The new revelation is inclusive
Many times when a religious group begins its assembly it carves out a pocket of people. These people are given special status before God. “Believe this way, and you will be saved.”
A month or so ago I was repairing an electrical situation at a friend’s house. We were lying and crouching among the tools he holding a light and me fiddling with screwdrivers, wirecutters, nosepliers, and some other things. This friend mentioned a prior Christian church where entrance into God’s kingdom was predicated on certain versions of the Bible, acceptance of certain things this congregation emphasized, and other things. It was a bit of Christianity-Plus. That is, a certain Bible-version’s God structure plus a certain, modern-man’s take on it. All others? Outside. Grey areas were assembled as black and white; hell and heaven; them and us.
This patterning is not relegated to the various sprigs and shoots of Christ claimers. It crosses the line into other religious vantage points. Some apologists will categorize these groups, lump them into smaller categories.
What I want you to see is that Paul says, “God has made a way for a restrictive group [Jews] to become more inclusive.” Paul is not saying, “They are wrong and discarded. We are right and regarded.” He is saying members of a former way and outsiders who never had a way are together able to connect with God.
This was not an easy thing to assimilate. Even John the Baptist was caught in this quandary. In Matthew 11 is recorded how John sent some of his disciples to Jesus. They asked, “Are you the one or are we to expect another?” Jesus graciously directed their eyes unto the current events. “Look at this, and look at that,” he said. “Find your answer in those things.” Then Jesus went on to speak very highly of the imprisoned John the Baptist. Paul writes of Jew and Gentile together; a split restored.
Richard Ulrich says
Our aims rise or fall on our claims; and so it is with others. Initially we are told what is “right,” but later on imagination, training, and life’s realities frame our moral and pragmatic foundation of purposeful choices. Emotional and reactive choice may well be more reflexive and less defensible in retrospect.
Charlemagne’s minister of education, Alcuin, in the 800s advocated a basic foundation of the Ten Commandments, The Lord’s Prayer, The Apostle’s Creed. I think he added the Beatitudes, too. Even illiterate individuals could memorize these as enduring, dependable rules of life.
St. Paul’s life changed when Christ became his Foundation. Whether we grow up and into that Foundation (as I did from early childhood) or whether it is dramatic as in John Newton’s life (of Amazing Grace), that is crucial to life now and to eternal life. There are many competing claims and convictions, and it is well we have a reliable core of them.