Episode Transcript
[00:00:17] Speaker A: We're going to start, as they're doing that, we're going to start with a video, and I want you to just. It's a little bit long, but I need you to tune into it because it makes a fantastic intro for what we're about to study today. And I also want you to realize that this host.
I did not do any other research on the host. I've seen this podcast or these YouTube videos come up. I think Ffoz has had some comments or reaction videos to them. 556,000 followers. Okay. 189,000 views of the video.
Snippets of the video that you're gonna watch now, lest I be accused of taking the highlights, I haven't listened to the entire thing, but I heard enough of what I wanted to share with you as we start to represent, on some level, some traditional perspective.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: So it's just a really strange thing to say that evangelicals are like, I stand with Israel unequivocally. It's like, guys, they're sinful people.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: On the end of that, typically, is this next statement, which is. Because they're God's people.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yes. And you hear things like that, and it just goes to show precisely what you landed on. Unequivocal support, because they are God's chosen people.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: It's a theological commitment.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Exactly right.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: And so we need to ask the question.
Is somebody who is physically descended today from Israel by blood, physically descended from Israel, who rejects the christian message, rejects Jesus Christ as messiah and savior, hates the message of Jesus, spits on christians in the streets of Israel? Is that person God's chosen people? Are they truly jewish? And look, it's an important question to ask because I looked. Put it all on a table. You're not hearing from people who just always opposed this idea. Luke was raised in this. Zach was raised in this. My whole christian education and Bible college education was right in line with that. Those are God's chosen people. God's chosen people. God's chosen people over there. And we're sort of like the stepchildren, you know, like, so that's God's chosen. And we're like the. We're like this stepchild, like, you know, yeah, we get all these blessings stuff, but they're really the apple of God's eye.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: I say a 65 has something to say about that.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Sure does. It sure does. And so let's go to the Bible itself to ask the question. Does the Bible give to us this idea that the modern evangelical has today in the west about the state of Israel today, the people in the land of Israel today. Does it give us the idea that we have been raised with in evangelicalism?
And I want to say, no.
No. And so I'll give you an example from. From an inspired. An inspired apostle teaching exactly this. And we could do this over and over and over again. Uh, verse 27 of Romans chapter two. Paul's having a discussion about the uncircumcised and circumcised. Who keeps the law. Who doesn't keep the law. He says, then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you, who have the written code and circumcision, but break the law. For no one is a jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a jew is one inwardly. And circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. Can you get more explicit than that, than the apostle Paul, a jew himself, saying, this isn't the real thing. This isn't where it's at outwardly. It's inwardly. And so the apostle Paul makes it explicit there is that you're not even truly jewish because you are outwardly or physically jewish. You have to be inwardly jewish. It's a matter of the heart. And you could be gentile, physical, physical, gentile. And you could have the spirit of God indwelling you and circumcision to the heart. And that's Paul saying, that's a true jew. But he's not actually physically jewish. No, but he's truly a child of Abraham. He's a descendant. That's true Israel right there. That's a true jew. Nothing is being said here in any way whatsoever to have you thinking derogatory thoughts towards people in Israel today. Of course, this is to suggest that actually we should see those who are physically Israel today as not true jews and needing to be true jews, needing to come to the jewish messiah. What I'm saying is that we should see the state of Israel today as a mission field. We shouldn't be saying to you, you're the chosen people of God, you're good to go. We should be saying, no, nobody is the chosen person of God who rejects Jesus Christ as savior, because that's what.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: They were relying on in the passage that you quoted. We have Abraham as our father.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: We have Abraham as our father. God can raise up from these stones heirs of Abraham. Oh, so rocks can be jews?
Rocks can be jews.
