A Gale-Driven Jesus Movement Becomes Radically Inclusive

map courtesy of https://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/maps-early-church/

...the earth was tohu vavohu (without form, and void); and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Ruach Elohim (Wind, or Spirit, of God) was hovering upon the face of the waters. Genesis 1:2 (Orthodox Jewish Bible)

 Suddenly there came a sound from the sky like the roar of a violent wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Genesis 2:2 (Complete Jewish Bible)

The God-movement unleashed on the day of Pentecost was revolutionary in the way it brought diverse and disparate people together. Quoting from the prophet Joel, the apostle Peter noted that young and old,  men and women, slave and free were are to be formed together into one living, loving community. 

But that was just a start, the coming together of Jews of different languages and cultures from all over the then known world--Parthians, Medes, Elamites, citizens of Mesopotamia, Judaea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya and Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians. From there the circle of inclusiveness continues to expand at a breathtaking rate.

Philip, one of the Greek speaking Jews appointed to oversee the daily distribution of food among needy followers of the Way in Jerusalem, goes on a preaching mission to despised half-breed Samaritans, baptizing scores of them into the new movement. Immediately afterwards, he is led to speak to a eunuch who is a Jewish court official on the road to his home in Ethiopia from Jerusalem, where he would have been excluded from access to temple worship due to his status as an emasculated male. The eunuch is baptized and "goes on his way rejoicing." 

It is soon thereafter that the most dramatic kind of inclusion imaginable takes place. The apostle Peter is called to visit and to baptize the household of Cornelius, an uncircumcised Roman occupier who is a "God-fearing and upright" Gentile. This represented the crossing of the most fundamental of all barriers, an act which would have been anathema to a devout Jew like Peter. But according to the text, God's Spirit gave him no choice but to fully embrace a hated and uncircumcised oppressor whom God had declared "clean." 

Meanwhile, new believers who were scattered all over the empire after the wave of persecution that took place after the stoning of Stephen, carried the inclusionary message of the Way to places like Antioch of Syria, which became a northern hub of the Christian movement, one that openly incorporated both Jews and Gentiles into the church.

Soon thereafter, Paul, once a terrorist prosecutor of followers of the Way, with his companion Barnabas, went on a 500 mile preaching tour in which they baptized Jews and Gentiles alike into the movement. This created major problems on the part of believers in the mother church in Jerusalem, and resulted in a summit of church leaders being called to resolve the rift created by the inclusion of uncircumcised Gentiles. 

It is hard to overestimate the gravity of this question among early believers. It could not have been more abundantly clear, in the only Bible Jesus and the early apostles knew, that God had initiated this special rite of inclusion as mandatory, first to Abraham, at age 90, and then 400 years later, to the lawgiver Moses. There were to be no exceptions. 

"Here is my covenant, which you are to keep, between me and you, along with your descendants after you: ...Generation after generation, every male among you who is eight days old is to be circumcised, including slaves born within your household and those bought from a foreigner not descended from you. The slave born in your house and the person bought with your money must be circumcised; thus my covenant will be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male... will be cut off from his people, because he has broken my covenant.”    from Genesis 17:10-14 (CJB)

"The Lord said to Moses: 'Say to the Israelites: If a woman conceives a child and gives birth to a son, she will be unclean for seven days... On the eighth day, the flesh of the boy’s foreskin must be circumcised.'"   Leviticus 12:1-3 (CEV)

For people whose faith was deeply rooted in Judaism, any thought of being a part of God's covenant people without that kind of sacred initiation was nearly unthinkable. Clearly the first century church could have easily divided over this issue, but instead felt led to draw the circle of welcome wider rather than excluding those being drawn into it. That appears to be the trajectory in which God is forever moving.

Today there are still those among us who seek to exclude rather than to include, who would draw the circle ever narrower. And the movement should exclude those would be followers of Jesus who insist on doing harm to others in violation of the first and greatest commandments, the "royal law" to love God with a passion and our every neighbor with compassion. Christ-like love, by definition, never inflicts harm to a fellow human being. 

It is there, and only there, that all those with "circumcised hearts" must draw the line. No harm.