What does that mean? It's in the Gospels. Are you saying the Gospels were not written in Greek?
The word in the text is "sheep". You took the liberty of interpreting that as the word "people". You then took your preferred Greek from your chosen word, even though the actual Greek for the actual text is still "sheep". You didn't choose the word "person", or "men" or "children" or "loved ones", etc. You chose a word that matched what you wanted in translation.
What Christ taught, and what the Apostles thought He taught was Judaism. There was no reason to preach Judaism to non-believers.
Then Christ and the Apostles were obviously wrong because of course they all preached to non-believers.
He did. He sent them to preach to the 12 tribes/clans/phule of Israel (descendants of Jacob).
If that was true, then God couldn't possibly love all men, as Orthodoxy holds. Your verses would also make Paul a false Apostle. That might be fine with you, but it does go against Orthodoxy. I'm sure there are many other implications here that would effectively wipe out Christianity and/or the Bible, but I will leave it there. :)
The point is that the Church failed in Israel. ...... The next (and only) logical step was to turn to the Gentiles. I am willing to believe that it was God's way of showing us what Christ really taught but no one understood, not even the Apostles. But the Bible does not seem to provide evidence to support that belief.
Was this God's failure, or the failure of the hierarchy of the Church? I mean, wouldn't you have to say that God's first act in leading His Church was to purposely lead them down the garden path to failure? Also, since all this happened after Pentecost, and you are saying that the Apostles still didn't get it, at what point do you think they DID get it, if ever?
There is every reason to believe that the term 'sheep' refers to people. Anyone who has read the Bible ought to know that. To the best of my knowledge, neither the Apostles nor Christ Himself had any real sheep.
Then Christ and the Apostles were obviously wrong because of course they all preached to non-believers
No, they preached only to the Jews, unless you are denying that Jews believed in God. Gentiles were by definition non-believers (and could include Jews and non-Jews, but around the 1st century AD the term mainly applied to pagan non-Jews).
Kosta: He did. He sent them to preach to the 12 tribes/clans/phule of Israel (descendants of Jacob).
FK: If that was true, then God couldn't possibly love all men, as Orthodoxy holds. Your verses would also make Paul a false Apostle
Let's leave Orthodoxy alone for now and concentrate on what took place:
Not only does Christ say to ALL the Apostles not to go to the Gentiles, but he calls the 12 tribes the lost SHEEP. He clearly distinguishes the Torah-worshipping Samaritans (Semitic, but non-Jewish tribe) as not being the "lost sheep." (so much for MY "liberty" to interpret sheep as people!)
So, not only did Christ NEVER command His Apostles to preach to the Gentiles, not even Semitic, Torah-worshipping Samaritans, but one must seriously question WHY would He send ALL of His disciples on a mission He knew would fail?
As for +Paul, well...like I said, the Church was dying in Israel and +Paul was charged to save it even if He preached 'his gospel' in places Christ never commissioned any of His Apostles.