You see the point I mean, how much of scripture needs to be brought to bear on this before we're finally corrected as evangelical christians in the west? Stop calling somebody who rejects with rabid hostility the message of Jesus. Stop calling them the chosen person of God. Stop doing it. Scripture doesn't do that. Paul explicitly says outwardly, no, that's not what makes you a jew. It's an inward thing. It's of the heart. And God can do that to gentiles. God can do that to rocks. That is the message of the new testament from jewish people. Don't forget that. Yeah, Romans chapter two was where we just were. I encourage you all to please just go. Just go read that. Just read it in its context.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: Let's do that.
Let's read romans two in its context.
I want to take his advice with you today, and I want to teach you about romans two in its context.
There is work to do.
I'll read the chapter.
I have to read the chapter. But I want you to understand something as I do that, as I'm reading this chapter, this letter section of a letter out loud to you, this is exactly how the audience in Rome would have heard it. They didn't have it written down. They didn't have it to study and go back and think over and analyze and do all this. They were sitting here listening to it like you are, and one of Paul's compatriots, maybe Phoebe, who knows who the reader was? But Paul's person was reading the letter out loud to them and they were hearing it. And this person was, in essence, sort of acting out the letter so that. And they understood what Paul meant. And they're sharing that idea with the audience. That's the way it was read. The reader had to engage the audience. They had to capture the audience's attention to have them connect to it, to understand it was applicable to them. And I'll break it down, but I want you to understand that what's happening in chapter two, which he quoted a lot about and recommended that we read and understand in context, it is connected to, guess what?
Chapter one and chapter three and the rest of the letter, okay. It flows. And unfortunately, I told you, I'll tell you again, the chapter and division, the chapter and verse, these things were added later. Okay. They're added later. And so were the headings in your bibles. Right? We talked about this. So when you see and you open up your bible and you come to chapter two and you see the Jews under the law, does that set a tone for how you're going to interpret the book. Of course it does. Now, if we didn't see those things, if we didn't have those divisions, if we could all fluently read greek, and I can't. I'm not a greek scholar.
But if we could understand the audience, the intention, the immediate context, we'd be able to see much clearer, and we'd understand Paul's heart. And we wouldn't misinterpret things so badly. But let me come back now to romans two. And I just want you to listen as I read this. Of course, it's a little bit lengthy.
Therefore you have no excuse. Whoever you are, when you judge others. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. Imagine this is being read to you in Rome as a romantic.
We know that God's judgment on those who do such thing is in accordance with truth. Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your heart and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself. On the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed, will repay according to each one's deeds. To those who by patiently doing good, seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. While for those who are self seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the jew first, and also the Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does the good, the jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law.
And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it's not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified when gentiles who do not possess the law do instinctively what the law requires. These, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness. And they're conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all. But if you call yourself a jew and rely on the law and boast of your relation to God and know his will and determine what is best because you're instructed in the law. And if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a correcter of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth. You then that teach others, will you nothing teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal you that forbid adultery? Do you commit adultery? You that abhor idols? Do you rob temples? You that boast in the law? Do you dishonor God by breaking the law? For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the gentiles because of you.
Circumcision is indeed of value if you obey the law. But if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
So if those who are uncircumcised keep the requirements of the law, will not their uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you that have the written code and circumcision, but break the law. For a person is not a jew who is won outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a jew who is one inwardly and real. Circumcision is a matter of the heart. It is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others, but from God. Romans two.
That is where he got all of his stuff. Okay?
Now, what you must understand, I've told you about audience. I've told you about mission. But something equally important, I dare say most important, rhetoric.
Okay? We understand the term rhetoric usually in terms of rhetorical questions. Sarcasm. You know, the questions, you ask it, but you don't really mean it. It's some extreme thing. It's rhetorical. We use it to make a point. But when you understand the full meaning and use and the art of rhetoric, it's foundational for understanding. Paul.
A great roman scholar, a pioneer named Lloyd Gaston, once said, if you miss Paul's rhetorical strategies, you will get him wrong.
