There is a well-established precedent in scripture that Gentiles would rule over Israel whenever its own leadership failed to submit to YHVH’s Chosen Deliverer of the day.
“According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me [Moses] I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.” (Deuteronomy 18)
“it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken…that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee…
- The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies…
- an shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth…
- And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee…
- The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low….he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail…that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, The LORD Thy God
- and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.
- And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other
- And among these nations shalt thou find no ease…but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind:
- And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:” (Deuteronomy 28)
This recurrence of events, so well established in the years after Moses with the Philistines and Egyptians and Assyrians and Babylonians and Greeks (just naming the big players) is well known to have also come to pass after the Jews rejected YHVH’s current Prophet The Christ at the hands of the Romans.
The Great Revolt of 66-70, followed some sixty years later by the Bar Kokhba revolt, were the greatest calamities in Jewish history prior to the Holocaust. In addition to the more than one million Jews killed, these failed rebellions led to the total loss of Jewish political authority in Israel until 1948. This loss in itself exacerbated the magnitude of later Jewish catastrophes, since it precluded Israel from being used as a refuge for the large numbers of Jews fleeing persecutions elsewhere. — Eusebius, Church History 3, 5, 3
But there is another iteration of this curse that, just because it didn’t happen militarily, shouldn’t be brushed aside.
“The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low….he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail…that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, The LORD Thy God.”
Towards the end of his ministry, knowing from Jesus’ prophecy that Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed during “this generation“, i.e. by 70 AD, and that this would end the The Church of God’s base there, Paul set about establishing a new base of operations and leadership.
“And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him…And Paul dwelt two whole years in hi own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ.
- And…Paul called the chief of the Jews together…For this cause therefore have I called for you…because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.
- And they said unto him, We neither received letters out of Judaea concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came shewed or spake any harm of thee. But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest: for as concerning this sect, we know that every where it is spoken against. And…there came many to him…to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets…And when they [the chief of the Jews] agreed not among themselves, they departed,
- after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive:For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
- Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it. And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves.” (Acts 28:16-31)
The phrase “the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles” cannot be interpreted as meaning only Gentiles and no Jews can be saved. Hermeneutically, that interpretation is antithetical to the message of the entire Bible.
Moreover, this phrase repeats the statement made by Jesus during his ministry to a Gentile, where “salvation is of the Jews” means that they carry the message, they lead the way, for Jews and Gentiles.
Paul only reluctantly transferred leadership from the Jews to Gentiles. For starters, he knew that Israel would suffer from its failure to live up to its mandate to provide leadership .
Then, there wasn’t a strong base of Gentile leadership yet, let alone much training to raise up a smooth transition of succeeding generations of leaders.
In desperation for both Israel and the plan of salvation as a whole, Paul writes the letter to the strongest Gentile church positioned both spiritually and geographically to shepherd the flock.
“all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.” (Acts 19:10)
The letter to the church at Ephesus is the first, and only, letter to a Gentile Church urging them to take charge, and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that prior to this there was a clear separation between Jewish believers – the leaders – and Gentile believers – the led.
The majestic chapters of Ephesians emphasize the unity in the church of Christ that has come about for both Jews and Gentiles within God’s household / administration (Eph 1:15–2:22, especially Eph 2:11–22) and indeed the “seven unities” of church, Spirit, hope; one Lord, faith, and baptism; and the one God (Eph 4:4–6). Yet the concern is not with the church for its own sake but rather as the means for mission in the world (Eph 3:1–4:24). The gifts Christ gives its members are to lead.
Notice how circumstantially Paul delivers this assertion. He lays out rationale after rationale why they should believe him, before he finally spits it out. This – the inclusion of Gentiles into leadership and not simply membership within the kingdom of God – is THE supreme revelation given by Jesus to Paul. Paul was unquestionably one of the Pharisees who did see Jesus again after, as promised to these very Pharisees, accepting him as coming in the name of the Lord, i.e. speaking with the same authority as Moses.
The post A Melchizedek like Moses provides evidence that Paul is also a priest-king under the Order of Melchizedek. Paul’s letter to the 1st century AD Gentile Ephesians carries the same weight as Moses speaking to the international multitude of Hebrews gathered at Mount Sinai in the 2nd millennium BC.
