Overlap, Part 2: The Therapeutic Horse

Let us use the famous story of Shammai, Hillel and the three converts (Shabbos 31) to demonstrate the fusion of Halacha and Aggadah,: A gentile once came to Shammai, and wanted to convert to Judaism. But he insisted on learning the whole Torah while standing on one foot. Shammai rejected him, so he went to Hillel, who taught him: "What you dislike, do not do to your friend. That is the basis of the Torah. The rest is commentary; go and learn!" Another gentile who accepted only the Written Torah, came to convert. Shammai refused, so he went to Hillel. The first day, Hillel taught him the correct order of the Hebrew Alphabet. The next day he reversed the letters. The convert was confused:"But yesterday you said the opposite!?" Said Hillel: "You now see that the Written Word alone is insufficient. We need the Oral Tradition to explain G-d's Word." A third gentile wanted to convert so he could become the High Priest, and wear the Priestly garments. Shammai said no, but Hillel accepted him. After studying, he realized that even David, the King of Israel, did not qualify as a cohen, not being a descendant of Aaron...

-Hillel, Shammai and the Three Converts
Saratogachabad.org

Bilateral Ecclesiology and the Gentiles Series

This is probably the story from Talmud that everyone, even many non-Jews, know about Hillel and Shammai and while it paints a rather rosy picture of Hillel in terms of his patience and compassion, it tends to cast Shammai as rather harsh and uncompromising. This commentary gives us more insight into the motives of both men, starting with Shammai:

But Shammai took people at face value. From his perspective, he rightfully rejected them. Shammai's original stern attitude helps us appreciate his statement (1:15): "Welcome everyone with a pleasant face." Shammai honestly conceded that Hillel's approach was proven right by the three converts. Yet, even while changing his personal attitude, Shammai refuses to relax his principles. He insists:"Set yourself a time for Torah study;" i.e. Torah cannot be learned in a rush, while on the run. Do not attempt to learn Torah while standing on one foot.

Shammai is not "bad" in comparison to Hillel's "goodness". Both men represent important aspects of how Jews are to approach God, Torah, and other men, including non-Jews. That said, the important lesson I get from this integral part of the Talmud is that, if you want a person who is sincere but misguided to change, instead of rejecting them out of hand, let them study (under your subtle guidance) until they learn their errors.

So, for proper ongoing dialog to take place and for healthy lasting relationship to be build, just as Christians in churches are expected to deal with their suppersessionism and anti-Judaism, so should Gentiles in congregations under the "Messianic" umbrella be expected to develop respect for the unique nature of Jewish identity and traditional Jewish norms, including appropriateness of appropriation of certain Jewish ritual, garb and life cycle events (like brit-milah and bar-mitzvah). A "Judaicaly informed" congregation should be expected to be informed regarding these things, to understand and respect the Jewish understanding of these Jewish matters.

Gene Shlomovich's comments from my
Overlap blog post.

I hope Gene won't mind me picking on him a little bit, but I'm trying to illustrate some of the difficulties that Messianic Judaism (MJ) is having developing relationships with other believing groups, including the church and particularly "Messianic" One Law congregations, especially as MJ attempts to apply the ideals of Bilateral Ecclesiology (BE). While it's understandable that Jews who were raised in ethnically and religiously observant Jewish homes would find it distressing or offensive to see non-Jews wearing tzitzit, laying tefillin, and speaking Hebrew prayers, is it reasonable to expect such groups to abandon practices they are quite used to in an instant and before establishing relationship with their Jewish "mentors"?

Consider Hillel vs. Shammai again and see the differing results. Each convert, through their own studies, realized their errors and humbled themselves. But what would have happened to these three men if, after Shammai rejected them, they gave up on their desire to convert and went in some other direction? Shabbos 31a records the answer:

One day the three met and said: "The sternness of Shammai sought to drive us from this world [and the world to come], Hillel's humility and gentleness brought us under the wings of the Divine Presence."

Many years ago, when I was in graduate school (I have an M.S. degree in Counseling), one of my classes was studying the therapeutic and hypnosis techniques of pioneer psychotherapist Milton H. Erickson. Erickson had a unique perspective on how to achieve therapeutic change in patients that defies reduction down to a "method" (although my graduate program did a very good job of trying). One story Erickson is said to have told stuck in my mind. I can't quote it verbatim, but I'll do my best to retell it from memory:

You are on the back of a runaway stallion. The horse has been panicked and is galloping out of control. You have the reins in your hands but any attempt to suddenly stop the horse will result in you being violently thrown from his back and with the horse escaping into the unknown distance.