And a lot of people have and do rhetoric. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, okay? It's the skill of using language effectively to convince or influence others. When we talk about rhetoric in Paul's letters, we mean his strategic use of language and his style of communicating his message powerfully, but also persuasively. He didn't just convey facts. Paul was very smart. He crafted his letters with intention, with skill, using various techniques within them to persuade the audience. I use rhetoric all the time. Any communicator uses rhetoric because that's the art of persuasion. You challenge someone's thinking, you deepen their understanding. You understand that these rhetorical techniques, they. They're helpful. He was very smart. I said he was well versed in jewish argumentation. But Paul was also a roman citizen. He also ran with the Greeks and the Romans. So you know what else? He was well versed in greco roman rhetoric. You can read it in all of the Stoics and Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and all of it. It's all there. So if Paul's going to have a discussion with Greeks and Romans in Rome, which style of rhetoric do you think he's going to use? The one that he uses with his rabbinic colleagues.
He's using greco roman rhetoric, okay?
That is known to his audience. They read roman literature and greek literature. One in particular. He uses this rhetorical device called diatribe. Another verse, another word that we think we know. Right? Wow. He went off on a diatribe about that.
People generally understand it. It's some kind of forceful, bitter verbal attack against someone or something. You know, he didn't like that policy. He went on a diatribe. But in a rhetorical context, a diatribe is much more than an attack. It is a structured argument where the speaker is critiquing an opponent's view, often by addressing, and this is so important, an imaginary opponent. There is a word for this. It's called an interlocutor in Greco roman rhetoric, an interlocutor, an imagined opponent. I'll come back to it shortly, but I want you to hear that. Another thing. It's called speech in character. Prosopopoeia. In Greek, a speech in character is frequently used in diatribe. A writer or speaker presents a dialogue as if it were coming from another person, and they're having this conversation, but it's an imagined. It's a hypothetical figure that is gonna make their points.
That allows the speaker then to engage in lively dialogue with this person who they've put words in their mouth. In essence, they're making points with speech and character.
You see changes of voice, you see changes of tense 1st, second to first, and second person, and then it's third person.
This is pretty typical. We see that in Romans, the interlocutor. I want you to understand this as well. The interlocutor, the imagined conversation. Partner is someone that the audience can relate to. They can see themselves in this interlocutor.
It's effective because the speaker, then the writer, gets to engage the audience by voicing their own objections through this imagined character. You understand they're expected to relate to them because the interlocutor represents or speaks for the letters recipient.
Who is the letter's recipient?
The Romans. By making that connection, the speaker makes their own argument stronger. Now, you imagine you're watching a debate, right? This guy says, my opponent would have you believe that cutting funding for education will improve our schools.
Let's just close all the schools and have our kids learn on the street corners.
This is an example of speech and character. He's putting his words, he's making his opponent look like an idiot by putting words in his mouth, which he is then going to come back and say, is that what you really want?
Rhetorical devices, my friends, speech and character, prosopopia, diatribe, that is, it's academic material, but there's a purpose in that five minute greco roman philosophical argumentation summary. It's important. It unveils the rhetorical devices of Paul at work. Now, as I wrap that up, okay, we'll move past the that.
I want you to see that Paul boldly acknowledges that he does this. You may not have seen it as such, but it's in one corinthians 19. It'll sound familiar to you. For though I am free with respect to all, I've made myself a slave to all so that I might gain all the more to the Jews I became as a jew. In order to gain the Jews to those under the law. I became as one under the law, right to the weak. I became weak so that I might gain the weak. I become all things to all people that I might by all means save some. You might have understood that text one way, but it can't mean what you've been told, that it means that Paul is a spiritual chameleon.
That on Passover he's eating matzah with his Jew boys, but then on Easter he's having a ham sandwich with his gentile guys. Or that he's saying the shema out of one side and praising Zeus out of the other side of his mouth. Paul is not a spiritual chameleon. He is a pharisaic jew. He does not write that he behaves like his audiences, that he seeks to gain. He is relating and explaining. I can talk the talk with whoever rhetorically, and that's what he's doing in Romans point made, I hope, and he does it elsewhere. But listen. The interlocutor represents or speaks for the letter's recipient, which raises a question and a difficulty. In Romans two, Paul utilizing speech and character, talking with an interlocutor, an imagined conversation partner, who's supposed to represent the letter's recipients.