- he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
- predestinated us unto the adoption of children
- made known unto us the mystery of his will that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in The Promised Seed / Christ,
- ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise are made nigh by the blood of The Promised Seed / Christ
- For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us
- Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints,
- and [more than just faceless, nameless citizens] – of the household of God; [remember the household are the ministers, not an insult, but closest to the king, known personally to the king, highly valued in a king’s entourage]
- And [even more – unity in relationship!] are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone…ye also are builded together [with them] for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
For this cause I Paul,
- the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles [appealing to their sentiment],
- If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: [appealing to shared history]
- How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; [appealing to spiritual authority]
- (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) [not sure what this is, maybe a previous letter they simply threw away]
- Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; [appealing to rule of two or more witnesses, and Peter steps up as seen below]
That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs / rulers, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:
Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given,
- that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; [beyond simply salvation]
- And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
- Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
- To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church / congregation of believers including those following Moses at mount Sinai / and the originally solely Jewish New Testament Church the manifold wisdom of God
- According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord…
- For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
- That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man…
- May be able to comprehend…
- And to know the love [unity] of Christ, which passeth knowledge
- that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
- Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity [of the long-standing conflict between Jews and Gentiles] of the Spirit in the bond of peace.“ (Ephesians 2-4)
And Peter steps up and provides the necessary second witness to this doctrine as truth.
”to the strangers [aliens, non-Jews] scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia…
- ye are a chosen generation,
- a royal priesthood,
- an holy nation,
- a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;
Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God…among the Gentiles: that…they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” (I Peter 1:2, 2:9-12)
However, Paul’s letter resulted in all in Asia – Ephesus’ sphere of influence – abandoning Paul’s leadership. And this is when Paul writes the pastoral manuals to his spiritual sons and successors, Timothy and Titus, instructional manuals for new leaders.
Think about it. Paul would have written these at the beginning of his missionary journeys if Gentiles had qualified for these positions at that time!
“Titus, [a Gentile yet] mine own son after the common faith…For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee [because there were church splits between those who followed Paul’s Gentile appointments and those who remained under Jerusalem leadership] :
If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly…as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers…Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.” (Titus 1:4-14)
“Timothy, [circumcised to fully embrace his Jewishness] my own son in the faith…As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine…[as one good brawl inevitably leads to character assassination providing excuse to rebel against all authority.]
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre; Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless…the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” (I Timothy 1,3)
Continuing chronologically with Paul’s letters, we find that the churches in Asia (Turkey) also repudiated his disciple Timothy.
“This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me…Thou therefore, my son…do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” (II Timothy 1:15, 4:5)
Jesus called the church of Ephesus a candlestick for good reason.
It was the New York City of Asia Minor in the New Testament era. Pliny once called it, lumen Asiae, the light of Asia.1 In the first century, only Rome [Roman capitol], Alexandria [Egyptian capitol] and Antioch of Syria [capitol of Greek territory of Asia Minor] surpassed Ephesus in importance. It is no wonder that the apostle Paul made it the center of his ministry for three years (Acts 20:31). In fact, outside of the church in Jerusalem, one could argue that the church in Ephesus was the most prominent congregation in the first forty years of church history. [Emphasis added.] From its beginnings in Acts 19 circa 52 AD, to Rev. 2, as late as 90 AD, the church in Ephesus figures prominently in Scripture as the setting for the books of Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and possibly the epistles of John. It also enjoyed some of the greatest Bible teachers of its day, including Paul, Apollos, Aquila and Priscilla, Timothy and John. Given the number of verses written to Ephesus or from Ephesus (ie. 1 Corinthians), we know more about it than almost any other city mentioned in the New Testament.
It was through the Jews that Christianity was first introduced into Ephesus. The original community was under the leadership of Apollo ( 1 Corinthians 1:12 ). They were disciples of St. John the Baptist, and were converted by Aquila and Priscilla. Then came St. Paul , who lived three years at Ephesus to establish and organize the new church…
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, written at the end of his ministry, hammers home this unity between the Gentile and Jewish believers with an urgency not found in any of his other letters. The Jewish War was starting and Paul knew that Yeshua’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem would also destroy the Jerusalem church. The Ephesian church was the logical place to transfer leadership of Christ’s church.
