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<...Go back

Who are the Gentiles?


Introduction. One work comments thusly regarding Gentiles: "Under OT regulations they were simply non-Israelites, not from the stock of Abraham...." This same work comments on the Jew's attitude toward Gentiles during New Testament times: "But as we approach the Christian era the attitude of the Jews toward the Gentile...the most extreme aversion, scorn and hatred" (International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Vol. 2, pg. 1215).

The gospel, at first, excluded the Gentiles. As Jesus and his disciples preached the gospel, they normally only focused on Israelites or Jews (Matt. 9: 35). In fact, the apostles and later the seventy were expressly told "go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not" (Matt. 10: 5, cp. Luke 10: 1).

The Kingdom of God was designed for all nations. It appears that many of the Jews of Jesus' day failed to grasp the prophecies that taught the coming Kingdom would admit all nations. Notice one famous prophecy: "And it shall come to pass in the last days (our day, dm), that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it" (Isa. 2: 2). The Law of Moses was designed to be a theocracy involving Israel; however, this was to change with the Lord's church (Deut. 5: 1-3). Christ reconciled both Jew and Gentile in one body or his church (Eph. 2: 16). Whether one is a Jew or Gentile matters not (Gal. 3: 28). The gospel is for the salvation of both Jew and Gentile (Rom. 1: 16).

Conclusion. You and I are Gentiles, not of the stock of Abraham. In fact, the major Jewish records determining descent were destroyed in 70 B. C. (see the case of Cornelius, the case of the representative and official acceptance of the Gentiles, Acts 10, 15: 5-31). Let us become God's children, partaking of his blessings (2 Cor. 6: 17, 18).
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