Who are the recipients?
The gentile Romans. How many times do you think I can ask you that question in this series? A bunch of times, because I never want you to forget it. Which means that according to all that I've told you, that whoever Paul is making conversations with in Romans two, that character should represent the gentile Romans. And yet when we read the text, I read you at face value with conversations about so called Jews and circumcisions. It certainly gives the impression that he's talking to Jews.
But if you call yourself a jew and rely upon the law and boast in God, so on and so forth, if the letter is to the Gentiles, it's to the Romans. Why has he just started tearing into this jew?
Well, here's controversial point one.
He's not.
He's not talking to the Jews. He's not talking to a jew. You know in movies when they say, there's a disclaimer that says no animals were harmed in the filming of this movie, should be a little disclaimer under Romans that says no jews were directly spoken to during the writing of this letter.
But to the traditional perspective, which this guy. I should know his name out of respect, at least as a colleague, but I don't know his name.
Jeff Durbin. He's a very, very well respected apologist. Okay? 556,000 followers.
He's saying that he doesn't represent the traditional perspective, but he absolutely full on. Full on represents the traditional perspective.
Their first point of the traditional perspective is this last week, what did we talk about? Romans particularly, 118 through 32, where there was a condemnation of whom idolaters gentiles.
And the traditional perspective says, all right, all right, we got ours in chapter one, but he's coming in chapter two for the Jews. Get ready, get ready.
That Paul's principal focus in his critique in romans two is jewish self assurance. Okay? The haughty jew that the typical jewish indictment of gentile sin, that's not us. We don't apply that. And Paul, you know, he's. They're suggesting, nope, he's coming after him. He's gonna. He's gonna show them just how much they're like everybody else.
Gentiles. Okay, fine, fine. Chapter one's about the gentiles.
But chapter two is about the Jews.
That's the traditional perspective, the summary. The Jews were haughty, so he came after them and after their pretentious, holier than thou attitudes. Now, I want to point something out to you. In romans two, Paul is going after holier than thou, pretentious attitudes. He is doing that, therefore, you have no excuse, you foolish person. Every one of you who passes judgment. For in that matter in which you judge someone, you condemn yourself. For you who judge, practice the same thing. This is diatribe. He's calling out this judgmental person. But hear me on this. No one in the first century would have identified the pretentious person with Jews.
Do you know why?
Jews pretty much kept their heads down in Rome for sure. Accepting the fact that we have this special privilege. Privilege. We're able to worship as we want. Don't make waves.
The last thing you'd see is a jew coming up to a gentile and saying, you filthy idolater.
They might say it behind the scenes, but they're not going to make a big deal about it. Pretentious jew. Listen, this was something that came later, Augustine, and only in his later writings did we find this idea. The entire idea that Paul is coming after the Jews now depends on anachronistically reading back the identity of the hypocritical pharisee into romans, which wasn't there.
This isn't the way jews were thought of, okay?
Besides gentiles, as I told you before, gentiles were God's problem according to most jewish ideas. We talked about Paul's difference of opinion in his mission. But for most jews, it's like, well, God will figure that out on the day of the Lord. It's not our thing.
But the hypocritical Pharisees stuff. Jews were, they were considered weird and misguided, but they really weren't pretentious in that sense. William Campbell, commentary.
I can't recommend it highly enough, but he says it best. It's only because of a history of biased interpretation based on jewish stereotypes that this view carries conviction built on the assumption that it must refer to a jew. There is no indication that this person Paul is talking to in romans two is a jew.
You say, well, how can that be? You just read, I'll show you. There is indication that he's talking to a gentile, or gentiles. And there's one small greek word. We talked about it last week in chapter one when I told you that God, there's Paul lists these sins. And then he says, therefore, God has turned you over into your own lusts. Right? Therefore. You remember the word?