“I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles…fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel…bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named…That he would grant you…to know the love of Christ…
I…beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation [leadership] wherewith ye are called [during a tumultuous time]…forbearing one another [Jews and Gentiles] in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all…Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us…Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.” (Ephesians 2,3, 4, 5, 6:24)
Paul’s first letter to his disciple Timothy indicates that Timothy was one of the first leaders of this church. This reading is supported by the early Church historian Eusebius.
Remember that Timothy was a prime example of a believer under the New Covenant who remained a law-abiding Jew. As Paul’s disciple and successor, he too was commissioned to incorporate uncircumcised Gentiles with circumcised Jews into the saving faith of “our father Abraham“.
However, Paul’s second letter to Timothy reports that not only the Ephesian church and the entire region under its leadership had turned away from him and his doctrine of unity between Jewish and Gentile believers. Since he tells Timothy to do the work of an evangelist, evidently Timothy had been voted out of the church’s pastorship.
“To Timothy, my dearly beloved son…thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me…I charge thee therefore…Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry [to combine Jews and Gentiles into one body of faith]….Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world…And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus. (II Timothy 1)
History validates the deduction that the church at Ephesus had fallen away from Paul’s doctrine that the church of God was composed of uncircumcised Gentiles identified with circumcised Jews as a sect of Judaism.
Many Christians & Jews are unaware of the fact that for the first 40 years (up to 70 years) after Yeshua (Jesus) ascended into heaven, to sit at the right hand with all Power & Authority, believers in Yeshua were predominately Jewish. These Jewish believers still followed Torah, kept Kosher, kept Shabbat, and worship in the Temple and synagogue…
believing & non-believing Jews coexisted, sitting in the same synagogue, and attending the same temple….Jerusalem was between 1/3 & ½ believers in Yeshua before the destruction of the Temple…While many Jews did not agree that Yeshua was Messiah, they respected the believers for their lifestyle & devotion.
The first major split occurred between 68-70 AD/CE. As Roman armies gathered to besiege Jerusalem , Believers were able to flee the city, heeding Yeshua’s words in Matt 24…This action labeled the believers as traitors in the eyes of many Jews…
Soon after 70 AD, [Jewish] Christians returned to Jerusalem…meeting at the “Church of the Apostles” on Mount Zion, near the Roman military camp (Cyril of Jerusalem; Epiphanius, Treatise on Weights and Measures; Itinerarium Egeriae; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History).
However…[in the next generation] a major rebellion surfaced again. The Bar Kokhba revolt seems to have been inflamed by the plans of Emperor Hadrian to include Roman temples in the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and particularly upon the site of the Temple of Yahweh, which was revealed when he visited the city around 130 AD…Yet, the reasons for Hadrian coming to Jerusalem and rebuilding the city seem to be connected with his mission to defeat Christianity [emphases here and below added]. Earlier in his reign, Hadrian had begun to devise plans to eradicate Christianity from the Roman Empire due to its beliefs and worldview that were completely opposite to the pagan Roman way of thinking, and its rapid spread across the Empire in all social classes over the last several decades…Hadrian believed that Christianity could be more effectively eliminated through ideological policies rather than executions…hoping to defeat Christianity intellectually and syncretizing the worship of Christ into the Roman pantheon, apparently even offering to place a statue of Christ in Rome (Golan, “Hadrian’s Decision to Supplant Jerusalem by Aelia Capitolina”). However, the Christians rejected this offer of syncretism and modification of Christianity into a part of the Roman religious system. The failure seems to have spurred Hadrian to attempt another strategy, involving the paganization of sites related to Jesus and Christianity. Knowing that Jerusalem had been central to Jesus and Christianity, Hadrian went to the city with this new plan. Rebuilding Jerusalem and founding it as a Roman colony in place of the ruins, Hadrian renamed the city Aelia Capitolina in honor of his family name and the god Jupiter. The province was expanded and renamed Syria Palaestina, supplanting Israel with Philistia. While this act certainly erased historical associations, it also directly challenged Jesus and Christianity by making the very name of the city into a Roman deity and Emperor, attempting to show the supremacy of Rome, its gods, and its Emperor…sites in the area which had an association with Jesus which Hadrian had pagan temples and shrines built over include the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem, the Pool of Bethesda, and the Pool of Siloam…
