That said, Peter and the twelve were men raised as Jews. They were pressing Jesus first to prove He was Messiah come (John 14) then even after the resurrection pressing Him to see if He would then institute the Kingdom Age. These twelve did not yet comprehend that Salvation is by Grace when one believes in their heart that Jesus is Whom God sent for the propitiation of sins. They knew it in their hearts but still carried the baggage of Judaism which colored their perspective, as if they could not quite accept that the weeks prophesied in Daniel nine were getting a pause, a pause which we know has lasted nearly 2000 years.
There is a gradual awakening to this reality in the twelve, as evidenced by God having to show Peter three times the flaw in his reasoning, and he still didn't comprehend it until he saw for himself in the house of Cornelius that the Holy Spirit comes when someone believes int ehir heart!
Even by the time of the Great Church Council at Jerusalem, a letter is issued from James and the assembly to the Gentiles being evangelized by Paul, stating the requirements for being a Church member, and it did not list a lengthy Judaic TORH list to follow or even anything more than 'you will do well by avoiding these few things. For writing the letter was included 'that Moses (meaning the law and prophets) was offered for generations in their cities' (synagogues abounded).
The point of focus for the Church Age IS the Grace of God available to any who say in their heart what Peter uttered under Holy Spirit guidance in Matthew 16:16. The great mystery was hard for Peter and the eleven to awaken to since they were steeped in Judaism. Only gradually did they come to realize that it is by FAITH ALONE that the Holy Spirit descended INTO believers, even before Peter could finish fumbling the sermon! There is a convergence of preaching that took time to converge. But by the end of Acts, God's Spirit had unified the Church message. And it was left to Catholicism to diverge that Truth into a nicolaiten oligarchy which to this day denies the simplicity of the Gospel so that they (the Catholic hierarchy) are empowered by the organizational hierarchy blinding themselves and the followers. BUT EVEN IN THAT fog, some hearts are awakening and being sealed by His Spirit!
Because the revelation of Truth is at the spirit level and salvation is immediate when one believes in their heart, satan cannot change a saved person into someone never born from above. He therefore works to blunt their fruit bearing, using things like Institutional High Church which 'sanctifies' a cannibalistic misinterpretation of the Last Supper for remembrance of Jesus' Sacrifice for us. Or twists the scenes from the work of Paul to mean snakes should be handled to show faith or strychnine should be consumed to prove faith worthy of deliverance. KA hit is solid with 'foolery'.
While Peter preached a different Gospel message from that of Paul, for a while, it did contain the essential element hidden from the world up until Pentecost, that Jesus, as a man, being God with us, had died in our place so that we may have His life in us, the hope of Glory.
Though Peter had a kingdom perspective when he preached Christ crucified for all, his preaching gradually went from kingdom focus to the same sermon content Paul was given by revelation to reveal. The Church Age began at Pentecost, despite the Jews still stumbling on the expectation of the Kingdom. The Church Age must have dawned on Peter by/in the house of Cornelius, but I would guess he left that home still puzzled over how the Kingdom and the Church Age were to be unified.
God's Holy Spirit was doing something that took satan by surprise, God revealed His Grace, in Christ, to the entire world because of the rejection of Him by those to whom he was sent, thus putting off the Kingdom Age until the seventieth week of Daniel would be finished. Satan did not see the pause coming, and it has taken him nearly two thousand years to prepare his next battle plan, to thwart the conversion of humans during the Tribulation, with his great lie.
For satan to have the opportunity to spew this great lie upon the survivors after the Rapture, God's restraining influence will first be 'apostasized', departed, taken out of the way via the Rapture of The Church, The Body of Christ. We are facing a similar state of confusion confronted in the earliest manifestation of the Church Age. Though the Grace is contained in the preaching, it is gnarled up in all sorts of institutional falderal and ritual works. It is the belief in thine heart that Jesus IS the Christ, the Son of The Living God, that has activated the Grace of God in the souls of men and women, for God's Spirit goes to and fro throughout the whole earth seeking any boy, girl, man or woman who will let God be God IN THEM.
I agree. I would also like to point out that we cannot take Acts 2 or 3 or many parts of Acts as a theological dissertation. The epistles reveal the details. Acts is a historical account of how the first believers came to Christ as Lord and Savior and what they did, their actions. To formulate a separate gospel theory between the kingdom and grace from Acts is, theologically, untenable. I think you make a good point of this with the remainder of your previous post.
Well Done!