Although you can't stop the horse, you find that if you gently pull the reins, the horse will turn direction slightly. You turn the horse, still at full gallop, first a bit to the left and then a bit to the right. You slowly but persistently continue to turn the speeding steed in one direction or the other, and it becomes a little easier to control your mount each time you gently tug the reins. After much time and patience, you find you can slow the horse down a bit. You allow him to speed up again, then slow him down a bit more. You repeat your actions, gaining an increasing amount of control with each slow, and steady move.

Finally, after many such maneuvers, the horse becomes calmer and responds in greater measure to your directives, finally slowing to a canter and then a slow walk. You can now turn him back to the stables and he acts in full cooperation with you.

I'm sure Erickson could have told the story better, but you get the idea.

Of course, my use of Erickson's metaphor assumes that the Jews in Messianic Judaism are in "the driver's seat" and in control of access to the community of the Messiah, even above the Christian church. While in the time of Paul, Peter, and James, the Jerusalem Council was in direct control of the admission of formerly pagan non-Jews into the community of God, nearly 2,000 years of relational division have broken that tie. While Gentiles who align themselves with the Messinaic movement are more "dependent" on their Jewish counterparts than the church, a direct mentor-disciple relationship between the two groups doesn't exist and thus, Messianic Judaism isn't positioned to "drive the horse" to any destination they desire, at least not in any abrupt or "parental" manner. Like Shammai, all they'll accomplish is to chase us away with a stick.

Like Hillel, the observant Jews in Messianic Judaism, in order to achieve their goals, must understand the different groups of people in which they are in relation, and allow those groups who are willing (and not all groups will be), to discover their own answers, while learning under the "Messianic umbrella". This is what Hillel understood and the rest of us need to learn to achieve. From the Saratogachabad.org commentary:

The convert was not just acting silly by standing on one foot; he was actually symbolizing his quest for true unity. This gentile had left behind a confusing plethora of pagan gods and multiple deities. He searched and finally found Monotheism, One Torah and One G-d, wanting to live by a single unifying principle, the 'one foot' on which all else stands. Hillel taught him that the underlying principle that unites all is Jewish Love. The second convert, had rejected the other man-made religions as human concoctions, was attracted to the Divine Torah, which consisted solely of G-d's word. He was shocked to find that we follow a Rabbinical tradition. He wasn't being rebellious, but sincerely asking a valid question; "I wish to observe G-d's word alone, not any human additions." Hillel creatively showed him that the two Torahs are not two separate systems, but are one and the same. The written word and the oral traditions complement each other. It is as basic as the Aleph Bais, where you can't have one without the other. Indeed, the Torah itself bids us to follow the enactments of the sages. The third convert, disillusioned with pagan shallowness, aimed for a higher meaning to life. He yearned to reach the highest level, assuming that being a High Priest is the ultimate spiritual fulfillment.

How can we deny anyone from coming into acceptance under the wings of the Divine Presence and drive them from unity with the larger body of the Messiah? The horse must be willing, but the guidance must be humble and gentle.

What Did Jesus Teach About Gentiles?

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." -Matthew 28:18-20

January 30, 2011: The content of this blog post is now available as part of an audio teaching series called Discipleship and the Torah. Click the following link to listen to the MP3 discussion (approx 72 min).

The words of the Master which direct his Jewish disciples to "go and make disciples of all nations...teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" have been the subject of much debate in the Messianic Jewish/One Law-One Torah/Two House world for many years in terms of the meaning and intent of Yeshua towards Gentile believers. Was the Jewish Messiah really telling his Jewish disciples to make new Messianic disciples of the Gentiles and to teach the Gentile disciples to literally obey everything that the Jewish Messiah taught the Jewish disciples?

In the One Law movement, the above quoted verse is usually married to the following scripture:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. -Matthew 5:17-20

Putting this together with Yeshua's words in Matthew 28, you could interpret this teaching to mean that the Jewish disciples were to teach the Gentile disciples the whole of Torah, with the warning that anyone "who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven", meaning that the Jewish disciples were not only to teach Gentile disciples Torah, but they were not to teach them to break any of the Torah commandments.

Wow! That's starting a lot of trouble right there, isn't it? Is that what Yeshua meant? I can hear some of you shouting out a resounding "YES!" while others are screaming "NO!" How do we understand these teachings?

