,

as with the definition of an Israelite or an Israeli

A person who is Jewish is a Jew

a man or a woman
 
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