{"id":12612,"date":"2022-01-07T14:55:26","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T14:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=12612"},"modified":"2022-01-07T14:55:26","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T14:55:26","slug":"gentile-converts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/12612\/gentile-converts\/","title":{"rendered":"Gentile Converts"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m reading in Galatians, and I had this question.<\/span><\/p>\n

We know that Gentiles in Paul’s time who had the Spirit but were circumcised had to\u00a0keep\u00a0the law (Gal. 5:3).\u00a0 Do you think they still had to keep the\u00a0law if they later heard and believed Paul preaching that the\u00a0Gentiles were free from the law?<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks,<\/span><\/p>\n

John<\/span><\/p>\n

==========<\/span><\/p>\n

Hi, John.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks for the question.\u00a0 It is a good one.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yes,\u00a0they still had to keep the law because they were no longer Gentiles, but Jews.\u00a0 Paul’s gospel was not for them, since they had converted.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Another good question is, what did God expect Jewish believers (including circumcised\u00a0Gentiles with the Spirit) to do after Jerusalem\u00a0was sacked in AD 70, which made keeping the law impossible?\u00a0 I believe that with that event, God was liberating Jewish\u00a0 believers from the\u00a0law (including converted\u00a0Gentiles), cutting the cord that was holding them to it by forcing them into a position of having to trust in Christ alone to save.\u00a0 Nothing but Christ was left!\u00a0 Unfortunately, instead of doing that, many believers devised new ceremonies, patterned\u00a0after the law, and continued to worship “in the flesh”, as Paul would say.\u00a0 And so began the centuries-long development of a new religion, the abomination\u00a0that\u00a0crowned itself with the august title, “Christianity”.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks again for the question.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m reading in Galatians, and I had this question. We know that Gentiles in Paul’s time who had the Spirit but were circumcised had to\u00a0keep\u00a0the law (Gal. 5:3).\u00a0 Do you think they still had to keep the\u00a0law if they later heard and believed Paul preaching that the\u00a0Gentiles were free from the law? Thanks, John ========== […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}