wine in his memory became the central focus of his worship. but that eucharist would have looked much different than the ritual we see today, as paul reveals in corinthians. but the lord s supper, as he describes it, is not a funny different sort of practice with tiny wee little wafers or bits of bread and a thimbleful and a sip of wine or something. it is something which is integrated into a normal meal. he talks about some people going away hungry and other people having too much, so it s integrated in a normal social sort of context. and while the new testament mentions the idea of a church, using the greek word ekklesia,
jesus death and resurrection. in his letter to the galatians, paul reveals exactly what jesus told him to do. that i should announce him triumphant along the gentiles. it was a radical mission. he starts preaching there, to gentiles, to pagans and saying, this is a faith that can touch you, and that must have been it must have the jews in the diaspora must have said, my gosh, did we miss something? when did they suddenly make judaism into a universal religion? people listened to paul because he was the perfect man for the job, able to speak to both jews and gentiles in their
say, christianity faced a life or death moment. this was the major dispute in early christianity, whether followers of jesus have to become jewish in order to worship the jewish god. the conflict threatened to destroy the new faith. how could it be saved? in jerusalem, around the year 48 to 49, the first apostolic council is called in order to resolve the issue of gentile christians. do they convert or don t they convert? paul argues that the holy spirit had descended upon the gentiles apart from the law of moses. therefore, there was no reason to insist that those gentiles be converted first to judaism in order to be a member of the church. and james, the brother of jesus, presiding over this jerusalem council, agrees with paul.
in his letter to the galatians, paul reveals exactly what jesus told him to do. that i should announce him triumphant among the gentiles. it was a radical mission. he starts preaching there, to gentiles, to pagans and saying, this is a faith that can touch you, and that must have been it must have the jews in the diaspora must have said, my gosh, did we miss something? when did they suddenly make judaism into a universal religion? people listened to paul because he was the perfect man for the job, able to speak to both jews and gentiles in their own language. so he s one of the first really powerful intellect to convert to christianity in the 1st century. just what did this cosmopolitan jew say to the pagans to make them give up their ancient gods and believe in jesus?
two years earlier, james, the brother of jesus, had been stoned to death in jerusalem. now peter was gone, and paul, too. the heart and the head of the faith. if jesus hadn t saved these three, what then for christianity? once these people died, there were already leaders in place who can take over the mantel of leadership and then lead christianity on into the future. christians weren t the only ones facing violent martyrdom. back in judea, in the birthplace of christianity, judaism was about to undergo the most horrific trial in its tortured history. rebellion, then war with rome. the terrible outcome would crack open the growing rift between the jews and the christians for the next 2,000 years.