As I mentioned before, this subject has been a matter of intense debate for many years so I probably don't have much of a chance at solving it once and for all, but on the other hand, I don't want to sweep it under the rug either. I also certainly don't want to make one set of assumptions or the other about these teachings, if I can at all help it. What to do?

In my case, I went through the book of Matthew and tried to tease out just what Yeshua actually did teach. It's not easy. I don't want to write one really long blog post trying to figure this one out, so I'm creating a series of articles with this being the first one.

As it turns out, Yeshua taught many things, so I've had to compartmentalize the topics. I'll present them, one by one over the next few days or weeks (depending on how long this takes) and then see what conclusions we can draw at the end (and what comments people will make along the way). Keep in mind that a teaching can fall under more than one category and there's bound to be a bit of overlap, so don't get excited if I consider a teaching as being found in one "pigeon hole" and you would have put it in another. Sooner or later, it'll all get covered anyway. Oh yes, I'm using the book of Matthew as my foundation and I'm not unmindful that Matthew wrote his Gospel specifically for a Jewish audience. What better place to try and determine what the Jewish Messiah's message was to the Jewish disciples about the Gentiles?

Speaking of which, let's launch our first topic: The Gentiles.

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering."

Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."

The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."

When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour. -Matthew 8:5-13

We learn a couple of things here. The most immediate message is that Gentiles, as well as Jews, have access to the Messiah through faith and because of faith Gentiles can expect a response from Yeshua, in this case, in the form of healing. However, there's a more enduring message. Yeshua says that "many (Gentiles) will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." This seems to mean both that lots and lots of Gentiles will have access to the Messiah and to God through faith, and that even some Jewish people will not, presumably through lack of faith, attain that same access to "the feast". Faith appears to be the great leveler of playing fields in this teaching.

Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed him, and he healed all their sick, warning them not to tell who he was. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
"Here is my servant whom I have chosen,
the one I love, in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will proclaim justice to the nations.
He will not quarrel or cry out;
no one will hear his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,
till he leads justice to victory.
In his name the nations will put their hope." -Matthew 12:18-21

Quoting Isaiah 42:1-4, Matthew announces (among other things) that the Jewish Messiah will proclaim justice to the nations and that the Gentiles will put their hope in his (Yeshua's) name. Of course, we have to now try to understand what justice to the nations means. After all, it could just mean that God will toss all the Gentiles who ever existed into the lake of fire because of how they treated the Jews, but if you take it in the context of the scripture portion and in the larger context of what else the Bible says about Gentiles, we can reasonably believe that "justice" at least for some of us, will be provided in the same manner for Gentile believers who have suffered for the faith as it will be for the Jewish believers.

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."

He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.

He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour. -Matthew 15:21-28

Here we have another non-Jew approaching the Master and almost being turned away because he had "come for the lost sheep of Israel." We again see that it is her great faith and perseverance that results in the healing of her daughter and, as I mentioned before, faith seems to be the leveling factor in a person's relationship with the Jewish Messiah, as opposed to any other quality.

I feel constrained to point out the following scripture because of its relevancy:

Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces. -Matthew 7:6

Some folks out there might consider that Yeshua contradicted himself by saying these words and then responding favorably to the "Canaanite woman" since after all, he did call her a "dog". My own personal interpretation is that a "dog" in this context, is a person (maybe just a Gentile; maybe anyone, Jew or Gentile alike) who comes looking for favors from God without having faith and devotion and possessing only bad motives. If they get what they want, they don't value the gifts from God and may "tear to pieces" the emissaries of the Messiah. However, the Canaanite woman established she wasn't a "dog" by demonstrating her faith (there's that word again) and humbly accepting the "crumbs that fell from the table".

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. -Matthew 24:12-14

Yeshua doesn't seem to be saying that the whole world will accept "the gospel of the kingdom", just that it will be preached to the whole world as a "testimony to all the nations" and then after that, "the end will come". I suppose, in context, the meaning of "testimony to all the nations" is a testimony of the Messiah himself and that the salvation he offers, he offers to everyone.

Conclusion: What did Yeshua tell his Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples about Gentiles?

