Quote:
Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!
Earlier in that chapter he says, "If you receive circumcision (the law), then Christ is of no benefit to you."
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The "you" Paul was addressing, here, was a Gentile community. Elsewhere, Paul had Timothy circumcised. Remember that Paul was, by mutual and open assent, made apostle to the Gentiles, just as Peter to those of the circumcision (cf Gal 2:7-9). To force a one-size-fits-all reading onto something that may have been initially understood to be in a specific and temporal context is to fail to do justice to the text.
(Elsewhere, when those "zealous for the law" were proclaimed to be multitudinous followers of Jesus, and this had been off, or "of no benefit", wouldn't Paul or Luke the scribe would have made issue? But it was mentioned in passing, without further comment. ~Acts 21:20,21. No, that context was of Paul purportedly teaching Jews to drop the customs of their fathers.)
A better reading here might be, "If you Gentiles put yourselves under the law, to become like the Jews, and thus attempt to partake of the Jewish promises and blessings, you'll impinge the blessings and promises that believing into Jesus as Lord has brought you, as it already has the Jewish [law-keeping] believers before you." In that context (obedience, salvation, blessing), there's truly neither Jew nor Greek. But in other contexts there still is. (Just like there is still rich and poor, male and female, etc - why else would Paul admonish wives to obey husbands, and slaves to obey masters?) Eventually the Gentile-heavy church forbade the Jews from even being Jews, and ultimately persecuted them severely, simply for the crime of being Jewish.
We should really avoid naive and simplistic readings of the scriptural text. I've done so on this forum over the years, and posters like
OBW were helpful to rein me in. Simplistic formulae make good copy but don't always translate well to actual circumstances on the ground. "Love your neighbour", however, remains. As does "Give to those who can't repay you in this age", etc. But we should be wary of an abstract "Christ" who gets painted broad-brush, mixed liberally with our concepts. Witness Lee made a tidy living for himself and his progeny doing this, as have others, before and since. Hopefully we've learned something, going thru the LC wringer.