[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Oh, come on now, don't give us some of that new age, mormon nonsense. Christ never left Israel.
"I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Mat 15:24 Mark 7:27
Jesus Christ was a minster of the circumcision...to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. Rom 15:8

[LostTribe]

>Ruy Dias de Bivar signed up 2002-07-19.

Welcome to Free Republic!

>Oh, come on now, don't give us some of that new age, mormon nonsense.

Sorry, I'm not a Mormon. Read my Profile and you will understand that I speak for no one and no one speaks for me.

>Christ never left Israel.

Where is your evidence?  There is absolutely no Biblical evidence to support that position.

>"I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Mat 15:24 Mark 7:27

To understand Jesus comment you have to first understand the meaning of the world GENTILE.  GENTILE is a generic word. Like the words FOREIGNER and STRANGER it has no specific meaning until the user gives it a context. A Foreigner to one person is a Countryman to another.  A Stranger to one person is a Friend to another.  A Gentile to one group of people is a Relative to another group.

Recognizing that "Gentile" simply means "not quite like us" Mormons call non-Mormons "Gentiles" and Jews call non-Jews "Gentiles".  But outside a specific context the word Gentile does not stand on it's own .

For Example: The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel are a unique sub-set of Gentiles who are Israelites, but not Jews. From a Jewish perspective they are Gentiles, but from an Israelite perspective they are not.  So when we read:

Matthew 10:5-6  These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: "Do not go into the way of the Gentiles , and do not enter a city of the Samaritans . But go rather to the Lost Sheep of The House of Israel."

we need to remember that the Title House of Israel was assigned to the Northern Kingdom when the Davidic Kingdom split.  Its members were never Jewish, therefore Jesus command to go first to the Lost Sheep of The House of Israel was NOT a command to go first to lost Jews.

Jesus was both an Israelite and a Jew and what He said here was "do not go to the Israelite Gentiles."   (A common misinterpretation has Him talking about Jewish Gentiles .)

The House of Israel later became The Lost Tribes of Israel which won their freedom from the Assyrians ~610 BC. These 5 MILLION Israelites spread quickly to the West and North where they became known to history as The CELTS and later as The Europeans and Americans. It was to these non-Jewish ISRAELITE CELTIC GENTILES in Galatia , etc. that Jesus sent his 12 apostles.

These Northern Kingdom Israelites were not Jews, thus were Gentiles in the Jewish sense.  But they were not Gentiles in the Israelite sense because they WERE Israelites. This huge nation of Israelites was simply called the The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel .

These ISRAELITE CELTIC GENTILES made up the bulk of the early Christians, and all the promises they received as Israelites were, and are, still good today. Gods inheritance has no statute of limitations.

[maxwell]

LT sez-- It takes on special significance in suggesting that Jesus did not spend 20 years of his life pounding nails. There is no Biblical reason to believe that after age 12 he ran the local arts and craft shoppe. Indeed, there is lots of extra-Biblical evidence to suggest he traveled very widely outside the region, including to France and England. Other evidence suggests he traveled to India. Did he also travel to South America???

Ruy sez-- ..new age, mormon nonsense

Is that all there is to this "extra-Biblical evidence", that it's a Mormon thing?

[realpatriot71]

"I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Mat 15:24 Mark 7:27

Nicely done - at least we know Jesus wasn't out running around the world between the ages of 12 and 30

[Aquinasfan]

Oh, come on now, don't give us some of that new age, mormon nonsense.

I don't think a lot of people realize how "off-center" Mormon beliefs are, considering that their impression of Mormonism comes mostly from misleading Mormon TV commercials.