A little bit of humor and a lot of facts. They lurk among us, still after all these years! Looking for the good and righteousness in the Mosaic Laws and Jewish culture. Could be our preacher, could be our grandpa, or our friends. They come to us quoting Old Testament Laws and religious thought. Forgetting that cruelty and vengeance was the spirit of the Mosaic Law and culture. “eye for an eye” Also forgetting that the Mosaic Law regulated Polygamous marriages and concubinage and a host of other misogynic beliefs. Hey guys, see what you wife thinks about a few others in bed! Here is another Mosaic Law, Deuteronomy 20:13-14 Speaking of inhabited land; When the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all the men in it with the edge of the sword. Only the women and the children and the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you….From this Moses ordered thousands of women that were not virgins and all the male children killed. Numbers chapter 31…just read the whole thing. Now you can defend this, explain this, or like it, but can you imagine Christ saying something like this in the New Testament? You might not, but the Jews of Christ’s time were praying for it. It is an entirely different religious character! And the Jewish prophets did not do Christ any favors either. 700 years before Christ they were prophesying that the terrible day of the Lord was at hand. Joel 2:1 They prophesied that the Messiah would be a human warlord king that would put down their oppressors and the Jews would rule the world with the Mosaic Law written on the hearts of all men. (More than one prophet, that is a study in its self.) So when Christ shows up they are primed for a war. But instead of a warlord, they got “the Lord” a peace loving God of forgiveness and salvation for all. That was a big disappointment to the Jews! And being a God, He was a walking blasphemy to their religion. So the prophets set Christ up for failure and because of the Mosaic Law, He had a lot work ahead of Him to correct that morality and still today Judaizers fight against Christ’s efforts. So most of the Jews rejected Him and instigated His death. But I should make it clear that the Jews still have a covenant with God, and that covenant includes the Mosaic Law. But neither really has anything to do with Christianity.
The ministry of the Apostle Paul and the Judaizers that followed him around and wanted to force Judaism on Christianity. Like Paul, Christians today have Judaizers that preach and include the Mosaic Law in their beliefs. Many of the Judaizers of today are usually legalists that are drawn to the Old Testament laws and morales and their hard line concept of total obedience or you are lost. In the New Testament, it is evident that Paul was no stranger to adversity. He was beat, stoned, imprisoned, and eventually beheaded. More or less a murderer himself, he understood the power of Christ’s forgiveness first hand. Throughout his ministry Paul was harassed by the Jews to include Judaism, Jewish customs, and the Mosaic Law into Christianity. Act 13:44-52, 14:4-6, 14:19-20 15:1 But it did not stop him and he was not alone. He had a group of fellow disciples and Apostles like, Peter, Barnabas, Luke, Mark, and others which included several females. I will call them deaconesses....The original Greek says: οὖσαν διάκονον, ousan diakonon, being [the] [female] servant of the church at Cenchreae. The word "diakonon" means servant in nearly all of its 30 uses in the New Testament, but may also be used to refer to the church office of deacon. In the truest sense they carried out the business of the Church and Paul’s ministry. So whatever you want to call them.
Paul’s group, (No disrespect to our beloved Peter intended.) The ministry of Paul’s group was to the Pagans….Gentiles. This caused a lot of discontent among the Jews. The more you know about the Jewish culture and religion the easier it is to understand how this could cause big trouble. The Jews had lived under the 613 Mosaic Laws for a long time. It is a burden that most Christians can not fathom. Impossible to keep for your average Jew, and the exceptions were few. So heaven was not an option. All Jews were gathered with their fathers in shoal, with a couple exceptions….maybe. The other issue was that God the Father never seemed to like the Pagans in the Old Testament and then the Jews hated the Romans. The Mosaic Law had prohibitions regarding any agreement with them and that went dido for marrying a Pagan. So for the Jews that had accepted Christ as the Messiah, now His ministry was welcoming them in to the fold. The Jews had waited and hoped for the Messiah and salvation for a long time, now it was just being handed to the Pagans, on the basis of belief, how long had the Jews believed! To them this whole scenario was wrong and sacrilegious on several levels. So you might get a sense of how they felt….but that was God’s choice. Regardless they were going to try to insist that the Gentiles adhere to the 613 Mosaic Laws and customs.
