There is much practical wisdom in the Torah about how to deal with conflicts. Leviticus 19:17-18 states:

Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Similarly, Proverbs 19:11 contends:

A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.

These passages form the basis of how my family handles offenses. In our home, if someone offends you, there is an acceptable response and an unacceptable response. The unacceptable response is to “hate your brother in your heart” (Lev 19:17). This can be manifest in two ways: First, by seeking revenge—getting back at the person and hurting them as much as they hurt you. This is taking the offense and hurling it back at the person. A second way of responding with hate is to bear a grudge. Here, the person keeps everything inside. The pressure builds up. It eats away at the person and poisons their heart. Bearing a grudge is self-destructive and is as unacceptable as revenge.

Both of these expressions of hate are off limits in our family. How then can a person who is offended respond? What is acceptable?

During the New Testament period, communities of Jewish believers in Yeshua existed in the Land of Israel, Syria and beyond. They were diverse communities that in many ways represented a microcosm of the wider Jewish world. In 2007, Oskar Skarsaune and Matt Jackson-McCabe published edited volumes that surveyed these communities and raised new questions about their social identity. In this issue of Verge, I would like to make a few comments about Matthew’s community.

In his published dissertation Community, Law and Mission in Matthew’s Gospel, Paul Foster describes an emerging “new consensus” in New Testament studies concerning the social identity of Matthew’s community. An increasing number of scholars are now identifying Matthew’s community as a “deviant movement operating within the orbit of Judaism.” The case for this view is made by Anthony Saldarini, J. Andrew Overman, Daniel Harrington, Joel Willitts, Anders Runesson, Phillip Sigal, among others. Roland Deines, who disagrees with this perspective, nonetheless acknowledges the existence of a new consensus emerging over three points:

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:17–20, “This is the rule I lay down in all the congregations. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised… Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him.” New Testament scholars are increasingly making the argument that Paul’s metonymic statement in 1 Cor 7:18—“do not put on foreskin”—required Yeshua-believing Jews in his congregations to continue to live the circumcised life as a matter of calling and not to assimilate into Gentile lifestyle.

This interpretation of Paul’s rule in all the congregations, which Augustine defended (Op. mon. 11 [12]), remains a minority view in New Testament studies. However, my observation is that this interpretation is beginning to move from the margins to the center of the discussion over Paul’s perspective on the relationship between Yeshua-believing Jews and Torah.

New Testament scholars have long held that the Jerusalem community headed by Ya’akov (James) was (1) primarily composed of Jewish believers in Yeshua who (2) remained within the symbolic universe of Second Temple Judaism, and (3) strictly lived according to the Torah, with some members observing Pharisaic halakhah (Acts 15:4–5; 21:20–21). However, going back as far as Jerome, exegetes and ecclesial leaders have evaluated the Jerusalem congregation negatively because it retained its social identity within Judaism. As Craig Hill puts it:

In the first instance, the Jerusalem church is regarded as having been too Christian to be Jewish; in the second, it is thought too Jewish to be Christian.  The assumption in either case is that one could have been truly Christian only to the extent that one was not authentically Jewish. On a popular level, it is the first approach that dominates. Christians such as James and Peter, both leaders of the Jerusalem church, are thought to have thrown off the shackles of their Jewish past. It is not difficult to see this view as an uncritical retrojection of modern Gentile Christianity onto the primitive church. Issues more characteristic of Judaism, such as the restoration of Israel (a concern repeatedly mentioned in the description of the Jerusalem church in Acts 1-3), are therefore ignored. The opposite approach, more common in scholarly circles, is to regard figures such as Peter and, especially, James as too Jewish, and therefore sub- or pre- Christian. Christianity instead is the product of the Hellenistic church (ironically, those who did not have the benefit—or, apparently, the distraction—of having known Jesus), especially the apostle Paul. Hence, “Jewish Christianity” becomes secondary, problematic, and largely dismissible—except, that is, as a foil, the source of whatever one finds distasteful in early Christianity.¹

How is Yeshua honored explicitly in our synagogues?  I asked my students this question recently and several gave me the same example—at their Messianic synagogues, after the singing of Alenu, the cantor, rabbi or congregation recites the mind-blowing words of Philippians 2:5-11:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Messiah Yeshua, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Yeshua every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Yeshua the Messiah is ADONAI, to the glory of God the Father.

I was not surprised that the students answered as they did.  In my travels, I have noticed that amid the diversity of worship expression in the Messianic Jewish movement, declaring Philippians 2:5-11 after the Alenu has become for many Messianic Jews a climactic worship experience—a sacred moment during Shabbat when we lift up the name of Yeshua.  I would like to make two points about this remarkable praise that Paul penned.

