From: Donna.D'Iorio@f7022.n124.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Donna D'Iorio)
Newsgroups: alt.messianic
Subject: Words Like Arrows
Date: 11 Sep 92 16:11:00 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:124/7022 - MAXUS World H, Dallas TX


    In Response to
    "Malachi Robertson" better known as Ian Robertson Brown

    Just wondering why you use the "Malachi Robertson" handle?

MR>Question:  If we take Matthew 15:24 where Jesus says, "I was sent to the
MR>lost sheep of the house of Israel, and to them alone" literally and
MR>without context, then does it not conflict with other verses in the New
MR>Testment that point to Jesus as being sent to the lost sheep of the worl

    There really isn't a conflict with taking this literally. Yeshua
was sent to lost sheep of the house of Israel, and there is significance
in that.  He came as -*Israel's*- Messiah. It was Israel that had the
expectation of Messiah. The Gentiles were expecting no "Christ".  It was
only through contact with the Jewish people that the Samaritan woman and
the Roman centurion even had a contextual foundation for Yeshua to
personally minister to them.
    His ministry was concentrated among the Jewish people, in Jewish
lands, with Jewish disciples and an inner-circle of 12 Jewish apostles-
in-training.  He could just as easily have gone into non-Jewish lands,
but He was *sent* specifically to the Jews.  It was His Jewish
disciples that were to take the message and ministry out from there.
Yeshua was the witness to Israel; the disciples were the witnesses to
the nations.

    Acts 1:8   But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is
come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and
in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth.

   There is significance behind the fact that He spoke these words to
His Jewish disciples, and that these were to take the message to the
rest of the world.  Which they did in the same order as Acts 1:8 gives.
    First in Jerusalem: Acts 2 - Shauvot/Pentecost
    Second in Judaea: Acts 8 - Following the stoning of Stephen
    Third in Samaria: Acts 10 - Kefa/Peter's vision
    Fourth the nations: Acts 11:19-20: first preaching to Grecians

    So the significance is that only the Jews had the foundations of
the faith to go forth with the message initially.  Do you see how
dependent each of the New Covenant writers are upon the scriptures of
the Tanach?  Do you see how much of Sha'ul/Paul's explanations in the
epistles are absolutely dependent upon his understanding of the Law and
the Prophets?  How could any Gentile have figured these things out with
no foundation in the Word of G-d?
    Mat 13:52   Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is
instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an
householder, which BRINGS FORTH OUT OF HIS TREASURE THINGS NEW AND OLD.

    It is one thing to believe and accept Messiah on faith, though
knowing little to nothing but that you have been touched by His Spirit.
But to go out and then teach and make disciples knowing nothing?
Couldn't happen.  The proclaimers of the message needed the foundation
that G-d had been laying all along from Avraham to Moshe, from David to
Yeshua, from Yeshua to His hand-picked apostolic team, and the late
arrival commissioned to the apostleship to the uncircumcision.
    Our viewpoint is colored by looking backwards. In the first century,
the most heated and controversial doctrinal issue was, How do the
Gentiles fit into all this?  Today it is just the opposite, How do the
Jews fit into all this?          --Donna D'Iorio

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