Peter's Vision - Kill & Eat

He did repent and of course we love Peter. But there was an aftermath to Antioch, Barnabas and John Mark split with Paul. And those Pharisees who rose up at the Jerusalem conference are the ones [most probably] who followed Paul around everywhere teaching the law.

Heaven help us the church is STILL teaching the law today or half grace and half law which is just as bad.

This was no small matter.

And Peter in his old age confessed that there were many things Paul wrote which he found hard to be understood.

Thanks for sharing and making the association between me and Satan. Have a Blessed day!

I'm sorry. It's probably me, as I am swamped, but I'm not understanding what you're referring to.

Because you called it racism and failed to show the background (which I did). You should have actually thanked me for providing the biblical perspective. Had you been in place of Peter at that time, you would have had the exact same bias.

No. My biblical argument is that as a strict Jew Peter was doing exactly what he should have done under the circumstances. And you would have done the same. I also showed you that Christ actually told the apostles to avoid the Gentiles when going out to preach the Gospel. However, Peter did change his attitude afterwards and said that after Pentecost God put no difference between Jews and Gentiles.

And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? (Acts 15:7-10).

Bringing up the KKK is irrelevant, since it is God who told the Jews to be separate from the Gentiles.

Paul, a “jew of jews“, did not share Peter‘s weakness in this area and Paul did not oppose any other apostle to their face for the same issue… at least not of record.

Such a curious thing…

What a curious statement.

Neither of us were consulted when the Spirit decided to make his weakness part of (wait for it) The. Bible. It could have been worse: he could have had a man killed so he could marry the man’s wife.

Sorry, I did not intend to ignore your question, the tabs that I have open of post that I want to respond to grow faster than they shrink. On one hand, I am criticized for not supporting my position with Scripture while on the other hand my posts are too long because I spend too much time supporting my position with Scripture. I tend to interpret Scripture differently than most Christians, so I try to make the strongest case for why I disagree and for how I think it should be interpreted, which does not tend to be short.

I am a member of Messianic Judaism. Christ spent his ministry teaching his followers to obey the Torah by word and by example, yet there is a lot of resistance in Christianity to following what Christ taught, so this is a good area on which to focus.

Back in the OT they actually were better than other nations since they were God's chosen people.

They had to learn that once Jesus got here, the Lord wanted to allow ALL people to have opportunity to get saved and join God's family.

So Peter was not necessarily being racist as the liberals today would claim as they hav racism on the brain and everything is racist

Peter just need to be taught the ways of the Lord which are different than in OT times.

Apology accepted, and glad to hear that you are not the ignoring type. I'm not either until a person does it to me. Anyway, in my opinion, the trick to Christian Forums is learning how to communicate in a way that is conducive to the system provided. I could easily type out ten pages in about twenty minutes of effort, but no one wants to read through that. We have to figure out what works and what doesn't, which is why I suggested trying to limit questions to one or two. As you know, it is nearly impossible to change anyone's mind, here, or at any other forum. I, therefore, prefer to exchange ideas rather than debate.

Well, so here's the deal: By default, I am going to listen intently to anything you say, BECAUSE you are Jewish. In my opinion, the Blessed Jews are able to see the Scriptures from an angle that today's Gentile most likely would not. And honestly, I wish we lived closer so that we could work through some things. I think I would come out ahead for sure.

@2ndTimothyGroup ...
Hello Brother...I am glad you are back posting , I missed you when you went away...I enjoy reading what you have to say...I am still reading through my Chronical bible you suggested a while back...I will have to read it again once I have finished ...

Hey there!

Oh, that's right! I forgot that you had bought one of those Bibles. Have you found it helpful to learn the Bible in an actual storyline format? I am about two months away from listening to and reading the entire Bible again. This time . . . oh my goodness. I can't believe what I learned this last pass through the Scriptures!

Understanding this passage correctly is what establishes the dietary restrictions as still valid. God was not changing His instructions to His people, but was using a parable of sorts to teach Peter a greater lesson. That is why God told Peter what the vision was for:

"And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean. 29 That is why I came without even raising any objection when I was sent for. So I ask for what reason you have sent for me." -Acts 10:28-29

Peter was not to neglect the initial instruction, but to pursue something greater. As Jesus said, "“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others." -Matthew 23:23

But what about the passages where God Himself charges Israel with creating man-made laws that have nothing to do with Moses and the Law of God etched upon stone. The Jews were absolutely allowed to intermarry with the Gentiles (by God Himself). And as I have studied the Scriptures, word by word, I haven't found a reversal of that command. The Blessed Jews were not allowed to marry with anyone from the Seven Nations, but those to the East, you betchya.

If this parable has nothing to do with what can and cannot be eaten (according to the Lord), how does "Kill and eat" refer to the Gentiles?

Not really

Iron sharpens iron.

Man-made laws are different than the dietary laws God gave to His people. Those are the laws and the "parable" I believe God was using with Peter. Man created certain restrictions on people-group they believed were clean or unclean, and that's what God was trying to undo through Peter's vision.

The "kill and eat" instruction wasn't the point of the vision. The point was that God was saying that about the unclean animals that were in Peter's vision.

I realize that "kill and eat" is not the point of the vision. Rather, it is used as a tool to help us understand the point of the parable. Therefore, what does "kill and eat" refer to? I'm sure you realize that what we read in the Bible is a worldly or Earthly pattern of something else, usually the Heavenly Kingdom or spiritually within a person. With that in mind, I struggle to see how "kill and eat" relates to Gentiles in any way, which is why I offered the idea that perhaps there is a dual meaning, or purpose, to the Parable.

Thanks for sharing your ideas!

I try to be concise, but it is not easy to do that while giving the support to my position that I want to give. I've changed my mind about something as major as the role of the Torah because of forums when I used to be strongly opposed to by current position, so it is certainly possible for people to change their minds.

In Acts 21:20, they were rejecting that tens of thousands of Jews were coming to faith in Jesus who were all zealous for the Torah, which is in accordance with believing in what Jesus accomplished through the cross (Titus 2:14), so Jews coming to faith in Jesus were not ceasing to practice Judaism. This means that there was a period of time between the resurrection of Jesus and the inclusion of Gentiles in Acts 10 that is estimated to be around 7-15 years during which all Christians were Torah observant Jews. So Christianity at its origin was the form of Judaism that recognized Jesus as its Jewish Messiah, which is also known as Messianic Judaism, though it is also inclusive of Gentiles.

I am a Jew because my mom was a Jew, but she became a Christian in her 20's, so I was raised culturally as a Baptist, so there isn't a need to listen more intently to me. I think that there has likely been more dialogue between Jews and Gentiles in the past century than in the previous 1900 years, which I think has done a lot to help understand the NT in its historical and cultural context. There have also been many Jewish works that were previously inaccessible that have been translated into English and made available online.

I've never given much thought to the specific instruction of "kill and eat" as it pertains to the Gentiles. Maybe something along the lines of devouring or feeling superior to those man might have deemed unclean? (Just spit-ballin' here.)

I've always paused and examined the parallel of comparing unclean animals to the Gentiles and how God's people were taught by man that they should consider them "unclean to associate with."