Yes, along with another reminder of these necessary things:
Acts 21
25 As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.
I would guess that James knew that circumcision was never required of the gentiles and that the Noachide Covenant was for perpetual generations and everlasting.
We also see in Galatians, which was apparently written before the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 (since Sha'ul does not reference the Council in his defense of the Gentiles)
I think he does.
Galatians 2:6,9
6 But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man's person:) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me:
9 And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision. 10 Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do.
The problem with this is that he doesn't mention the other 'necessary things'. Balancing the ceremonial and moral laws.
Matthew 24:11 - And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
12 - And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
The word "iniquity" comes from the Greek word "anomia". Thayer's Greek lexicon defines it this way:
iniquity greek 458 anomia {an-om-ee'-ah} from 459; TDNT - 4:1085,646; n f AV - iniquity 12, unrighteousness 1, transgress the law + 4060 1, transgression of the law 1; 15
1) the condition of without law
1a) because ignorant of it
1b) because of violating it
2) contempt and violation of law, iniquity, wickedness
And Strong's Lexicon defines it: "illegality (i.e. violation of the law)"
Basically, Jesus predicted, that because of false prophets, illegality or violation of the law and a condition of without law will abound. Looks like he was right on target.
These are the various types of people we are dealing with in the first century.
From the Greek: 4339 proselutos pros-ay'-loo-tos from the alternate of 4334; an arriver from a foreign region, i.e. (specially), an acceder (convert) to Judaism ("proselyte"):--proselyte.
1) a newcomer
a) a stranger, alien
2) a proselyte
a) one who has come over from a Gentile religion to Judaism
++++
The Rabbis distinguished two classes of proselytes, proselytes of righteousness, who received circumcision and bound themselves to keep the whole of the Mosaic law and to comply with all the requirements of Judaism, and proselytes of the gate, who dwelt among the Jews, and although uncircumcised observed certain specific laws, esp. the seven precepts of Noah, i.e. against the seven chief sins, idolatry, blasphemy against God, homicide, unchastity, theft or plundering, rebellion against rulers and the use of "flesh with the blood thereof".
I think its entirely possible that the followers of Jesus were a sect within Judaism, and never intended for there to be a 'new religion' called Christianity, based on the teachings of a Jew, yet removing his Judaic beliefs, customs, religious faith and upbringing, and basically stripping him of all his Jewishness. How does one base a religion on a Jewish Rabbi and yet ignore how this Rabbi lived and what he represented??
Gentile Godfearers who wanted to become full-fledged believers in God through the ministry of Jesus had ALREADY received Moses' instructions concerning how people are to live, as taught in the Noachide and Sinatic covenants since when Moses [Pentateuch-first 5 books of the Bible] is taught, such teaching encompasses both the Laws of Noah and the Mosaic Covenant.
A lot of these Gentile Godfearers already attended synagogue and or attended the Festivals and Holy Days, like Cornelius. All that was needed for a full conversion from Godfearer to Jew was, being cicumcised. And James had already pointed out that cicumcism wasn't necessary to be grafted into the family. So, the big thing that the Godfearers were lacking in was understanding of the dietary guidelines, and fornication like not having relations with ones sisters, aunts, uncles, neices etc.
They already had certain basics, just not the fundamental guidelines in dietary regulations since they didn't with Jews nor would they know how to properly prepare their food. (kosher)
You can SEE through the way the Jews lived, some of what was expected. But, without dining with them, or watching them prepare their foods, you wouldn't KNOW how to go about preparing kosher meals. They wouldn't have realized that their was a difference. They needed to be told and then instructed on how to do that.
It wasn't about making Jews more comfortable around Gentiles, it was about making Gentiles acceptable of God. It was about being a part of the family and being able to sit together at the 'wedding feast'.
It is wrong to tempt someone to break God's Law. If the Gentile didn't follow the dietery guidelines, and a Jew were over for dinner, it would be tempting for the Jew to break his dietary guideline. Better for all to be following the same dietary rules that the Jews use, since Gentiles are grafted to the Jews and not the other way around.
Note that at no point is the question even raised about Jewish believers keeping the Torah: It was assumed as a given that they should. The question was how to handle the influx of Gentile converts.