1. He taught them to tell the Gentiles that the Messiah is just as accessible to them as he is to the Jewish believers, both individually and as a people group.
2. He taught that many Gentiles will take their place at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, meaning many Gentiles will be there in the Messianic Age.
3. He taught that faith; great faith is the characteristic or factor a person must possess, Jew or Gentile, in order to approach the Messiah and be received with favor.
4. He taught that justice will come to the Gentiles and the Gentiles will put their hope in Yeshua as was foretold by the Prophet Isaiah.
5. He taught that the gospel will be taught to all the nations as a testimony to the Messiah and his salvation is accessible to everyone who accepts it by faith.
6. He taught that when Gentiles come to faith in Messiah, they stop being "dogs" (pagans, unbelievers) and that their faith gives them access to the Messiah and to God.

Of course, we have Matthew 28:18-20 which is Yeshua's final teaching about Gentiles in Matthew's gospel. In this case, Yeshua taught his Jewish disciples that the Gentiles are also to be taught that they can be disciples and to be taught to obey the same things Yeshua taught the Jewish disciples to obey.

Interestingly enough, when Yeshua taught about "justice to the nations" and "Gentiles putting their faith in Yeshua's name", quoting Isaiah, one of the things the Gentile disciples would have to do to make sense of this lesson was to read Isaiah. This means that the "Torah study" of the Gentile disciples was not to be limited to what we call the New Testament or more specifically, just to Acts 15 and Acts 21 (referencing the "Jerusalem letter"). In fact, we see this lived out in the example of the Ethiopian eunich reading Isaiah 53 during his encounter with Philip in Acts 8:26-40.

In a nutshell, for today's lesson, we learn that Yeshua taught that Gentiles have a place in the kingdom of heaven through faith and their place will be at the feast Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What teachings are the Gentiles supposed to obey? The teachings of faith in Yeshua and perseverance in approaching the Throne.

Exciting news.

Disciples Among the Nations

You ignore the fact that Messianic Judaism was started as a movement for Jewish people to express life and faith in Yeshua. Those who are not Jewish and who wish to be part of Messianic Judaism should be here for a Jewish movement to come alongside, not to say, "Hey, Messianic Judaism belongs to us now, so move over Jews."

I wish you would either rejoice in your non-Jewish identity and find your place in the church or realize that your participation in MJ (assuming your congregation is actually Jewish, which I do not think is a given) is about supporting God's work amongst the people of Israel.

These quotes from comments made on Judah Gabriel's Weekly Bracha late last month were in response to some statements I'd made in an article I wrote for my congregation called Does God Love Gentiles, Too? I've been assured by various Messianic Jewish commentators that indeed, God does love me, but that I need to restrict my role as a worshiper of the Jewish Messiah to the Christian church in order not to misappropriate any of the practices or behaviors that have been given to the Jewish people.

That conversation was the final prompt (though not the actual beginning of this quest) to start this blog and examine all of the assumptions I had managed to collect over the past decade or so, about my relationship with God, with the Jewish Messiah, with Jewish people, and in the larger body of believers in the world. Who am I in Christ/Messiah? I found I wasn't really sure anymore. Yes, of course there are many groups who are more than glad to tell me who I am and what I should do and where I should go (in one way or another), but too many people robotically respond to a human authority and allow that authority to define their roles and relationships. Missing, at least from my perspective, from the many conversations was the actual desire of God. What does God really want Gentiles of faith to do in response to Him? What is the proper role of a Gentile in relationship to the Messiah of the Jewish people? More specifically, why did Yeshua/Jesus really come?

That might seem like a ridiculous or even an insane question, but consider the quote I inserted at the top of this blog article.

Messianic Judaism was started as a movement for Jewish people to express life and faith in Yeshua.

Taken all by itself, this phrase seems to say that the Messiah came for the Jewish people and only the Jewish people. There's a certain amount of support to that notion.

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."

He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.

He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour. -Matthew 15:21-28

Neither Yeshua nor his disciples were particularly gracious to the Canaanite woman. Yeshua said I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel and certainly this woman didn't quality. Neither does anyone else who isn't Jewish. If the narrative started and ended there, and if Gentiles were expected to have some sort of relationship with the God who made the world, it would have to be accomplished through some other mechanism or process besides the Messiah. End of story.

On the other hand, there's this:

“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. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again”. -John 10:14-17

Here we have Yeshua acknowledging that the Gentiles will also know him, listen to his voice, and follow him. The statement also seems to say that the death the Messiah suffered was on behalf of Gentiles as well as the lost sheep of Israel. But what now?