Today there is a lot of discussion in the Messianic Jewish community about demographics, specifically the challenge of synagogues with Jewish minorities and Gentile majorities. Where do we turn for guidance on this subject? I would like to suggest that Paul’s letter to the congregation in Rome provides us with a davar davur al-ofnav (“a word fitly spoken” [Prov 25:11]) and points us in the right direction. Who planted the congregation in Rome? Luke tells us that “visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes” witnessed the great outpouring of the Ruach (Spirit) on the day of Shavuot /Pentecost in 30 C.E. (Acts 2:10–11). It is likely that these Jewish pilgrims returned to Rome and established the first community of Yeshua- believers in the city.

Over time, the demographics of the Messianic Jewish community in Rome changed. In the beginning, the community was entirely composed of Jews and proselytes. Then Gentiles joined their ranks, probably “God-fearers” at first (i.e. non-Jews who worshiped the God of Israel in the synagogue and adopted various Jewish customs, but not as a matter of covenantal responsibility). And finally, Gentiles with little prior connection to Jews and Judaism became followers of Yeshua and members of the community.

How can we describe the relationship between the Church and Israel?  One model I have found helpful is to think of the Church as “Israel’s commonwealth.”

In Ephesians 2:12, Paul describes Gentiles who do not follow Yeshua as “aliens from the politeia of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise.”  By contrast, Yeshua-believing Gentiles are “no longer strangers and aliens” but “citizens with the saints” (Eph 2:19).  Reading the two verses together, it appears that Paul viewed Gentiles who followed Yeshua as citizens of the “politeia of Israel.”

But what exactly is meant by the Greek word politeia in this context?  Given the LXX (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) language and imagery in Ephesians 2, it is reasonable to assume that Paul has a biblical concept in mind.  The term politeia modifies “Israel.” Gentiles outside the politeia are “aliens” and “strangers to the covenants of promise,” without “God” and “far off ” (a possible allusion to LXX Isa 57:19).  Gentiles inside the politeia are “fellow citizens with the saints.”  Against this backdrop, the expression “politeia of Israel” could be translated “citizenship of Israel” (NET), “community of Israel” (REB), “national life of Israel” (CJB), or “commonwealth of Israel” (ESV, NRSV).

"Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way” (Rom 14:13 NASB). It is significant that Paul uses the Greek word skandalon for “stumbling block.” This is the same word that appears four times in Matthew 18:6–7:

If any of you put a stumbling block [skandalizo = verbal form of skandalon] before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world be- cause of stumbling blocks [skandalon]! Occasions for stumbling [skandalon] are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block [skandalon] comes!

Matthew draws attention to the word skandalon like someone drawing a bullseye around a target. I suspect this is because Matthew views skandalon as a kind of Jewish code word that points his Jewish readers back to a foundational commandment at the center of the Torah. Notably, the metaphorical use of skandalon (as in Matt 18:6–7 and Rom 14:13) is limited exclusively to biblical Jewish literature, and the verbal form of skandalon does not appear outside of the Greek translation of Israel’s Scriptures and the New Testament. The only use of skandalon in the Greek Pentateuch (Torah) is Leviticus 19:14.¹ Here the Lord commands Israel, “You shall not . . . put a stumbling block (skandalon) before the blind.”

For centuries, scholars have taught that a decisive parting of the ways took place between Jews and Christians during the New Testament period. The New Testament was consequently read in light of this classic narrative, and first-century Jews who followed Yeshua were thus viewed as former Jews who had converted to a new faith and joined a new religious community.

Today this classic narrative is widely disputed. In their book The Ways That Never Parted, Adam Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed document the history of this reassessment and show that the evidence supports a “variety of different ‘Partings’ at different times in different places.” Becker and Reed concur with Daniel Boyarin, Philip Alexander, John Gager, John Howard Yoder and a growing number of scholars who have concluded, based on textual and archaeological evidence, that “the fourth century CE is a far more plausible candidate for a decisive turning point than any date in the earlier period.” What are the implications of this historical counter-narrative for how we view Yeshua-believing Jews during the New Testament period? The reassessment suggests that first-century Jewish believers in Yeshua did not necessarily have to make a decision between being “in kol Yisrael” (all Israel) and being “in Messiah.” Generally speaking, they remained a part of both ecclesial communities because at that time being a faithful Jew and a believer in Yeshua were not mutually exclusive categories.

"So welcome each other, just as the Messiah has welcomed you into God’s glory” (Rom 15:7 CJB). In the context of Romans 15, Paul is speaking of Jews and Gentiles in the same congregation welcoming one another (see vv. 8–12). Significantly, Paul points to the Messiah’s example as the reason why we should do this—because the Messiah has welcomed us, we should welcome each other.

There are various ways this wording can be understood, but I would like to offer one possibility. The words “just as the Messiah has welcomed you” may be a reminder that the sinless one welcomed sinners. In Romans 5:8, Paul writes, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in that the Messiah died on our behalf while we were still sinners.”

As the wholly righteous one, Yeshua had reason to keep his distance from us. He could have spent time only with the pious like Yochanan (John) the Immerser and avoided sinners. But instead, Yeshua regularly ate with sinners. He welcomed them. He defended them. He gave everything—including his life—to them. We are them. We are the sinners he died for.