How did the early churches operate?

[EricH]

No other ethnicity of people is expected to abandon their cultural distinctives. Why should such a expectation be made of the Jews?

Whoever comes to Christ must give up their former religion. Circumcision is religious. Following the Torah is religious. Kashrut is religious. That is what the Jew must surrender. His false religion. Not his ethnicity.

Coming to Jesus challenges everything a person trusted in before they came to Him for salvation. The question is not can the person practice these things. The question is what role they believe these things play in their relationship with God. If anyone believes anything saves them (righteousness, baptism, circumcision, dietary laws, right theology, the Eucharist) other than a relationship with Jesus, that thing needs to be repositioned, not necessarily given up.

My journey in this centered around coming to a realization of Jesus' role as mediator. He is our mediator in 2 senses. The first is between God and man

For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, a man, Christ Jesus,

(1Timothy 2:5 CSB)

He is also our mediator in the sense of our relationship to the world around us. Since He created it all (Hebrews 1:2 etc), we can only have a correct relationship with these things through Him, since He is the only one who understands us and the world completely and correctly. He owns it!

Knowing this has given me a fuller understanding of this statement by Jesus:

If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters-- yes, and even his own life-- he cannot be My disciple.

Luke 14:26 HCSB

There are many gods that promise us a direct relationship with God and with the created order. Before I trusted in Jesus, I established relationships with the world around me based on my own set of rules and how I perceived the world and my relationship to it. I also trusted in my own understanding of God and how to have a relationship with Him.

When I came to Jesus I had to come to hate 2 things:

1. The systems I had set up that I thought gave me a relationship to God

2. My relationship with the created world (people, habits, things, my ethnicity, religion and cultural distinctives) that were based on Jesus not being in the picture.

We cannot relate correctly to God without Jesus in between us, and we cannot relate correctly to others (even parents, wives, children, our culture) without Jesus being between us. So, I need to die to my old relationships to them, and allow Jesus to reestablish them in ways that are healthy and will lead to true connection.

So when we talk about thinks like circumcision, feasts, days, morality, human relationships, religion etc., they are not bad in themselves. The question for each person is have we allowed Jesus to serve His proper role in them (as mediator). If we are trying to relate to God based on anything other than Jesus, we can't be His disciples. If we are trying to maintain our relationships to the world around us (even our religious and cultural heritage) based on anything but Jesus, we cannot be His disciple. But once Jesus has stepped into the picture, He can give these things new meaning and significance.

So Jews can continue to be Jews. Germans can continue to be Germans. What is important is that they are trusting in Jesus for direct access to God, and trusting in Jesus in their living out their distinctives. If something does need to be "given up", we will usually be able to find a scriptural command for us to do so.

A concrete example. Before I trusted in Christ, I did certain good works because I thought they would earn me brownie points with God. When I came to faith based in part on this passage, I gained a new understanding:

For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift--not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are His creation-- created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:8-10 HCSB

Jesus taught me that the good things I was doing did not earn me a relationshp with God. They could however be made truly good if I come to God through faith and let God equip me for truly good works. So once I trusted Christ, I did not quit doing the good works. I did them in a different mindset (through Jesus) and energy.

I have probably done a poor job of articulating this. A seminal influence on me in this regard has been The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Chapter 5 (Discipleship and the Individual) explains this more coherently than I.

[Smalcald]

Good points Erich.

[leoxiii]

No other ethnicity of people is expected to abandon their cultural distinctives. Why should such a expectation be made of the Jews?

Whoever comes to Christ must give up their former religion.

Are Jews switching Gods?

Yes.

Whoever does not have the Son, does not have the Father.

And you need to go and learn what the word "religion" really means, not what you want it to mean.

[leoxiii]

No other ethnicity of people is expected to abandon their cultural distinctives. Why should such a expectation be made of the Jews?

Whoever comes to Christ must give up their former religion. Circumcision is religious. Following the Torah is religious. Kashrut is religious. That is what the Jew must surrender. His false religion. Not his ethnicity.

Circumcision is not religious. Circumcision is a sign of an eternal covenant (Eternal means it is still in force) between God and Abraham.

They need to give up keeping Torah??? So its okay for me to come over to your house beat you death and take all your stuff?

Kashrut is religious?? Why would it matter to you if they ate pork or not???

It is a sin if by doing it they think they are saved.

And they so think.

O, and righteousness does exist outside the Torah. Read the Code of Hammurabi. Or the Tablets of the Law of the ancient Romans. Even some pagans had enough sense to respect their parents and not steal from each other.

If one thinks they can be saved by being circumcised, then they are lost.

If one thinks they can be saved by following the Law, then they are lost.

If one thinks they can be saved by having two refrigerators, one for dairy and one for meat, then they are lost.

