Gentiles in the Body? or "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"

"Well, this will kill our property values." "There goes the neighborhood." "You let in a few and the next thing you know they have taken over and corrupted everything." This was the reality of the community of Messiah followers back in the days of Paul and the Apostles. There was an awakening among the Gentiles that Yeshua was Messiah, not just for the Hebrews, but for the Gentiles as well. Most of the epistles of Paul, as well as James, John and Peter, deal with the issue of unity in the Body of Messiah. It is not surprising when you consider the clash of cultures, ethnic backgrounds and the dramatic philosophic differences between the Greeks and the Hebrews. 

The early seeds of this explosion were planted by God Himself as He places Peter into an almost trance. It is on this rooftop in Joppa that Peter has his famous "Bacon" vision (See Acts 10:9-16). This is the passage where most evangelicals ignore the context, miss God's point and focus on food. A bit of commentary on this is found in my 11/23/14 post entitled, "Bacon!!!!". However, that is not the point to be made today. No matter how you look at the passage considering dietary laws, the exciting news for the Jews, and for us Gentiles, is recorded in Acts 11:18, "When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, “Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.” Evaluating the evidence that Peter presents, the Jews are stunned to silence and conclude that God is allowing the Gentiles to repent and to be granted life. No more zombie like existence as the walking dead; the Gentiles now have the opportunity to be alive in Messiah.

Being so far removed from the events of Acts 11 we miss the magnitude of this declaration. We live in a time when the "church" is predominately a Gentiles club and our concern and compassion for the Jews is minimal. We may pray for them or support a mission focused to reach them; however, the thought of changing our behavior to remove the barriers that have long separated us is pretty much unheard of. This was not so as Peter gave his defense for going to the home of Cornelius. The Hebrews had understood their position as God's chosen people for generations. Gentiles were unclean people who partook of unclean activities. To visit the home of a Gentile put you at risk of becoming ceremonially unclean.  Gentiles ate, touched, and associated with things that were unclean both by Torah and Jewish tradition. Such uncleanliness was transmitted to a Jew who had contact with a Gentile who stood unclean before God. This was a violation of tradition and potentially of Torah. This is no small thing to an orthodox and Torah observant Jew. Yet, in spite of all those generations of bias, the Jews of Peter's day were able to look beyond their traditions and accept the reality that Gentiles were also granted life through Messiah.

There is a long road ahead of the Messianic assemblies as Messianic Jews and Messianic Gentiles learned to live, serve and worship together. The challenges of grafting the Gentiles into the commonwealth of Israel were very real, as the New Testament Epistles bear witness. We who are of Gentile stock should honestly stand in awe and wonder at Paul's declaration in Ephesians 2:11-13. "Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." We who have no claim to the promises have been brought near. Amazing truth, amazing grace!

As history unfolds, that dinner date between Paul and Cornelius has lost its wonder. The Gentiles soon overwhelmed the Messianic assemblies and the guests became the dictators. Soon all Hebrew tradition, along with God's directions in Torah and the Prophets, as how to best live and honor Him, would be erased. The church fathers would proclaim that followers of the Jewish Messiah would be damned for all eternity for observing the Sabbath, dietary laws or any of the Hebrew feasts and festivals. Now it is God's people, the Jews, who are no longer welcome at the table. Now they are expected to somehow be grafted into the "church". To join the commonwealth of the Gentiles perhaps? I challenge you to find that in any of God's Scriptures.

I am honestly grieved at the attitude of believers, those who claim to follow this Jewish Messiah, toward Jewish people. Jews are fine as long as we can support them in Israel. However, if they move into your neighborhood, well, "there go the property values and everyone knows if you let in a few they will just want to take over." "Their traditions about Sabbath and food will impose on my God granted freedoms." It may well be that we need a Gentile Peter to sit on a roof and get a fresh vision of what God meant when we Gentiles were "grafted in" to His people Israel.

We have drifted far from that rooftop in Joppa. We have lost the respect and attitude of Cornelius who was honored beyond words to have a Jewish Rabbi come to dinner. I can guarantee, out of respect for his Jewish guest, he did not serve pork chops. The respect is gone, the Sabbath is gone, dietary restrictions are gone, Torah is gone; just what are we grafted into anyway?