Right. You used the family analogy earlier. So, lets say a devout Torah observant Jewish family ADOPTS a gentile child. Will they welcome this child into their home and treat this child differently than the rest of the family? Or will they raise this adopted child as part of the family, expecting the child to adhere to the same rules as the other children and members of the family?
As I pointed out above, it is wrong to tempt someone to sin or break Torah. Since the Torah observant Jews, that you agree would be expected to continue in their adherence of Torah laws, would still be required to follow kosher meals, that means thet they would have to know how that meal was prepared, the pots and pans, the cooking utensiles, the storage of the food and the cupboards. That means if a gentile didn't prepare the food in the correct manner, the Jew wouldn't be able to eat it. The Jew couldn't be certain that it was kosher. The same for celebrating the feasts together. The Jew would never be able to enjoy table fellowship at the home of the Gentile, unless the Gentile were following the dietary guidelines.
Some propose that these items were meant to be the only requirements on Gentile Christians forever, but if so, by what right did Sha'ul tell the brethren to stay away from theft and contentiousness or to honor their parents and send monetary support to Jerusalem? Why did Ya'akov command support of the poor and not favoring the rich? None of these items were on the list!
Different types of laws. Just as Yehoshua taught.
Mat 23:23
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier [matters] of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
He placed 'moral' law above 'ceremonial' law. This is why some 'thought' that he 'broke' the law. You have to remember that Jesus taught in a period of transition, during the development of different schools of interpretation in Judaism. It is inevitable that there would be variant interpretations of the Law as recorded in the Gospels. With the Pharisees, Jesus accepts the Law of the Sabbath; he differs only in the interpretations of that law as found in the Oral Law. The Oral Law detailed the many conditions that allowed for the breaking of the Sabbath.
For example, the Rabbis of the Hillel School of Pharisaism declared that is was permissible to violate the Sabbath to preserve life, that in doing so you violate a Sabbath to ensure the observance of future Sabbaths. This was accepted interpretation by the Hillel Pharisees of which Jesus belonged, but not to the Shammai Pharisees or the Sadducees who were ultra-strict, always adhering to the 'letter of the Law' over the 'spirit of the Law' (Oral Law). It has been said that in elevating the spirit of the Law over the letter of the Law one can understand the minimizing of the ceremonial laws. But it is not that simple according to Jesus. As gentiles, we are not aware that the Oral Law brought a proper understanding to the Written Law if matters were in doubt.
These (least commandments) you ought to have done, without neglecting the others (grave-weightier commandments). In drawing such a contrast, Jesus does not annul the Written Law (613 laws), nor even the ceremonial laws; he only brings priority to the obedience of all the Laws. Jesus did not stand against the Written Law or Oral Law, nor even Pharisaism, but only against the elevation of the 'letter of the Law' above the 'spirit of the Law'.
Rev 2:19
I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last [to be] more than the first.
Notice that works is mentioned twice. The 'moral laws' and 'ceremonial laws'.
Lastly, Sha'ul and Ya'akov weren't in disagreement at all; they just emphasized the same points differently. Where Ya'akov said, "Faith without works is dead" (Jas. 2:26), Sha'ul goes on from pointing out that salvation is by faith and not works to adding, "For we are his workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:8-10).
Another good one to remember.
Matthew 19
16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
A very good, long, well-written reply. I apologize that I won't have time to write a response right away; I'll try to do so early tomorrow.
I would guess that James knew that circumcision was never required of the gentiles and that the Noachide Covenant was for perpetual generations and everlasting.
The problem is that you are assuming, without sufficient evidence from the text, that the Noachide Laws are what are being referred to. The seven Noachide Laws are:
Do not murder.Now, of those seven, there are exactly three parallels in the Gentile mandate: Prohibitions against idolatry, sexual immorality, and drinking blood. But notice what the Jerusalem Council leaves out! They do not add prohibitions against murder, theft, or blasphemy (which was considered to include a prohibition against occultism), nor do they seem to anticipate the Gentiles setting up their own "sanhedrons" to deal with offenses independant of their Jewish brethren: Remember that the split between the Church and the Synagogue had not happened in full as yet.
Do not steal.
Do not worship false gods.
Do not be sexually immoral.
Do not eat a limb removed from a live animal.
Do not curse God.
Set up courts and bring offenders to justice.
