Why Would Jews Preach to Gentiles?

Tom:

This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment.Dave is here, I’m here, and it’s our privilege to go through the scriptures to give you maybe some teaching.When anyone goes through the scriptures if they know the Lord it’s the Holy Spirit.The Holy Spirit is the teacher, but we are privileged to give some thoughts as we’ve been through the scriptures and I sit here Dave and love listening to you because of how well you know the Word and how long you’ve been in the Word and so on.But in Acts 13, that’s where we are, Paul is on his first missionary journey and where we left off last week Dave, he had gone into a synagogue, the Jews had heard what he had to say, and there were some Gentiles who obviously were converted to Judaism, but the word got out to the Gentiles around.They got excited about it.We left with verse 47 and we can start there.But I just want to go back over verse 46, “Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: (addressing the Jews) but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo we turn to the Gentiles.”Now I am sure that was more upsetting than anything they had to say previously to these Jews.

Dave:

Well Tom, this happened in every city.The gospel is as Paul said in Romans:1:16For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
See All..., “…to the Jew first…” because as we were talking earlier, Jesus is a Jew.He came to his own to present the gospel to them, to present the kingdom to them and so forth and every town he went to first into the synagogue.He gave the Jews the opportunity; when they rejected it then he said okay guys, we’re going to the Gentiles.But now you’re going to read verse 47 because that says this is nothing new.

Tom:

Right.“For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.”

Dave:

So all nations are going to be blessed as God said.

Tom:

We went over that in our first segment.This is what sets the Jews apart from every other nation.

Dave:

Salvation is for the entire world.

Tom:

Right.Verse 48, “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”There’s a tough one Dave.

Dave:

Well we deal with that in What Love is This?, a book on Calvinism.And of course this is the premiere verse for the Calvinists.Now we don’t have time to go into details, they can—

Tom:

Well why is it, (for some who may not know) why is it the premiere verse?

Dave:

Because Calvinists teach that God chose to save some and let the rest of them go to hell.Or even ordained that they should go to hell.So it has nothing to do with me, my choice, although Jesus does plea, “come unto me.”But God has—and you would have to say arbitrarily, because he has no basis for it.It’s nothing good in me.No reason why—well you quoted it earlier, he is no respecter of persons, so it’s not on that basis.

Tom:

And Calvinists, in particular, teach and emphasize that we are totally depraved.

Dave:

We must be regenerated.So God chooses to regenerate certain ones and then he gives them the faith to believe.That’s not what the Bible teaches.Now this verse is a difficult one because it almost seems to say this, but there are literally hundreds of other verses.The Bible ends, “…whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely.”It doesn’t say well whoever has been ordained by God will of course take of the water of life.We have so many examples, “For God so loved the world…” you quoted earlier, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”So it’s very clear—well Isaiah:1:18-20 [18] Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. [19] If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: [20] But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
See All..., “Come now let reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if you refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” I mean the entire Bible lays it out.God pleads with man, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem.Matthew:23:37O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
See All..., “…how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen doth gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not!”God pleads through Jeremiah.It’s all through the scriptures, so I can’t take one verse that says “…as many as were ordained unto eternal life believed,” oh well, that does away with all these other verses.

Tom:

Well it’s still tough Dave, what does that mean, “ordained unto eternal life….”

Dave:

Let’s read verse 48 again.“And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the Word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”So now we’ve got something in here.They rejoiced when they heard the Word.So Peter says that we are born again by the Word of God alright?You are not born again first.You are not regenerated first, that’s very clear here.It was because they believed the Word that they are born again.Now “…ordained to eternal life….”Well, we are ordained or chosen to many things.You know God didn’t have to give you eternal life if you believe on Jesus.He could forgive you your sins and you wouldn’t go to hell.That would be a comfort to know.You could just die quietly and go into oblivion.As it says in a number of places, Ephesians 1 for example, or Romans 8 “whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”Always foreknowledge is linked with predestination.Why would we have foreknowledge if God just [went] eeny-meeny-miny-mo you know, well I’ll take this one and I’ll leave that one to go to hell, I’ll take this one to heaven and I’ll send that one to hell.There’s no reason for it.Why would he have to know anything ahead of time, but always for example if you went to 2 Peter 1, elect by the foreknowledge of God unto eternal life.Well it’s always the foreknowledge—in other words, the ones that God knew would believe, he marked certain blessings out for them.

Tom:

So that still allows for free will, volition.

Dave:

Of course.And one of the things that he marked out for people who would believe was eternal life.They are not going to lie in the grave gone forever, but they will live forever with him.So I don’t think on the basis of this verse you could nullify all the verses we that we have [like] John:7:37In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
See All..., “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.”There’s no way you can put in there that God causes you to come.And the whole Bible becomes nonsense if you have Joshua saying, “Choose you this day whom you will serve.”But you can’t choose because you are totally depraved as you said and God must regenerate you before you can possibly believe or choose the right thing.So then God says choose and you don’t choose because he foreordained that you wouldn’t choose and then he punishes you for not doing what he caused you to do because you couldn’t do anything else anyway.Tom, it turns the entire Bible up on its head.Now another favorite verse of the Calvinist’s is John:1:13Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
See All..., “Which were born not of the blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”And the Calvinists say see there, look, look you can’t born-again yourself.You are only born again because God wants you to be born again.Okay, but I’ve never found a Calvinist to acknowledge that John:1:13Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
See All... is preceded by verses 11 and 12.Verses 11 and 12 say “He came unto his own and his own received him not.But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name.”Then it says “Which were born of the will of God….”So it’s when you believe and you receive Christ you are born again and that takes a choice, otherwise we couldn’t even love God and it would all be meaningless.

Tom:

And once you’ve believed you are ordained to eternal life.

Dave:

Exactly.