I've written a great deal on this scripture in my What Did Jesus Teach series (this link leads to a summary of my conclusions) but it's occurred to me that what we sometimes call "The Great Commission" has changed quite a bit since the day Yeshua uttered these words. Yeshua, at that point in time, was speaking to his Jewish disciples, charging them to take the Good News of the Messiah to all the Gentiles of the nations, and directing the current disciples to make new Messianic disciples of Gentiles. Certainly a daunting task, considering the fact that Israel was occupied by a Gentile conqueror right about then.
Nevertheless, as we see in the letters of Paul; as we see in Peter's encounter with Cornelius in Acts 10 and beyond, Jewish emissaries were sent out to the Gentile God-fearers in the synagogues and to the Gentile pagans in the then civilized world to "make disciples of all nations". But what about now?
A few weeks ago, I read something on Derek Leman's blog where he said that not each and every law or commandment in the Bible has an eternal and unchanging application (and I apologize for not citing the original source, but I can't recall exactly where on his blog he said this...if you can find it, I'll include the link). Leman cites the laws pertaining to Jews becoming slaves of other Jews (which I think of as the ancient Hebrew welfare system) as having a specific situational application, rather than being an eternal commandment from God that it's OK to keep slaves. Of course, that opens the door to people trying to decide which laws can be applied today and which ones can't, but that's an article for another time.
It did start me to thinking though, about Matthew 28:18-20 and it's current applicability. If Yeshua's Jewish disciples were to obey the words of the Master and make disciples of Gentiles in the 1st Century, are Messianic Jews in the 21st Century still bound to the same command?
I don't actually see a lot of Messianic Jews trying to make disciples of Gentiles and indeed, quite the opposite. If you have read Dr Mark Kinzer's book Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People, even the very title of his work seems to say that Jews in the Messianic "Postmissionary" movement are past the point of making "disciples of all nations". That job seems to have been re-assigned to the Christian church and the church has pursued that goal with all deliberate zeal, even to the point of coming under condemnation from some Jews for attempting to convert them to Christianity.
I suppose you could make an argument for the Matthew 28 directive being obsolete among the Messianic Jewish people, at least as it applies to making non-Jews into disciples. After all, is the commandment to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28) still in force? When God gave the original commandment, there probably weren't a lot of people on the planet. Now we've overcrowded the place, so perhaps the "be fruitful" commandment has gone into abeyance (though strict Catholics, Mormons, and Orthodox Jews don't believe it has been "suspended" or "expired").
The reason I bring this up is that periodically, I read about how Gentiles who choose to worship in a manner similar to Jews are "doing it wrong". Usually, I read that Gentiles have no business doing anything that even vaguely smacks of Jewish worship practice because such behavior misappropriates the things of Judaism, violates identity boundaries, and is just poor form. We are usually pointed back to the practices of the traditional Christian church as the only worship model Gentiles should be performing, but it makes me wonder.
Back in the day, when Peter and Paul were educating Gentiles in the proper worship of the Messiah and the appropriate devotion practices to the One God, what did they teach? I know sometimes we're lead to believe that Paul taught Gentile disciples an entirely different set of worship practices than those used by the Jewish disciples in order to make sure that Gentile believers didn't step on any ecclesiastic toes, but is that true? If not, then whatever practices the original Gentile Messianic disciples learned have been lost to history and it's a history of the "early church" that could give at least some of us a meaningful direction.
Since that time, and for most of the history of the church, Gentiles have been making disciples of other Gentiles and the separation of practices between Christians and Jews who, at least in theory, worship the same God, have gone spinning in wildly opposite directions. Is this what Yeshua meant when he said the following?
I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me - just as the Father knows me and I know the Father - and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. -John 10:14-16Are Gentiles still considered part of the Messianic flock or has the passage of time and the ever growing division between the church and the synagogue resulted in permanent separation? If Matthew 28:19-20 has been converted to a commandment given by Yeshua only to the Gentiles and only for the Gentiles, then we are truly of a different flock than the Messiah's Jewish "sheep". I can only hope and pray when Yeshua returns to us, he will recognize all of his sheep and teach us what it means to belong to a single flock. I'm eager to hear the message. I'm not sure we got it right the first time around.
7 comments:
James, I think that the Jewish disciples originally recruited by Yeshua have already accomplished, directly or indirectly (and beyond anyone's wildest dreams) the task of disciplining the nations for Yeshua over the last 2K years. Look at all the nations / people among Gentiles who have accepted Him as their MESSIAH!
Besides all that, there was really only ONE apostle specifically dedicated to the Gentiles, and his name was Paul/Shaul (Romans 11:13; Ephesians 3:8). The rest of the other apostles' (as we read about Peter in Gal 2:7-10) efforts were apparently primarily directed at proclaiming Messiah to their own Jewish people (the Jewish disciples, of course, were still in fellowship with Gentile believers, at least when it came to meeting regularly outside of Jewish religious venues).
Seeing that there was a distinct division of labor targeting both groups of people and considering the fact that most of the Jewish disciples' efforts were focused on reaching their fellow Jews, I think that today's MJs, with our extremely small numbers and even more limited resources will do well to follow their example.
That somewhat disregards Peter and his Acts 10 vision and I suspect there were others in the diaspora who were speaking with the Gentiles about the Messiah. It doesn't seem reasonable to have just one or two guys trying to spread information to hundreds of thousands (or more) of people in Asia Minor and Europe.