They also add a prohibition against eating strangled meat. While this might be related to the command not to eat blood, since that command is already given, it would seem redundant unless there was something specific about strangled meat.
Moreover, the concept of the Noachide Laws was not a new or novel one: Why would they not simply name the prohibitions as such and list them in their traditional sevenfold manner?
And moreover yet again, the Noachide Laws lack certain commands that the Apostles enjoined on the churches in their letters: Baptism is nowhere mentioned, but was clearly a "command" enforced on Gentiles entering the Church. There is also no mention of the Lord's Supper, which even classical Christianity acknowledges as an incumbant ceremonial command. Sha'ul commands that we should keep the Feast of Passover in 1 Co. 5:7ff--where is that in the Noachide Laws or in Acts 15? Sha'ul also cites the Torah (Deu. 25:4) as evidence that he had the right to be materially supported by the Gentile believers (1 Co. 9:9). Is that in the Noachide Laws?
I could go on, but I think you see the two points I am making: First, that there is insufficient evidence that the four prohibitions of Acts 15 were meant to refer to the Noachide Laws, and second, that there were commands beyond the seven that the Apostles said should be kept in their letters.
Another problem arises with the misunderstanding of the purpose of the four commands of Acts 15. You yourself recognize that it is wrong to tempt another to what is sin for him; e.g., it would be wrong to have table fellowship with a Jew and offer him unkosher food. Neither would it be right for the Gentiles to set up a point of division by creating their own holy days which to the Jews would just be paganism warmed over. Rather, I believe the Apostles envisioned the Gentiles having the pleasure of celebrating the Feasts of the Lord with their Jewish brethren.
Likewise, chaging the day of rest and worship from the Biblical Sabbath to Sunday has no Biblical justification, and would serve only to "tempt" the Jewish brethren to sin against the Torah which God still intended them to keep. It re-creates the middle wall of separation, this time from the Gentile side. (If I understand right, you agree with me here, so this argument is not so much against you as it is for the benefit of others.)
Therefore, even if Gentile believers were not bound, per se, to keep the ceremonial aspects of the Torah, it would be incumbant on them to keep the Feastdays in order to have loving fellowship with their Jewish brothers. Sadly, we did not do so.
The dividing line in keeping the Torah is not in an artificial division between the moral and ceremonial laws, nor in the Noachide Laws, but in each individual command. For example, the distinction between being ritually clean and being unclean was not a distinction between being in a state of sin or not, but in whether one was ritually ready to go into God's Holy Temple in Jerusalem. A husband and wife do not sin by lying together--just the opposite, they're obeying a command!--but in doing so, they become ritually unclean until the sundown after they wash. That is to say, they must remain apart for a short time before going up to the Temple to worship. They would not be required to observe the same fastidiousness before going to the local synagogue, for example.
The fact is that the Pharisaical over-emphasis on remaining ritually clean at all times was a distortion of the Torah! Ritual uncleanliness is not a sin; it's a normal part of life! It only becomes a sin if one knowingly enters the Temple without ritually purifying one's self first. Ritual uncleaness does not come between one and the Lord in prayer or private worship; it's simply a matter of taking care and showing respect to the place where YHVH has put His Holy Name forever.
Ergo, one who was not certain if he had come into contact with a corpse or a grave would (Biblically) be required to take the time to ritually purify himself in the week leading up to entering the Temple. This ritual purification was required whether one was Jew or Gentile! (In fact, the entire reason the Second Temple had a Court of the Gentiles was because of the basic assumption that all Gentiles were unclean by nature, and so had to be kept back from the Temple building proper. This "middle wall of separation" was an unBiblical addition to the Temple's structure.)
