Or Matt. 15:24 "But he answered and said, I am NOT SENT but UNTO the LOST SHEEP of the HOUSE OF ISRAEL."
Not so "beautiful" to Gentiles there, is it? What does your church do with these Scriptures? Ignore them, play them down, or make yourselves into spiritual Israel in order to claim His words?
Who said it? To whom was He speaking? What did He say? And (thank you, Dutchboy) what was the reason for what He said?
You make the logical phallacy of equating “Not All of X” with “None of X.”
The reason the bible records God telling various people various things is that we are supposed to learn from those things; God reveals his truth to Moses, for instance, and in doing so, he reveals his truth to us. Hence, it is “our” story in the sense that it is written for our benefit. What’s more, our souls rebel against or cleave to his Word, much in the same manner that others’ souls have; the relationship between God and any given person in the bible has much in common with the relationship God and us, so in that sense, stories about God and Abraham (or David, or Adam, or Jehosophat) are really stories about God and us. That’s why we can pray David’s psalms as prayers, even though maybe there is no army encamped around us, because on the spiritual level, we are in the same position.
At the same time, there are many places where the context of many individual things Jesus says must be considered. The examples you gave are strong enough examples of such, that Jesus appeared to Saul and Peter to give them specific messages so that it may also be recorded in the Bible that we are not to understand those messages as being directed to us; that although Jesus came unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he is present among his Church for all peoples.
But since ALL Christian churches must acknowledge everything I’ve written, I’m fascinated at what your motivations must be. Surely you acknowledge that the words of God are recorded for our benefit; surely you also acknowledge the importance of context; surely you believe Christ came for the entire world.
Or Matt. 15:24 "But he answered and said, I am NOT SENT but UNTO the LOST SHEEP of the HOUSE OF ISRAEL."
Not so "beautiful" to Gentiles there, is it? What does your church do with these Scriptures? Ignore them, play them down, or make yourselves into spiritual Israel in order to claim His words?
Who said it? To whom was He speaking? What did He say? And (thank you, Dutchboy) what was the reason for what He said?"
Okay, this is powerful. You have identified two of the cues that tell us there is much more going on in the narrative than "Rules for Christian living" and little questions into which we should insert ourselves. Thank you for your very insightful remarks. This is precisely why we cannot paint in broad strokes through these texts...we really were not even grafted in until after the cross.