We think we’re experiencing the most rapid, most radical period of change in human history.
I think it’s nothing compared to the radical shift that came about
in the time between Jesus’ preaching-Passion
and the decision about how to receive the influx of gentile believers.
Identity
Israel’s entire identity is defined in opposition to ‘the others’ ‘the nations’, ‘the goyyim’
Deuteronomy 4:7–8 NABRE
7 For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him? 8 Or what great nation has statutes and ordinances that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?
And
Deuteronomy 4:19–20 (NABRE)
19 … behold the sun or the moon or the stars, … do not be led astray into bowing down to them and serving them. These the Lord, your God, has apportioned to all the other nations under the heavens;
20 but you the Lord has taken and led out of … Egypt, that you might be his people, his heritage, as you are today.
2011. New American Bible. Revised Edition. Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
In other words, God’s people = us; everyone else, not God’s people.
Keep separate, don’t live among them or eat with them.
Purify yourself after contact with them!
The Apostles and first disciples were the inheritors of 1000 years of this belief and this behavior.
Then, led by the Holy Spirit, they turn on a dime and embrace:
