Romans 1:16

[Case]

Hey @GratefulApe are you a Messianic Jew?

No but I take this passage very seriously.

The Righteous Shall Live by Faith

Romans 1

The Righteous Shall Live by Faith

16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ?The righteous shall live by faith.?

I give to this cause first every time. It also goes along with the teaching of the Olive Tree.

Hey folks, Grateful Ape has brought an interesting new (to me) interpretation of this passage to my attention.

I've interpreted this phrase, "to the Jew first" to be about something that is entirely in the past. God revealed Himself to Israel first, from Jacob to Christ. Even Christ was primarily concerned with preaching to Jews, but commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations. In my interpretation, Christ came first to the Jews, and then was preached to every nation.

Grateful Ape seems to believe that to this day, in evangelism we should preach to the Jew first, and then the Gentile. Is that fair, GA?

Anyone else, feel free to comment and offer up your own understanding and/or criticisms.

[eyeshaveit]

Speaking for the Church is way above my pay grade, but as for Christian individuals:

1 - If you want to go to the Jews first, by all means, why not?

2 - But you might first want to learn about and/or associate yourself with local Messianic Jews.

3 - Jews are often stunned by Matthew Gospel (chapter one) and his genealogy of Jesus, it's a good place to start.

4 - And Christians ought not to use a lack of Jews in their neighborhood as an excuse not to witness for Christ and the Gospel.

5 - Also follow in Saint Paul's footsteps - when he was rebuffed by the Jews he always took the message of the resurrected Christ to the Gentiles.

[kevin]

what is the reason for evangelizing to anybody in the first place?

if they are elect, they will be saved without any willful intervention from you.

if they are reprobate, nothing you can do will change their condition.

[Case]

what is the reason for evangelizing to anybody in the first place?

if they are elect, they will be saved without any willful intervention from you.

if they are reprobate, nothing you can do will change their condition.

Damn it, kevin.

If you want to talk about election, again, please start another thread on the topic, or revive one of the old ones. This thread is about Romans 1:16.

Thanks. 

[kevin]

i don't want to talk about election. i want to talk about evangelizing.

but election is foundational to everything you believe (correct me if i'm wrong.) so you can't discuss anything in your belief system without reconciling it with your beliefs on election, first. so given what you believe, are you playing charades when you evangelize, or is something real going on?

i'm sorry if this is difficult, case, but the difficulty is not in my question-- it's in your beliefs. if what you believe makes sense and is easy to explain, then a word or two should do it, and we can move on.

if what you believe is NOT easy to explain, or does NOT make sense, then nothing you have to say about it is important until this part is reconciled.

sorry, but i don't see any purpose in discussing the details of evangelizing until you tell me that you believe it is real.

[GratefulApe]

I see this. I'll try to put something together soon in response. Still kind of in the middle of holiday stuff until after the 1st.

[Jstwebbrowsing]

I believe it means the elect were chosen first among the Jews and then the gentiles.  Although my understanding of the elect is different than that being discussed in the other thread.

[GratefulApe]

 I was reading a bit about this today from some of my study materials that are Bible based and with scripture to back it up but haven't really gotten to the point where I can make a full statement.

[GratefulApe]

Well one thing I did learn in my study is the concept of Spirit giving. In that in the OT  there were rules on giving. Where as in the New Testament there is Spirit led giving.

I had a chance to visit this with my son just yesterday. He had met a guy in a church group that was really down on his luck and my son had talked with him at length about all kinds of things. Turns out this guy was living at an overcrowded group home and he slept in the hall on a cot. My son took him to the store and bought him around 20.00 worth of food but my son wasn't sure if he should continue to support this person on a regular basis. I told him that what he had done is give out of the Spirit to this person but that he wasn't obligated to continue.