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Witness in Jerusalem
1:1 to 8:4

30-33 AD

The hope of Isra’el has always been the return of the Anointed One to set up His Kingdom. The prophets spoke of it, and Jews of every age long for it. But, because of the Oral Law (see the commentary on The Life of Christ, to see link click Ei – The Oral Law), when the Messiah finally did come – they missed Him (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ek – It is only by Beelzebub, the Prince of Demons, That This Fellow Drives Out Demons).

The Talmud teaches that the world is like a human eyeball. The white of the eye is the ocean surrounding the world, the iris is this continent, the pupil is Jerusalem and the image of the pupil is the Holy Temple. The focal point of the Jewish people is Jerusalem. To them, all roads lead to the Holy City. And as a result, they were self-centered, even though the salvation of the Gentiles through Isra’el was foreshadowed much earlier. Moses wrote: I will bless those who bless you, but whoever curses you I will curse, and in you all the [Gentile] families of the earth will be blessed (Genesis 12:3), and Isaiah reminded them that the Messiah Himself would be a light for the [Gentile] nations, and that [He] would be [God’s] salvation to the end of the earth (Isaiah 49:6b). But those words seem to have been forgotten and by the time of Christ, Pharisaic Judaism was entrenched. The Pharisees were prideful, stubborn, judgmental, arrogant, and self-righteous. They viewed the Gentiles as mangy dogs, unworthy of salvation. Something had to change. But how?

ADONAI intervened, and He sent His Spirit at Shavu’ot ushering in the Dispensation of Grace. All the first believers were Jewish, “To the Jew first and also to the Gentile” (Romans 1:16). And as the c grew in Jerusalem (1:8), they experienced joy and pain. There is always pain with growth. God enabled His apostles to perform signs and miracles to authenticate His gospel message. But Pharisaic Judaism resisted. Many times in life, circumstances force us to grow and expand beyond our comfort zone. This was the case for the new Messianic community at that time.

The tipping point of the resistance was the stoning of the Greek speaking Jew named Stephen. As a result, there was a crescendo of persecution in this section that became so severe that a great deal of the early Messianic community was scattered to nearby regions, which paradoxically aided the mission and expansion of the new Messianic community –the very thing that the persecutors sought to snuff out.8 Sooner or later the believing Jews in Jerusalem would need to deal with those new Gentile converts to the faith. Were they dogs to be shunned, or fellow believers to be embraced? They would face that decision sooner than they anticipated.