[/U]
god has his plan in place
,
7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.Matthew 7
he says:
"It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."Isaiah 49
unclean person and unclean food are two different things.
.28 And he said to them, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.29 So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me."Acts 10
acts 15 never said leave the 10 command in place, no matter how you read it. yet how are some still looking at what paul calls a school teacher till jesus came. they still would not agree even when 70 ad said to both jews and gentile ,how can you follow the full law given to moses, without a temple of stone.
Hi, thanks for your follow up and for bringing the Word. I'm not sure what point you were trying to make with the Matthew and Isaiah verses, but thanks for sharing nonetheless.
On Acts 10, since you only posted verses with emphasis added, and no reflection of your own, I'm not sure if you agree with me or not. So, I'll simply repeat what I said in my previous post with some additional thoughts. I believe Peter's vision is about people only (Gentiles, specifically) and has no lessons for dietary issues. There is absolutely no explicit evidence that Peter was supposed to interpret a change has occurred regarding unclean meats, nor is there any explicit evidence he interpreted the vision in any way connected to dietary issues. Firstly, he fell into a trance and saw a vision, so it's a dream-like situation. Until this point, Peter has clearly never eaten anything that is unclean or impure (there is a difference between the two!), since he admits this with his own mouth. Notice that even in the vision, Peter does
not eat. God doesn't respond with anything like, "But Peter, you can eat whatever you like! The dietary restrictions are removed!" I believe God's response, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean,” is about people (Gentiles) only. This is why the vision repeats three times and Peter is greeted by three men. Later when Peter retells the story twice, he never mentions anything at all about dietary restrictions. When his listeners respond to the story, including his Jewish brethren, no one says anything about dietary restrictions. No one says, "Amazing! God has showed us not to call anyone unclean, and that we can eat whatever we like!" Later elsewhere in the NT writings, there is no evidence of any of them eating unclean meats. It never says, "And after Peter baptized Cornelius, they sat down and ate roasted pork." I'll repeat: there is no explicit evidence of a change regarding dietary restrictions; there is only our attempt to come up with an interpretation based on our reading of the event. Why don't we simply trust the interpretation given to us by Peter (twice!) instead of inserting one foreign to the text? One might claim: But God wouldn't have told Peter to kill and eat if there hadn't been a change in dietary restrictions, or if He didn't intend for Peter to actually eat the unclean and impure animals! That's one's opinion, not the fact of the text, and is one which I don't believe is necessarily true. God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and this wasn't a dream-like vision -- it was real life! But God certainly did not intend for Abraham to violate God's command against human sacrifice and actually do it, as is clear by God's intervention to prevent him from carrying it out. It was a test! And likewise with Peter, I believe the vision and God's words are meant to evoke a strong reaction out of him, one which God intends him to recognize is about Gentiles and apply it rightfully.
On Acts 15, it also never explicitly says to abandon the 10 Commandments, no matter how you read it. Again, I believe these four directives were to be starter instructions. There is no way they were intended to be everything that a Gentile were to obey throughout the rest of their lives, for that would permit them to do all sorts of ungodly things. The idea is once saved, do these four things immediately! They were never intended to replace the Torah-Law. And besides, these four directives weren't just pulled out of thin air. They are explicit commands found in the Torah-Law! So it's left to us to figure out
why these four directives were singled out as starter instructions, since the text never explicitly says. The theory I currently think holds the most water is that these four directives are intimately linked to common pagan practices and occult temple worship, and by keeping these four directives, they would be immediately separating themselves from their pagan ways and more easily allow them fellowship with their Jewish brethren already established in the faith.
On the schoolmaster, I look to the Messiah first and foremost. He is my example. I aim to walk as He walked. But also notice that no sin was found in Him -- He never violated the Torah-Law. Yes, the Torah-Law is to point us to and lead us to the Messiah. Does that mean we forget everything it says once we are led to Him? I think not.
On the temple being destroyed, I think you might be making more out of this than is intended. When the Babylonians destroyed the first Temple in 586 BC, the Israelites did not believe that God had nullified the entire Torah-Law. No, the Torah-Law still stood and was in effect, but the Israelites were unable to keep the commands regarding the Temple. Similarly when the second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the Jewish people needed to adapt to the reality of not being able to keep the commands regarding the Temple, and thus Rabbinical Judaism (as it is observed today) was born. Not all of the Torah-Law has to do with the Temple, e.g., there not being a Temple doesn't prevent me from not eating the things which God has called detestable or abominable and not to be eaten. The question for us to consider today is, when the future Temple is built, which manner of Temple service will resume and will these services be acceptable to God or be considered an affront to Him? For this, we look to the prophets and interpret from there, but this is not a debate I wish to start at this time. My only point is that all the commands are not directly linked to the Temple services, so the destruction of the Temple shouldn't be considered a full dismissal of the entire Torah-Law. I do not believe it is correct to assume that if we cannot keep the Temple service commands, then we aren't supposed to keep any of the commands. That was certainly not the case of Babylon, since there is evidence in Babylon they continued to observe whatever they reasonably could, so we shouldn't assume this is the case now in the absence of a Temple.