Yes. Very good, Peyton.
Dio. The greek word therefore. Therefore. In one, he gave them up to lust. Here it is again.
Let's read chapter two. One. Again, therefore, you have no excuse. Okay. Therefore, three letters, really important.
Take away chapter and verse. Take it away. I'm gonna read you the last bit of chapter one into chapter two. Just listen. I know I'm doing a lot of reading, but you can handle it. And just as they did not, this is chapter one, verse 28. Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a depraved mind to do those things that are not proper people having been filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They're gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful inventors of evil, disobedient to parents without understanding, untrustworthy, unfeeling, unmerciful. And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. Therefore, you have no excuse, you foolish person. Every one of you who passes judgment. For in that manner in which you judge someone else, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. And we know. And he goes on, now tell me, where was the place where the chapter break should have taken place?
Where was it? Where did the flow break? Where did Paul stop his point to start a new chapter? He didn't.
He connects it with therefore because of these things in one, these things in two.
You foolish person. He's doing two things. You need to note he's connected the conversation which talks about gentile sin and he calls this foolish person out for doing the same things. Gentile sin things, idolatry and judging others. He is condemning right now in chapter two, verse one, gentile sin and idolatry. He's still doing that.
He didn't stop. And now, recalling our intro today, Paul has just introduced you to his first rhetorical strategy of Romans. I gave you the word interlocutor and imagined conversational partner.
Meet the interlocutor of Romans two in verse one.
Therefore, you, the actual audience, sees themselves here. Diatribe, speech and character. And who is this? Who is this gentile interlocutor?
What does he represent? Well, you can easily read what Paul accused him of. Listen carefully. Verse two. And we know, we know. He says, paul's grouped himself in here. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, you foolish person, who passes judgment on those who practice such things and yet does them as well, that you will escape the judgment? We know that indicates that Paul is speaking to someone who knows something about the God of Israel, right? We know.
Possibly familiar with the law of God, something. And yet they're doing the same things that Paul describes in 118 through 32. Who is it? If it's not Jews, who is it? Well, here we go.
They are Gentiles, connected to the God of Israel, Messiah and Paul's gospel. They know about abandoning idolatry. They know about morality. Yet it seems they have not completely abandoned their former lifestyle.
They are closer, but they're not where Paul requires his communities to be. What does Paul require of his communities? Rule number one, he's got a couple. But rule number one, no idolatry.
No idolatry. And for Gentiles in Rome, this is much easier said than done. We talked about it in the introduction. Your gods are a part of everything you do. It's not. I have my religious life, my work life, my family life.
It's everything.
Gods are a part of everything.
And so if you choose to not honor the gods in Rome, as a Roman, you're going to have some problems on your hands.
Right? Despite their newfound faith, their connection to the God of Israel, many continued to participate in these civic rituals. In Rome, they continued to be a part of the roman system of pagan worship due to political and social pressures. We know it happened. Everyone hears the term God fearers and assumes something. They assume that they have completely abandoned all of their former life and have become worshipers of the one true God. Do you know what? That's not true. There are many historical examples of God fearers who were fully invested in the Synagogue and also in the temple of Aphrodite.
A God fearer is one who has not converted to Judaism, but has accepted the aspects of the one true God of Israel, but not to the exclusion of everything else.
God fearers. Okay, we know what happened. Paul's first call out here in romans two is to them.
Paul strongly opposed that idolatry. You can't be a follower of Yeshua speaking to those who accepted his message. Gentiles connected in jewish space. But in my opinion, and others much smarter than me, these God fearers, sympathizers, they acknowledge Israel as God, but do not exclude all other deities. And for Paul, that means one thing. You know, what it means you're still in chapter one. You are still part of all those things that I described to you in chapter one. And you think because you have some acknowledgement of God, but you still do these idolatrous things, that you actually get to point a finger at those full on pagans who are doing it. No, you have not made the full shift. You who judge others, don't you know you'll be judged yourselves by God, day of wrath, all this kind of stuff. He's still saying, you're not there.
