Why aren’t Christians Jewish?

Hi! Actually, the first Christians WERE Jewish.

The First Christians Were Jewish

If you’ll read the book of Acts, you’ll see that the Apostles first went to the areas of mass Jews to witness to them about Jesus the Messiah. In fact, after accepting Christ, it was the Jewish believers who took the message to the Gentiles in Antioch, and it was there that they were first coined, “Christians” (but it was in a mocking sense). But if we look to the beginning of the Messianic movement, so to say, then we see that Christianity was actually Judaism to the fullest (because Jesus fulfilled the Law), and was even seen by the Sanhedrin as a sect in Judaism. So there was a time when Christians consisted of both Jews and previous Gentiles (for Christianity is really a Jewish faith – completion to the Mosaic Laws). Jesus came for the Jews, first – so they had first dibs.

Reasons for the Split

Now, the reason Christianity is recognized more as a Gentile religion today is because in the early days of the Church, Roman persecution against Christians was so extreme. I mean, if you read the book of Hebrews, you’ll find that the target audience were Hebrew Christians, and the issue was that Rome was cracking down on Christians so harshly that these Hebrew Christians were debating on returning to their previous ways in order to escape the persecution. But the writer of Hebrews reminds them that doing so would be like a freed slave returning to his abusive master who deemed to kill him. Unfortunately though, many Hebrew Christians did in fact return to their previous ways under the Law, thus rejecting Jesus as the Messiah.

An iPhone

To better understand this in today’s terms, say you have an iPhone. We’re currently on update v.11.1.2. Being that you may have the X, returning to your previous faith (being under the Law), would be like returning it to v.1.1.1 – an update that’s obsolete and will no longer work with your phone (nor will its apps), but you do so so that you won’t stand out among those who still have flip phones. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Well, as new creations in Christ, returning to their previous ways was just as ridiculous.

Leaders Of the Early Church

Now, there were some Hebrew converts going around in those days who harassed the Gentile Christians into thinking that they needed to convert to Judaism before accepting Christ. But Paul rebuked them for doing so. He also brought this up to Simon Peter and James (leaders of the early Church), and they came to the conclusion that there was no point in forcing the Gentiles to be subject to the Law that was a burden even to them, the Jews. So they gave the new Gentile believers standards by which to live by, while also figuring that since the Mosaic Law was being preached every Sabbath anyway, and since the Gentiles often joined the Jews in worship, they’d learn discipleship and standards of being God’s People when they attended.

The Apostles Were Being Killed Off

However, Christianity also continued to become more and more Gentile-oriented because the Apostles were discipling Gentile believers. So as the Apostles were being killed off, the next up in line (in terms of authority because they learned under the original Apostles) were Gentile believers, causing the Hebrew Christians to feel pushed out.

But now, there are Hebrew Christians today (True Jew).