What you are saying though implies a tacit agreement of Messianic Judaism with the activities of the Christian church. If Messianic Judaism, either by choice or by necessity, passed the Matthew 28 torch to the Gentiles, then they've abdicated any responsibility for input or control of said Gentile disciples of the Messiah.
That creates an intresting schism, perhaps not unlike the implications of "Bilateral Ecclesiology", because you have two totally different populations, developing in parallel, somehow aimed at one Messiah and one God, but using almost entirely different, and sometimes contradictory methods of relating to that Messiah and that God.
Originally, James and the Jerusalem Council had direct authority to guide and even dictate the behaviors of Gentile Messianic disciples because of the Matthew 28 imperative, but once MJ handed that imperative over to the Gentiles to administer directly, MJ gave up any authority or control over Gentile Messianic disciples and congregations (i.e. Christianity).
That means MJ can't come back 20 centuries later and specifically object to the actions, theologies, or beliefs of Gentiles in churches or perhaps even in Hebraic or Messianic Gentile congregations. There's no authority structure for it and if MJ/BI mandates a separation of Christian and MJ communities, there's no relationship for it as well.
My theory satisfies the MJ/BI requirement for Jewish and Gentile Messianic disciples to be isolated and separate communities, but I'm hardly describing the "one flock" metaphor of Yeshua (John 10) or Gentiles being co-heirs with Israel (Ephesians 3:2-6) in any fashion. Is there something missing?
"That somewhat disregards Peter and his Acts 10 vision and I suspect there were others in the diaspora who were speaking with the Gentiles about the Messiah."
Not at all. The Acts 10 vision was about the bigger picture of how G-d views Gentiles and how Jews should view them, and not so much about who preaches to whom. Also, I am not saying that "apostles to the circumcised" like Peter limited their proclamation of the Good News and specifically discipleship only to fellow Jews, but rather that where they seem to have focused MOST of their attention.
"It doesn't seem reasonable to have just one or two guys trying to spread information to hundreds of thousands (or more) of people in Asia Minor and Europe."
I think this had been very much the case, certainly until the Good News started spreading like wildfire by former pagans (Gentile followers of Yeshua) themselves. Read what Shaul writes in Colossians 4:10-11:
"My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.) Jesus, who is called Justus, also sends greetings.
THESE ARE THE ONLY JEWS AMONG MY FELLOW WORKERS FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD, and they have proved a comfort to me."
"MJ handed that imperative over to the Gentiles to administer directly, MJ gave up any authority or control over Gentile Messianic disciples and congregations (i.e. Christianity)."
I don't think that the current MJ leadership can lay any claim to apostolic authority of the original congregation of Ya'akov/James or preside over what goes on in any Gentile congregation. The only thing they can do, and in fact must do, is to advocate for their Jewish people, especially the theological (which includes issues pertaining to Jewish identity and religious practice, Replacement Theology, etc, antisemitism/anti-Judaism) and promote social treatment thereof (since as far as I can tell Gentile STILL OWE Jews when it comes to sharing in material blessings).
"Is there something missing?"
What's missing (or rather, in short supply) is mutual understanding, respect and love.
You make very good points, Gene. In regards to your final point about mutual respect (and I'm not directing this at you specifically), the door swings both ways. If MJ wants to be treated with respect, the best way to achieve it is for the larger MJ/BI community to model that behavior when dealing with Gentiles, even Gentiles they don't like, sych as OL/OT groups.
Either we try to build some sort of bridge between our two groups now, or agree thay we aren't willing to do so and wait for the Messiah to return and straighten us all out.
When you say that the Gentiles owe the Jewish people, is that in just financial support, or is it in terms of our adjusting our behavior to eliminate any Jewish practices in our public and private lives? How are we to conform ourselves to meet this obligation?
"If MJ wants to be treated with respect, the best way to achieve it is for the larger MJ/BI community to model that behavior when dealing with Gentiles, even Gentiles they don't like, sych as OL/OT groups."
I don't think that OL/OT Gentiles are being disrespected as human beings. The MJ movement as a whole expends very little of its energy opposing or disparaging any of these groups. Are MJs for the most part theologically opposed to what these groups teach - yes, but even that translated to a one or two mildly worded white papers at most (over many years). MJ movement just doesn't have the energy anymore.
"When you say that the Gentiles owe the Jewish people, is that in just financial support, or is it in terms of our adjusting our behavior to eliminate any Jewish practices in our public and private lives? How are we to conform ourselves to meet this obligation?"
At this point I'm thinking primarily about support for the Jewish poor around the world - specifically though Messianic Jewish and mainstream Jewish humanitarian organization. I am not advocating wholesale financial underwriting of Messianic Jewish congregations by Gentiles as this can have a detrimental effect on both the MJ agenda and our witness to our own community.
Also, I don't think that seeking to "eliminate any Jewish practices" is a desired goal (after all, we've seen this happen in the early church as it effectively become anti-Jewish). Simply a respect for the Jewish heritage without any theological displacement, replacement or add-placement of Israel and the Jewish people.
I appreciate all your input in this area, Gene..especially when I get "cranky" about it. I've been trying to formulate a continued response to the Messianic movement as a Gentile that will be acceptable to those Jews who are Messianic, but I keep getting mixed messages. It's not my faith that's in question, but how I express it, at least in a public setting.
It's why I wrote my previous post, since the only way I can guarantee that my practices won't interfere with the peace is to do what Abraham did to keep the peace with Lot..Abraham let Lot go where he wanted and take what he wanted and then stayed out of his way.
I've created an addendum to this message on my congregation's blog.
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