Quote:
Originally Posted by countmeworthy
Me too Aron!! ME TOO!! It has been a frustruating journey on this matter until the last 6 months or so when I started to understand that the bible is written for all to read but it is not written TO everyone. Some of it is written to the Jews, some of it to the gentiles and the church which is a great mystery (Ephesians 3:8-10)
Even JAMES, the book Lee disliked if I'm not mistaken is not written to THE CHURCH! (though we benefit from it). Check out how it begins:
James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.
It is not written to the converted gentiles. It says so right there. And there is a reason the book of James and the book of Hebrews are written to the converted Jews. But I will not go into my findings here.
Something else I learned this past year and that is that the book of Acts is a transitional book. In other words, it begins with the Jews being converted to Christ and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Acts 2 begins with:
And how is it that we each hear them in our own [i]language [j]to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea etc....visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, (Proselytes are converted Jews btw for those who did not know)
But when Paul came into the scene, the gospel went out to the gentiles. The gentiles never read the OT as the Jews did. They had no clue what the Mosaic LAW was.
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This begins to approach my thinking as well.
A couple of affirming points:
~The gospels and the Acts until Peter visited Cornelius in Acts 10 were all law-keeping Jews, and everything written and said was with that assumed. Even at the end of the book of Acts, Paul publicly confessed that he'd been baptised by a law-observing Jew (Paul was accused of teaching the Jews to ignore the law).
~The issue in the NT wasn't the Jews keeping the law (they did), but the newly-arrived, Jesus-believing gentiles, whether they had to keep the law (the answer was a resounding 'no').
~The fact that so many sects have arisen, seeing completely different messages from the exact same text (Holy Bible), makes one wary. Context is needed, else you go somewhere funny. That includes the LC, who thought they were somehow immune!!