You with me?
You don't have to believe me, but it's a pretty darn good case.
Paul essentially says to this first interlocutor, who represents a segment of romans, you have accepted the truth of God, unlike those chapter one pagans, but you're still in it. And I'm summarizing now, verse two, verse seven through 16. He goes on to say, everyone, Jew and Gentile, will be judged by God's perfect standard, the law, including you, this double minded Gentile, because he knows the reality of God and yet he's still engaging in this. In other words, he hears, but he doesn't do.
Remember what I read you from chapter two. It's not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers who will be justified.
But the main difficulty and what you've been waiting for me to get to, and I'm finally there, is in chapter two, verse 17.
But if you call yourself a jew and rely upon the law and boast in God and know his will and distinguish the things that matter being instructed from the law, and you're confident that you yourself are a guide to people who are blind, a light to those in the darkness, corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, possessing the law, the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you therefore, who teach someone else, do you not teach yourself friends? Does it even seem remotely possible that he has now switched, that he has not now switched the bullseye to the self righteous jew? You call yourself a jew?
Well, the so called jew. What we're going to find is that when we read this, we read it in flow, we take the account of the audience in. We look at the rhetorical devices Paul is familiar with and employing, that there is very good reason to believe that Paul is talking to another gentile.
Shocking, I know.
Could it be that he's talking to a hypothetical jewish teacher who's trying to, like, make all the gentiles follow? It's a possibility.
It is a scholarly opinion that that's possible. But I'm going to suggest to you, along with a lot of other people smarter than me, that he's talking to a gentile interlocutor, one who has broken Paul's other top rule. What was rule one?
No idolatry. Number two?
No conversion.
Just let it sit there for a minute.
No idolatry, no conversion.
Paul was not a fan of conversion. There's a long reason why. We can talk about that some other time in the bonus session, when we remove the glasses of seeing Paul against Judaism and Torah, and when we see him in the context of his mission to the Gentiles and the content of his other letters, the fact that he's talking to a Gentile who has gone through conversion or is on the way to conversion becomes a very strong possibility.
Any Gentile, though, right? It's not the pure pagan from chapter one. It's not the God fearer from this first section of chapter two. This is someone, a Gentile, who is laying claim to Judaism, who is a proselyte or is in that process, who has undertaken conversion or is on the way as a means of to securing righteousness before God. That's important.
On his way to secure righteousness before God. Remember, please the audience, the interlocutor must represent who?
The audience. Someone in the audience that they can relate to. This gentile has taken on jewish identity. Possible full conversion. But at a minimum, listen. You rely upon the law and boast in God and know his will and distinguish the things that matter. Being instructed from the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to people who are blind, right? A teacher of the immature, possessing the law. And they are teaching others. They are teaching others that a conversion is the proper path.
And Paul says, no, you cannot do that.
You cannot do that. Why?
Well, for one big thing, from the context of chapter two, you're not even doing it.
You don't even live out the Torah properly.
You don't do it right. You teach someone else. Do you not teach yourself? You preach that no one's to steal. Do you steal? No. Adultery. Do you commit adultery? You loathe idols? Do you rob temples? You, who boast in the law through your breaking the law?
There were plenty of jews, listen, that believed that conversion was not a possible path to Judaism. There's a lot of work on this idea that jews believe that the only way you could have a circumcision with any value was that it was a boy on the 8th day, and that's the only way you couldn't come back and do that later.
That's an opinion. In Judaism, there are a lot of other opinions that conversion is totally fine. Certainly conversion is totally fine today.
But Paul, likely looking at all of his letters in context, was not a fan.
There is such a reason why, and I'll get to that, but not today.
He may have at one point been like, pro circumcision conversion. Okay, conversion.
But within the circles he influenced now, after the revelation of Yeshua, no. And we see that happening in Galatians. Paul addresses that in Galatians. He was certainly aware of gentile judaizing among members of the early Christ followers. By the way, by the way, judaizer, is that a jewish or a gentile term?