Soon after Hadrian left the area, full scale revolt began…further depopulated Judea, with tens of thousands slain and many cities and towns ruined. Cassius Dio even remarked that wolves and hyenas howled in the cities (Cassius Dio, Roman History; cf. Isaiah 13:22). Jerusalem itself was apparently besieged again during the reign of Hadrian…Christians did not support either of the revolts in Judea, and Eusebius recorded that many Christians suffered torture and death when they refused to join the Bar Kokhba revolt and attack Roman soldiers (Eusebius, Chronicon; Justin Martyr, Second Apology; Orosius, History). After over three years of fighting (132-136 AD), the Romans subdued the rebels and their false messiah Simon Bar Kokhba, who was executed along with other leaders of the rebellion. The effect of the rebellion was devastating to Judaism and the entire land of Judea, including the erasure of the ancient names and associations with Israel and Judah, the banning of the Mosaic Law, and the execution of many leaders of Judaism. For Jerusalem in particular, Hadrian completely banned Judaism in the city and barred Judeans from entering Jerusalem except once a year on Tisha B’Av (9th of the month Av), the day commemorating the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. [but] the city remained a place of both pagan and Christian worship.
The destruction of the Temple and the ostracism of Messianic Jews who bailed rather than support the rebellion in 70 AD broke the power base of Messianic Judaism. Banning the practice of Judaism in Palestine in 136 finished it off.
We should also expect that the wrath of Rome against the Jews would make the average Gentile Christian shy away from any association with them. Unlike some of those suicidal pastors in Germany under the Nazis, they didn’t need to add the Jewish question to their troubles. They were experiencing their own persecution.
Christianity was identified at first with Judaism, but people quickly came to see it as a different religion…a strange, new cult…spread across people groups and geographical boundaries. People felt threatened by this oddball new religion.
The next problem was with the religious activities of the Christians, with what they did do and didn’t do…
First, because they didn’t participate in pagan rituals but tended to keep to themselves, Christians were considered anti-social…Second, since Christians wouldn’t join in with the religious activities which were believed to placate the gods, they became a threat to the very well-being of the community. Writing in about A.D. 196, Tertullian said, “The Christians are to blame for every public disaster and every misfortune that befalls the people. If the Tiber rises to the walls, if the Nile fails to rise and flood the fields, if the sky withholds its rain, if there is earthquake or famine or plague, straightway the cry arises: ‘The Christians to the lions!’”
With respect to what they did do in their own religious practices, talk of eating the body and blood of Jesus, and the customary greeting with a kiss, brought charges of cannibalism and incest.
The third problem was the nature or content of Christians’ beliefs. The historian Tacitus spoke of Christians as a “class hated for their abominations” who held to a “deadly superstition.” A drawing found in Rome of a man with a donkey’s head hanging on a cross gives an idea of what pagans thought of Christian beliefs.
Finally, Christians’ reluctance to offer worship to the emperor and the gods was considered madness, considering what would happen to them if they didn’t. Why not just offer a pinch of incense to the image of the emperor?…
Claudius Nero was named emperor at age 16 and reigned from A.D. 54-68…Christians became the object of his ire following the Great Fire of Rome in A.D. 64. Some people suspected that Nero started the fire himself, so he pointed the accusing finger at Christians. The fact that he felt confident in doing this indicates the low regard in which people held Christians already. Historian Philip Schaff says that “Their Jewish origin, their indifference to politics and public affairs, their abhorrence of heathen customs, were construed into an ‘odium generis humani’ (hatred of the human race), and this made an attempt on their part to destroy the city sufficiently plausible to justify a verdict of guilty.” Schaff says that “there began a carnival of blood such as even heathen Rome never saw before or since….A ‘vast multitude’ of Christians was put to death in the most shocking manner.” Some were crucified, some sewn up in animal skins and thrown to the dogs, some were covered in pitch, nailed to wooden posts, and burned as torches. It was in the fallout of this that Peter and Paul gave their lives for their Savior, probably within a year of each other…
Emperor Trajan ruled from A.D. 98-117…Persecution was especially bad in Syria and Palestine during Trajan’s reign. In 107 he went to Antioch and demanded that everyone sacrifice to the gods. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch and pupil of the apostle John, refused and was martyred by being thrown to wild animals. Ignatius wrote this to Polycarp, another disciple of John, on his way to Rome: “Let the fire, the gallows, the wild beasts, the breaking of bones, the pulling asunder of members, the bruising of my whole body, and the torments of the devil and hell itself come upon me, so that I may win Christ Jesus [quoting Paul.”