Therefore, the issue in the matter of whether one should be aware of ritual cleanliness was not a matter of one's genealogy, but a matter of whether one was going up to the Temple. In other situations, outside of the Land, it is not equally applicable, though again, one might make it a point to maintain a certain amount of ritual purity to make one's more fastidious brother more comfortable:
Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Yeshua, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. (Rom. 14:13-14)Likewise, kosher. God gave Noah every animal, not just the clean ones (and Noah knew the difference) for food (Gen. 9:12). We also see in the Torah that a Jew was not permitted to eat meat that had not been slain in a kosher manner, but that he could sell the meat to a foreigner (Deu. 14:21). From that I infer that kosher was never manditory on Gentiles, particularly those living outside the Land. God is merciful, and He knew in advance that there would be many parts of the world where unclean meat was the only type to be had; therefore, it is not a universal standard. I believe that if one has the luxury of being choosy, it is good to make the distinction--all the more so if one has Jewish friends that one wants to have over for dinner!--but that kosher is not and never was a requirement for Gentile worshippers of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
As for sacrifice, there's an open debate about whether sacrifice will be re-instituted in the Millennium (I believe so), but at the moment, that's an academic question: Since there is no Temple in Jerusalem, we are actualy keeping the Torah's ceremonial commands by not offering sacrifices.
Okay, end of rant. Back to your arguments:
I think he does. Galatians 2:6,9
Why could he not be referring to the journey to Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 12:25?
The problem with this is that he doesn't mention the other 'necessary things'. Balancing the ceremonial and moral laws.
I'm not sure I'm following you here. Could you please restate your point?
Basically, Jesus predicted, that because of false prophets, illegality or violation of the law and a condition of without law will abound. Looks like he was right on target.
Absolutely correct.
These are the various types of people we are dealing with in the first century.
Essentially correct, though there's some dispute over how those related to each other--probably because their status in the Jewish community was a matter constantly in flux.
How does one base a religion on a Jewish Rabbi and yet ignore how this Rabbi lived and what he represented??
My question exactly.
They already had certain basics, just not the fundamental guidelines in dietary regulations since they didn't with Jews nor would they know how to properly prepare their food. (kosher)
I would agree with that. And I would also point out, as I did before, that many of them were simply not in a position to keep the ceremonial commands even if their hearts yearned to: A slave doesn't get to decide what he eats or to take a day off once a week.
It was about being a part of the family and being able to sit together at the 'wedding feast'.
Very well put.
Or will they raise this adopted child as part of the family, expecting the child to adhere to the same rules as the other children and members of the family?
While giving the child their unconditional love and acceptance and giving room for him to make mistakes and grow, yes. We actually have this very situation occuring in our congregation, with the adopted child in question not being so sure he wants to be Jewish, especially with his parents planning to make aliyah if they can. It's often difficult to hit the right balance of discipline and leeway with an adopted child who isn't used to the family culture, and I think that's what the Apostles were dealing with.
Even my own youngest brother, whom we fostered from birth and adopted at a very young age, often has trouble with feeling out-of-place. Adoption is a subject very dear to my heart as a result.
That means if a gentile didn't prepare the food in the correct manner, the Jew wouldn't be able to eat it.
Well, remember the other side of that: The Jews--particularly those in Judea--had added a lot of additional traditions on top of the actual Torah commands. Those traditions should not, to a believing Jew, become a stumbling point to fellowship with a Gentile believer--especially one who is obviously making the effort to make the Jew at home. Indeed, just as I believe that many Christian traditions are in need of re-examination and modification, I think a lot of rabbinical traditions which were specifically designed to exclude Messianic participation and Gentile fellowship are as well.
In the meantime, of course, you are correct that the Gentile Christian should learn enough of his Jewish brother to be able to provide a kosher meal for him, just as a matter of love and respect.
He placed 'moral' law above 'ceremonial' law.
Exactly. "I desire mercy and not sacrifice," and the example of David and his men eating the shewbread of the Tabernacle. There is absolutely no question that if a person obeys a ceremonial command in such a way that evil results to his neighbor (for example, refusing to do CPR on the Sabbath to avoid working, or refusing food to a diabetic on Yom Kippur), that he has forgotten that one of the two nails on which the whole Torah hangs is, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
These (least commandments) you ought to have done, without neglecting the others (grave-weightier commandments). In drawing such a contrast, Jesus does not annul the Written Law (613 laws), nor even the ceremonial laws; he only brings priority to the obedience of all the Laws.
Exactly. The question is priority and balance, not in whether one should keep the commandments or not.
Notice that works is mentioned twice. The 'moral laws' and 'ceremonial laws'.
Hmm . . . could you expand on that argument a bit. From here it looks like you just made a major leap of assumption.
You know, we're not in any essential disagreement, especially on application; we've just got some minor differences in emphasis in the theory. Thanks for such a well-written post.
Your brother in Yeshua,