Is that a jew or a gentile? Who's a judaizer?
It's a gentile.
It's a gentile. This is a judaizing gentile that we're talking to here. Paul sets the record straight, okay?
He was aware of this judaizing and this subsection of community in Rome. It's certainly possible. Probable, even. So, Paul comes along. He sets the record straight. Not to throw the Jews under the bush as self righteous judges, but to say to this so called jew, one who calls himself a jew, you don't even get it.
You've done these outward things.
You don't even get it, man.
You don't even get Judaism. He who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the law, will he not judge you, though, having the letter of the law and circumcision, you're a violator of the law.
You think that having a circumcision and being educated in the letter makes you better than all these other gentiles. They do a better job of Torah than you do. You don't even uphold it.
And you don't understand my so called jew gentile interlocutor. You don't even understand that Judaism is nothing about what's displayed on the outside.
This is Paul's closing point. You feel, my imaginary conversational interlocutor, Gentile, so called jew partner, that through conversion you have gained some right to judge anyone, especially your fellow Gentile, because you are a jew on display, my friend, that's all you are.
For he is not a jew who is one outwardly, nor a circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a jew who is one inwardly. And circumcision is of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter, and his praises, not from people, but from God. Friends, listen to me, so important. Take into account what you watched in that video. You heard what I just readdez. Now listen to me.
Paul is not redefining Judaism here. He is not saying that gentiles become jews, spiritual or otherwise, certainly not in the flesh, that they circumcision as such does nothing make one a jew. If you were really a jew, he says, you'd understand that it's right here.
It's in the heart. It's between God and the individual. Circumcision is an outward manifestation of an inward relationship. That's what it's supposed to be, a covenantal one between God and Israel. And this explains partly why Paul refers to this interlocutor as someone who calls, calls himself a jew.
You think you get that because you had a little nip and tuck?
You don't get it, man.
Think about it.
If you are a jew is something different than if you call yourself a jew. That's different. Even origin, early, early church father, even Origen recognized that a so called jew, he said to Origen, to be a jew and to be called a jew are not the same thing.
You call yourself a jew. Paul's interlocutor would be a jew on display as he adopted in his body a distinguishing mark on the grounds to which he claims the name jew.
Paul suggests to round out chapter two that this gains praise not from God, but from people.
True jewishness comes to Jews for what they are, in secret, not on display, and who are circumcised of heart in good biblical fashion.
I know that may be a lot to take in, but the whole section of Romans has to do less with Jews and Judaism and more with how Gentiles Paul's responsibility would properly approach the God of Israel. Do you understand the points that I've made to get you there? They're not my points.
And in that relationship, that Paul is going to demonstrate no idolatry, no conversion, but to be a part of the covenant.
And he has the way, and he knows the way that it's going to happen.
And so the harsh conclusion is that Paul is calling people out.
But he's not calling out the typical jew or the hypocritical Pharisee Jew. He's laying down the law, no pun intended, for the rest of his letter. Everyone in chapter two, it turns out, with a high probability, is a Gentile, none of whom have gotten the story just right.
So, Paul, you are my responsibility.
I cannot let you continue forward with the wrong story. So we're going to set that straight here. In chapter two, and the story begins to lay out clearly in the next two chapters of Romans. He's no way, in no way done with his imaginary conversational partners, his interlocutors. You're going to see some amazing things about that in this book, the rhetorical devices you learned today. Go back and listen to what I said, go back and listen to it again, or do your own research. Understand it, see how it works, because you're going to need that knowledge next week.
Coming at you, Romans three. Let's stand.
[00:47:28] Speaker C: Shabbat Shalom please visit our website, shalommakin.org, to learn more about us. Join our live services, access other teachings, sign up for our newsletter, join our private network that will connect you with our greater community from around the world, or contribute to the work of Shalom, Macon, thank you for watching, and we look forward to connecting with.