Emperor Hadrian…hated Jews, and was somewhat “indifferent to Christianity from ignorance of it.”…“It was beside the point for Christians to argue that the malicious tales circulated about them were false,…Deeds, not words, were required by the state; and if they were in fact loyal citizens, as they protested, there was a simple way of demonstrating their loyalty; let them offer a pinch of incense in honour of the Emperor, let them swear by his divinity, let them invoke him as ‘Lord.’”
During these growing pains of Christianity, Antioch in Syria and Ephesus in Asia Minor became the centers of Christianity for the logical reason that this was where the greatest majority of Christians lived.
Will Durant, famed author of the 11 volume History of Civilization, devotes an entire book entitled Caesar and Christ to this challenge. It which concludes with “The Triumph of Christianity”.
Bear in mind, Durant is a secular historian and his perspective is political. His perspective is also proven accurate when we see what came to pass after a critical mass of membership and leadership shifted from the Jews to the Gentiles. The Roman state religio-political complex substituted worship of the Christ with his Spirit for worship of the Caesar with his genius, with virtually no changes in pagan practices.
the Kingdom of God was established on earth by Jesus Christ in the year 33 AD, in the form of His Church, led by Peter.…And where is the Kingdom of God on earth? It would be in the Tabernacle at each and every Catholic Church, where Jesus Christ is truly present, body, blood, soul, and divinity, in the Eucharist! He’s waiting for you to come see Him and talk to Him, right now! And the really good news is that everyone who is in the state of grace is a prince or princess of this Kingdom, right now!
There may have been a Reformation against Constantine’s Church, but did the churches of God simply substitute Luther, Calvin, Knox, Darby, and a host of other teachers for the apostle and prophets?
Interestingly, today’s Messianic Movement is recognizing the need to re-establish strong Jewish leadership among God’s people – by encouraging Gentile converts to Judaism.
I was privileged to be asked to draft a proposal for the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations Theology Committee on the subject of the conversion of Gentiles to Messianic Judaism…I and a growing number of Messianic Jewish leaders have come to believe that offering a formal conversion is essential for the future health and vitality of our movement, the spiritual and emotional well-being of the people in our care, and the good of the Jewish people…
Clearly, the intended path for non-Jews who enter the community of faith in the Messiah is not conversion at all…the non-Jewish peoples of the world are invited into Abraham’s enlarged tent not by becoming Jews, but by trusting in the Risen One and by obeying the overarching ethical imperatives of the Torah…
the larger biblical picture demands that the Jewish people-Israel-remain a distinct people for the sake of the world. According to Messianic Jewish understanding, the destiny of the world depends on the ongoing vitality of the Jewish people because the Jewish people have always been and will always be a conduit of his blessing to the entire world…Messianic Jews are God’s partners in this great task, helping the Church to stay properly connected to its Jewish roots and helping the Jewish community take “a second look at Yeshua for the first time.” At another level, we sense the vital role the Jewish people have played in many areas of civilization-building in the Western world, from medicine to principles of jurisprudence to the very concept of a single deity who loves his creation…
Consistent with Scripture…Some Gentiles may wish fully to identify with the Jewish people by actually joining themselves via conversion. I am arguing this is not only permissible, but an absolutely necessary option in a Messianic Jewish context (as it is among other forms of Judaism). The overarching message of the Bible with respect to the unique calling of the Jewish people, demands such an approach to the (relatively) few non Jews who seek full identification with the physical seed of Abraham.
Kingdom Come 