Major1
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If God considers Jews to be separate from the Church, then He must have a criterion or set of criteria with which to distinguish and identify them.
What are those criteria?
Gentiles were released from Jewish custom
The divergence is clearly articulated in Acts 15 - at the "Council of Jerusalem," often pegged at 50 AD - roughly 20 years after the Crucifixion. Acts 15 sets up the situation as follows:
Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. ... Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”
In a nutshell - it's the old circumcision debate: Do converts need to go under the knife?
Prior to this disagreement, Christians were simply Jews that believed Jesus was the promised Messiah. When the Messiah came, however, he expanded His mission in such a way as to afford salvation to the Gentiles. (See Matthew 28:19-20)
Peter speaks to this issue, recalling the fact that the Gentiles were being added to the mission - first in Acts 10, and now again in Acts 15:..............
6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.
At what point did Judaism and Christianity diverge?
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