- Jan 26, 2013
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Hi Once Again Sir,
I'm really not quite understanding where you actually stand with regard to accepting or rejecting the Old Testament. Could you clarify? Do you reject it or are you just saying that Jesus' contemporary Jewish brethren didn't understand Him and rejected Him as the Messiah, the Christ?
- the Jews had certain assumptions based on their scriptures about a Jewish Messiah.: Yes, I agree their expectation of a Messiah was primarily the restoration of Israel as a socio-political power, where they could be delivered from the boot of Roman authority on their necks. They were assuming His rule upon the earth was coming since they believed the prophesy given to Abraham: I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
- Jesus reailized that he couldn't meet their expectations: I don't believe He was trying to meet their expectations, That would be people pleasing. He was, however, obeying the Will of the Father and fulfilling the Old Testament promise; for the Abrahmic blessing Genesis 12:2-3 was that both the Jewish nation and the Gentile nations would be blessed through Him (Christ), the seed of Abraham, which Paul clearly discussed. Romans 9:7-8
- At the same time built his kingdom ideal on their expectations at least of a "deliverer.": I would disagree with you there. He built His Kingdom on conquering both sin and death, which is a malady common to all men and women. This of course was proven by His resurrection, which all believers ( whether Jewish or Gentile) who trust Him as their Lord abide in Him and through the same power shall also rise.
- He decided to allow the Father to guide him through the tangled mess. Yes, He obeyed the Will of the Father through the very end and it was an ordeal of Biblical proportions far past anything we have ever seen in terms of suffering. But He did not just do this at the end but from the Beginning as He stated in Luke 2:49 John 4:34 John 6:38-40 and in Him we are also sent to do the will of Christ, which is also the will of the Father John 20:21
- The problem was further complicated by the attempt by Jewish converts to the new Christian religion to force Jesus into the Old Testament to bring the Jews.: Well I agree that some Jewish converts desired to make cultural converts out of Gentile Christians and it caused great friction. But I;m not one for throwing stones at them. BTW we have done the same thing at time overseas whe trying to Americanize Christian converts from other countries. We should just let the Holy Spirit do His transformational work in each culture and relinquish our own cultural baggage. The Judaizers were not all Jewish Christians and the Jewish Church di not disappear until after the Bar Kochba war when Hadrian kicked all the Jews out of Jerusalem in AD 132, over 100 years after Christ, Even though their Diocese greatly decreased in power there were since very prominent Jewish Christians around; including the great Christian Historian Hegesippus who died around AD 180. We shouldn't confuse the New Covenant with a new religion as that falsely infers the Christians preceded the Jewish Christians, That would not be historically accurate. The entire New Testament was written by Jews, except for Doctor Luke's Gospel, However, even Doctor Luke was the companion of Paul and previous to that the friend of Peter and the disciples of Christ, of of whom were Jewish. He was more of a documenter and scribe and was bot a witness to Christ but dependent on the apostles. So the fulfillment of the Gospel through a the Holy Spirit and the bloodline of Nazarean Jew, Mary. But He belongs to us all as Emmanuel, God with us, Christ Jesus. The hearing the Gospel definitely also came through the Jews, and so we should give credit to the Jews for bringing us to Christ in the first place, as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman.; see John 4:22-26 . Lastly Jesus prayed at the last supper for all of us who would believe through the word of the apostle in Him - see John 17:18-24 , which is part of my handle. Everyone in the room that night was a Jewish believer.
- It failed to bring the Jews and complicated Christian theology: It did at first but then you had another Jew Saul of Tarsus, better known by his Greek name Paul, to fight tooth and nail to ensure Jewish culturalism didn't trump and smother true Christianity. Romans 11:1 This ultomately enabled it to be exported to every nation on the face of the planet. Theologically we had a bigger problem with syncretism (and we still do today). This is when is pagan cultures and deities get blended in with the true faith that was delivered to us from the apostles. It's a tough balancing act because we want Christ to penetrate each individual culture in order to lift that particular culture. Another analogy would be a great garden where then are 6500 plants and flowers, all being unique, you want each one to flourish but you have to be careful about cross contamination. So God sanctifies the culture and makes it great. But, we have to be careful, that at the same time we don't let the blend of the baser forms of the culture impede Christian growth. Those baser forms might very well be doctrine of demons and destroy the plant. So its important to know that Christ not only lifts individual men and women out of bondage but that He can lift entire nations out of bondage as well. Our best efforts these days is to pioneer the Gospel to those who have not heard it and then get out of Dodge once native missionaries and Pastors can take over. We don't entirely disconnect because we are family in Christ and so we continue to support their efforts but do transfer the leadership to those native to the cultural. We just want to see Christ grow in every culture and what that will manifest as will indeed be beautiful.
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