[Massorite]

The scriptures do not show us the operation of the early churches at all.

Then how do you know how they operated?

Try this on for size. This comes from my book. Learn not the Way of the Heathen- The Jerusalem Church

In the book of Revelation the first church spoken of is the Church of Ephesus and while it is true there is a place called by that name and there was a church there, it is the meaning of the word Ephesus that is more important. It means

[princess2000]

Any questions?

Yeah, do you know a lot of what you just described is purely Catholic? True fact, check out mass sometime.

Peace out

~Beka

[nebula]

Whoever comes to Christ must give up their former religion.

Are Jews switching Gods?

Yes.

Whoever does not have the Son, does not have the Father.

So "Adonai" is a false god?

Matt. 5

17 "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

And you need to go and learn what the word "religion" really means, not what you want it to mean.

Knowing you are Catholic? I believe your idea of religion is "Hail Mary's" and rosaries and asking dead people to pray for you and needing an ordained priest to connect you to God and the like.

[leoxiii]

Whoever comes to Christ must give up their former religion.

Are Jews switching Gods?

Yes.

Whoever does not have the Son, does not have the Father.

So "Adonai" is a false god?

Do the Jews have the Son? NO. Then how can you say they have the Father? The Bible clearly says they do not.

Matt. 5

17 "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

And you need to go and learn what the word "religion" really means, not what you want it to mean.

Knowing you are Catholic? I believe your idea of religion is "Hail Mary's" and rosaries and asking dead people to pray for you and needing an ordained priest to connect you to God and the like.

Main Entry: re

[Smalcald]

We seem to all want to use what we think the first Christians did and how they lived to justify our own doctrines now.

For me I think we should stick with what is shown in scripture, which leaves some wiggle room, I believe it leaves wiggle room intentionally. This would allow for the future diversity of the global Christian Church as it spread around the Globe as Christ had said that it would.

I am somewhat torn on this. I love the Christian Church, I believe that God has through His divine providence used it to spread the Gospel to billions of billions of souls who are now in heaven, this would include my evangelical brothers and sisters, my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, my Orthodox brothers and sisters and especially my Jewish brothers and sisters (although there are not enough of them, maybe Yod can change that!).

At the same time gentile Christians as part of this Church have often been part of anti-Semitism and hate, my own Church being part of that back in 1550 and even longer, anti-Semitism has not been the only problem; we have also been racists with our Southern Baptist friends in the not so distant past not even allowing blacks to enter their churches at all.

So we see this double edge, the holy and the ugly, which would make sense given who scripture says we are.

But I cannot stand and say the Christian Church is intrinsically bad, or has been a horrible thing on the face of the earth, this is the Hitchens argument, the atheist stand. The Christian Church the Body of Christ has followed Christ and the gates of Hades have NOT prevailed against it; it has been the largest force for good in the entire globe in history, and yes evil has been done in its name, but that evil does not define the Church.

[leoxiii]

We seem to all want to use what we think the first Christians did and how they lived to justify our own doctrines now.

For me I think we should stick with what is shown in scripture, which leaves some wiggle room, I believe it leaves wiggle room intentionally. This would allow for the future diversity of the global Christian Church as it spread around the Globe as Christ had said that it would.

I am somewhat torn on this. I love the Christian Church, I believe that God has through His divine providence used it to spread the Gospel to billions of billions of souls who are now in heaven, this would include my evangelical brothers and sisters, my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, my Orthodox brothers and sisters and especially my Jewish brothers and sisters (although there are not enough of them, maybe Yod can change that!).

At the same time gentile Christians as part of this Church have often been part of anti-Semitism and hate, my own Church being part of that back in 1550 and even longer, anti-Semitism has not been the only problem; we have also been racists with our Southern Baptist friends in the not so distant past not even allowing blacks to enter their churches at all.

So we see this double edge, the holy and the ugly, which would make sense given who scripture says we are.

But I cannot stand and say the Christian Church is intrinsically bad, or has been a horrible thing on the face of the earth, this is the Hitchens argument, the atheist stand. The Christian Church the Body of Christ has followed Christ and the gates of Hades have NOT prevailed against it; it has been the largest force for good in the entire globe in history, and yes evil has been done in its name, but that evil does not define the Church.

Amen to that.

But, consider: Jesus promised that He would dwell in the Church forever, and that the Holy Spirit would guide Her. I say that makes the Church both human and divine, exactly like Jesus, whose Body She is. Ergo, it is impossible for the Church to sin in Her divine Nature, but constantly sins in Her human Nature. And the perfection for which She ever strives while a pilgrim here on earth, is to be also sinless in Her human Nature, exactly as Her divine Founder and Husband, of whose Flesh, as His Bride, She will one day be one.