norwegen
Diamond Member
Jesus came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, as he told the Syrophoenician woman. He came into the world to save his people from their sins (Mt 1:21). That doesn't include foreigners. Foreigners were not of the Law; salvation from the Law was not for them.
But then proselytes joined the ranks of the saints. According to Luke, proselytes first converted to Judaism, but ultimately, these former non-Jews were Christianized (Acts 13:43). Luke also records a conversion of pagans in Ephesus to Christianity at such a rate that artisans bemoaned diminished incomes because they were receiving fewer orders for shrines to pagan idols (Acts 19:23-28). Former pagans populated the Corinthian church as well (1 Cor 12:2).
Whatever attributes of Judaism some may attach to the Ethiopian eunuch or the Roman centurion or the Gentiles or the Hellenists or whomsoever else they might wish to associate with the Abrahamic tradition, they cannot sidestep the fact that proselyte and pagan converts were non-Jews in their former lives. Clearly, non-Jews were welcomed in the movement. The law was no longer a law of works but of faith (Rom 3:27-28).
And although the world may have been the stable part of the universe in those days, resting on pillars and over which the sun, moon, and stars hovered, the gospel was preached in all that world nonetheless in the first century. And then beyond as the world grew. In Daniel’s pre-first-century vision, the kingdom was called a stone that after the first century became a great mountain and filled the earth.
Who knows where the Aztecs and the Chinese were at the resurrection? We know they weren't subject to the Law, though, and we don't know that they would have rejected Israel's Messiah.
But then proselytes joined the ranks of the saints. According to Luke, proselytes first converted to Judaism, but ultimately, these former non-Jews were Christianized (Acts 13:43). Luke also records a conversion of pagans in Ephesus to Christianity at such a rate that artisans bemoaned diminished incomes because they were receiving fewer orders for shrines to pagan idols (Acts 19:23-28). Former pagans populated the Corinthian church as well (1 Cor 12:2).
Whatever attributes of Judaism some may attach to the Ethiopian eunuch or the Roman centurion or the Gentiles or the Hellenists or whomsoever else they might wish to associate with the Abrahamic tradition, they cannot sidestep the fact that proselyte and pagan converts were non-Jews in their former lives. Clearly, non-Jews were welcomed in the movement. The law was no longer a law of works but of faith (Rom 3:27-28).
And although the world may have been the stable part of the universe in those days, resting on pillars and over which the sun, moon, and stars hovered, the gospel was preached in all that world nonetheless in the first century. And then beyond as the world grew. In Daniel’s pre-first-century vision, the kingdom was called a stone that after the first century became a great mountain and filled the earth.
Who knows where the Aztecs and the Chinese were at the resurrection? We know they weren't subject to the Law, though, and we don't know that they would have rejected Israel's Messiah.