So a group of Jews took it upon themselves to follow Paul’s group around and harass him and instigate trouble. So it was decided to go to Jerusalem and get a ruling on this. Now Peter had, had a vision on the suspension of dietary restrictions. Act 10:1-33 So these are the issues they are going to discuss. They meet in Jerusalem for a meeting---a council. We do not know the attendance of the meeting, no role call, but the Bible describes it as a multitude and I would have loved to have seen that because I believe that Peter and Paul and Barnabas would have made a good team. Acts chapter 15 starting at verse 1
And some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren. When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.” The apostles and the elders came together to look into his matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.” All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
The ministry of the Apostle Paul and the Judaizers that followed him around and wanted to force Judaism on Christianity. Like Paul, Christians today have Judaizers that preach and include the Mosaic Law in their beliefs. Many of the Judaizers of today are usually legalists that are drawn to the Old Testament laws and morales and their hard line concept of total obedience or you are lost. In the New Testament, it is evident that Paul was no stranger to adversity. He was beat, stoned, imprisoned, and eventually beheaded. More or less a murderer himself, he understood the power of Christ’s forgiveness first hand. Throughout his ministry Paul was harassed by the Jews to include Judaism, Jewish customs, and the Mosaic Law into Christianity. Act 13:44-52, 14:4-6, 14:19-20 15:1 But it did not stop him and he was not alone. He had a group of fellow disciples and Apostles like, Peter, Barnabas, Luke, Mark, and others which included several females. I will call them deaconesses....The original Greek says: οὖσαν διάκονον, ousan diakonon, being [the] [female] servant of the church at Cenchreae. The word "diakonon" means servant in nearly all of its 30 uses in the New Testament, but may also be used to refer to the church office of deacon. In the truest sense they carried out the business of the Church and Paul’s ministry. So whatever you want to call them.
Paul’s group, (No disrespect to our beloved Peter intended.) The ministry of Paul’s group was to the Pagans….Gentiles. This caused a lot of discontent among the Jews. The more you know about the Jewish culture and religion the easier it is to understand how this could cause big trouble. The Jews had lived under the 613 Mosaic Laws for a long time. It is a burden that most Christians can not fathom. Impossible to keep for your average Jew, and the exceptions were few. So heaven was not an option. All Jews were gathered with their fathers in shoal, with a couple exceptions….maybe. The other issue was that God the Father never seemed to like the Pagans in the Old Testament and then the Jews hated the Romans. The Mosaic Law had prohibitions regarding any agreement with them and that went dido for marrying a Pagan. So for the Jews that had accepted Christ as the Messiah, now His ministry was welcoming them in to the fold. The Jews had waited and hoped for the Messiah and salvation for a long time, now it was just being handed to the Pagans, on the basis of belief, how long had the Jews believed! To them this whole scenario was wrong and sacrilegious on several levels. So you might get a sense of how they felt….but that was God’s choice. Regardless they were going to try to insist that the Gentiles adhere to the 613 Mosaic Laws and customs.
So a group of Jews took it upon themselves to follow Paul’s group around and harass him and instigate trouble. So it was decided to go to Jerusalem and get a ruling on this. Now Peter had, had a vision on the suspension of dietary restrictions. Act 10:1-33 So these are the issues they are going to discuss. They meet in Jerusalem for a meeting---a council. We do not know the attendance of the meeting, no role call, but the Bible describes it as a multitude and I would have loved to have seen that because I believe that Peter and Paul and Barnabas would have made a good team. Acts chapter 15 starting at verse 1
And some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren. When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.” The apostles and the elders came together to look into his matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.” All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
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