Introduction
Do orthodox Jews need to be born again? Yes, but so do a majority of Americans. In 2023, only 30% of Americans now even say they attend church. The percentage of Gentile-American believers has probably further declined in 2024. In England only about 5% regularly attend a Christian Church. Would you abandon England to Muslim invaders?
21 percent of Jewish millennials believe Jesus was “God in human form who lived among people in the 1st century.” And 42 percent of those respondents say they celebrate Christmas. We have a slightly better believer percentage of the total population here in America, but we should not forsake the homeland where our faith began.
The First Christians
The term ‘Christian’ was first applied to Jewish believers. In 40 AD Barnabas went to Tarsus and found Saul and brought him to Antioch to help teach Gentiles (Acts 11:25). The term “Christian” was used to mean a messianic Jew or Jewish ‘cult’ member. The title was applied in Antioch nine years before the 49 AD Jerusalem council. Until the council, all believers had to become circumcised if they were men and become Jewish proselytes. So Christian initially meant Jewish believers in 40 AD Antioch.
The believing Israelites, the Jewish cult, the Christians, did not even evangelize Gentiles until Paul left for Asia in 44 A.D. That’s 14 years after Christ was crucified.
And for the first five years after Paul left Antioch, Gentiles still needed to be Jewish proselytes. Men needed to be circumcised if they converted!
After the 49 AD Jerusalem council, Jews dropped their laws for Gentiles. There was no need to impose the Hebrew heritage on them. The Holy Spirit was falling on Gentiles who did not know the law. God was giving his approval anyway.
Nevertheless, the next year in 50 AD, the apostles continued to deliver the Jewish worship ordinances and traditions. The apostles did not require the circumcision law, kosher dietary requirements, or Jewish festivals. But they did deliver the new NT ordinances.
These included the water baptism Jewish believers practiced after Pentecost, God’s authority tradition of doffing or donning a hat in worship, and the New Testament-infused Seder. The latter two were regulated on Paul’s third missionary journey in 1 Corinthians 11. Christ has been inserted between God and mankind as our mediator and king (the headship tradition) and sacrificed his body and blood (the NT-infused Seder).
These Jewish believer church customs became transcultural worship ordinances. We Gentiles worshiped their God and adopted their worship practices. Both believer heritages were united around the globe and throughout time by their common church customs. There is no Jew or Greek in Christ.
Conclusion
We should not be prideful of the righteousness of our mostly Gentile country. Nor should we condemn the predominant Jewish orthodoxy of their country. This would be incredibly ethnocentric.
We should not forget the origin of our faith. We can’t skip from Genesis to Matthew without appreciating the books in between. Our Lord Christ was Jewish, and all of the apostles were Jewish, and the 3,000 at Pentecost were Jewish, and the believers for 14 years were Jewish.
”“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.“ Deuteronomy 6:4-7 NASB1995
We have a different historical heritage. But we should remember the traditions which have been delivered to us and shared with us. We Americans are part of the fullfillment of the promise given to Abraham.
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The Ninevite 