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." -Matthew 28:16-20

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. In other words, Yeshua seems to be directing his Jewish disciples to make disciples of all nations, that is, all non-Jewish people, and to teach the new, Gentile disciples everything Yeshua taught his own Jewish disciples. Everything? Gentile disciples? This must have seemed like a radical thought to Yeshua's audience.

A few years back, I attended something called the Wooden Podium conference hosted by First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) (the particular event I attended was held in Phoenix, Arizona). At that event, D. Thomas Lancaster defined a disciple as a student who learns by imitation. That is, a disciple attaches himself (or herself) to a Master and learns the Master's teachings by imitating everything the Master says and does, basically modeling the Master's lifestyle. In the case of a disciple of Yeshua, the person would attempt to model their actions and even their thoughts on their observations of Yeshua as well as his spoken teachings. The Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us as a human being becomes the ultimate role model and the perfect Rabbi to (at least) the first century Jewish world, hungry for the true meaning of the Torah and a pure relationship with God.

Connecting the Matthew 28 mandate with Lancaster's definition of "disciple", what Yeshua seems to be saying is that the Jewish disciples were to become masters of Gentile disciples and to model for the Gentiles all of the lessons that Yeshua taught and modeled. OK, let me get this straight. If you follow the logic of the statement, Jewish disciples who had modeled themselves on the Jewish Messiah were to act as models for their own Gentile disciples. That means, for the Gentiles to learn properly, they'd have to not only listen to what they were taught about Yeshua but imitate the actions of their Jewish Masters and teachers. Imitate?

I may be overstating the point, but think about it. If a bunch of first century Gentiles who had just left pagan worship started imitating their first century Jewish mentors who are teaching them to act our their faith in the Jewish Messiah, what would happen? Does it make sense? Let me make an illustration from my own experience.

I came to faith in Yeshua in my 40s. That, in and of itself, probably makes at least some of you reading this blog consider me as "lesser", especially those of you who have been developing a relationship with the Messiah since childhood or at least your teens (I was seen that way by some Christians in my original church experience). Nevertheless, I came to faith. As circumstances (which I believe were constructed by God) would have it, my family and I began worshipping at a Nazarene church in my community. I'd been in church before and, as a young teen, my parents had me attend a Lutheran church with them, but I never attended as a believer. I never had faith as a teen or young adult. No one explained to me, as a youngster, the "relationship" stuff. No one bothered to ask if I believed.

So here I am, a guy in his early 40s with his wife and kids in church, scared to death and as awkward as a gymnast with broken legs. What was I supposed to do here? What was I supposed to say? Half of what everyone talked about was in "Christianese" so I could barely understand the concepts being discussed in Bible class and, if I dared to ask, people would look at me as if I had just turned bright orange with purple polka dots. What to do?

What does anyone do in an unfamiliar circumstance when they're trying to fit in? You do what everyone else around you is doing until you figure things out for yourself. In other words, you imitate your role models, at least until you are able to grasp your environment and can act independently in an appropriate manner. I suppose that could be one way to consider being a disciple, except that it's not a formalized relationship and those you are imitating may not be aware that they're being used as role models.

Can we apply the idea of a Master/Disciple relationship between say, Peter and Cornelius (Acts 10)?

While you may consider the answers to these questions to be elementary, I am deliberately taking my steps in this journey slowly and asking what many of you might consider questions with obvious answers. I started this blog, among other reasons, because the nature and character of the relationship between modern believing Jews and Gentiles has been brought into question. It has been suggested, based on the concept of "Bilateral Ecclesiology", that Jews and Gentiles who consider themselves followers of Yeshua, must remain separate from each other because, in essense, relative to their faith and their roles, Jews and Gentiles are Apples and Oranges. We can see this in the first century world of the disciples, at least somewhat.

Recall that it wasn't until about 15 years after the events recorded at the end of Matthew 28 that Peter received his rooftop vision in Acts 10. Up until that point, there's not much of a record of a lot of Gentiles being discipled by the twelve who had followed Yeshua. There's a good reason for that. Really acting out the lived experience of a Jewish person discipling a Gentile was rather foreign. At that point in history, in Roman occupied Israel, for a Jew, even going into a Gentile home would make the Jew "unclean". God had to inject a significant prompt into Peter's life to get him to realize that nothing bad would happen to him if he entered the home of Cornelius and in fact, it was what God wanted Peter to do. Peter was still trying to figure out what the vision meant when the messengers from Cornelius arrived. I wish I could have been there to watch the realization come over Peter's face as he understood the reality of Yeshua's words to make disciples of "all nations". No wonder he and other Jewish believers were so amazed at this:

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Then Peter said, "Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have." So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days. -Acts 10:44-48

Peter received plenty of heat from some other Jewish believers when they heard he had gone into the home of a Gentile and he ended up having to explain what happened to them (see Acts 11). A Jew going into a Gentile's home was obviously a very rare and generally undesirable event for Jews at that point in time. The idea that Gentiles could really receive the Holy Spirit, just as the Jews had, was completely revolutionary. It must have been very difficult for all of the Jewish believers to accept. Who had ever heard of a Gentile having a relationship with the One, True God unless he or she had converted to Judaism? Fortunately, the believing Jews Peter spoke with accepted his experience:

When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, "So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life." -Acts 11:18

We might be left to wonder what Peter and Cornelius, or any Jewish teacher and Gentile disciple, had to talk about, but then we encounter the Jerusalem letter in Acts 15. The letter seems to define the limits of what was expected of the Gentile believers in Yeshua (besides faith in Yeshua himself, of course). Both here and in Galatians, we see that some group is going out representing the Jewish Messianic authority and attempting to convince the new Gentile believers that they must become circumcised (convert to Judaism) in order to worship the Messiah and to worship God. As such, they would take on board the full yoke of Torah, which some commentators also believe means all of the Oral Torah, traditions, and halacha.

There's a difference of opinion as to how to understand the Jerusalem letter, which was supposed to counter this problem, but let's assume for now that we can take the letter on face value and not connect it to any other portion of the larger Biblical context. Let's say we can take the content of the letter as the length, breadth, and depth of a Gentile's responsibility to God as a believer in Yeshua. This may or may not be true, but I'll reserve that discussion for a different time. Of course, it might fly in the face of the Matthew 28 statement of Yeshua directing the Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples everything Yeshua taught the Jews, but I suppose the Gentiles could learn everything Yeshua taught but only respond to some small subset of those behaviors as outlined in the Jerusalem letter.

Who were the "judaizers" stirring up these issues in Acts and Galatians? I've seen comments in connection with recent MJ/BE blogs I've read stating that they were Gentile believers who basically went overboard in their devotion to Judaism (if not the Messiah) and tried to convince other Gentiles to "become Jewish". This sort of behavior can sometimes be seen in certain MJ/OL groups where Gentiles appear to fall in love with Judaism but not so much with Yeshua. I've heard a number Gentile believers refer to themselves as "Spiritual Jews", which is probably nuts. It's very easy for some people to get very confused about their identity and to assume that if they're doing "Jewish stuff" that, on some level, it makes them Jewish. Some of these folks become quite upset if you say "Jesus" and not "Yeshua", or if a fellow Gentile believer chooses to go to a Sunday-keeping church, or if a fellow Gentile believer in MJ/OL doesn't feel convicted to wear a tallit during prayer or worship. In those cases, I can see the Jewish people in Messianic Judaism (or in any Judaism) becoming somewhat put out. These latter-day Gentile "judaizers" certainly stir up the pot, so to speak.

On the other hand, what if at least some of the first century "judaizers" were Jewish believers who just could not make the conceptual leap that Gentiles were able to enter into a community of faith in the Jewish Messiah? After all, the Jewish people were virtually the only people group on Earth who had worshipped the One God, kept the Shabbat, and experienced God for thousands upon thousands of years. Who were these “Gentile-come-latelies” who not only are receiving Jews into their homes, but professing a faith in the Jewish Messiah without converting to Judaism? There are different interpretations of these events, including some traditionally Christian thoughts, but it does illustrate that the Jewish and Gentile believers didn't form a fused identity in the first century Church/Messianic Community and they remained two distinct people groups linked by a common faith in one Messiah and one God.

It begs the question though, that if Jews remained Jews and Gentiles remained Gentiles in the first century community of Messianic faith, just how did discipleship work, particularly within the context of active worship? I mentioned in my earlier personal disclosure about my first church experience as a believer. Of course, for me to imitate the more experienced Christians around me, I had to be in the same church at the same time as they were. Can we believe that Gentiles attended the same worship services as their Jewish mentors? If they did, was that deliberately intended by God to be only a stepping stone experience leading eventually to separate worship venues for Jews and Gentiles, or was the original Messianic worship model somehow distorted and lost by human beings failing to perceive and uphold God's purpose? A topic for my next blog.