Scariest scripture for the West? How did the early Church interpret this?

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Tarsier said:
Just so I’m understanding, are you saying that other people besides “God’s elect” can get salvation or that other people besides the dispersed Israelites are among God’s elect? Or something else entirely?
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That other people besides the dispersed Israelites are among God’s elect (and that the passage is not exclusive to Isrealites in the first place).
 
We can only hope. No one really knows the direct descendants of the Israelites
 
Repeatedly, over and over again in Paul’s epistles, he makes it clear that Gentiles as well as the descendants of Israel can be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. This argument that you seem to have found so unanswerable in reality doesn’t have a leg to stand on. It’s fake news.
 
FranciscoN2001 said:
We can only hope. No one really knows the direct descendants of the Israelites
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No one really NEEDS to know who they are, because Christ came that ALL be saved, not just Isrealites. “Whosoever”, not “which ever Isrealites”… (Jn 3:15).
 
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I am saying there’s a possibility that he could have been talking to his own audience
 
So wait… Didn’t Luke write his gospel in Greek? If so that must mean he originally referred to Jesus Christ as “Iesus Christos” right? Which would definitely debunk the whole “Serapis Christus” thing about a Greco-Egyptian false religion being transitioned to the Church of Jesus if Luke referred used “Iesus Christos” to refer to “Yehoshua”.
This is especially debunked due to the fact the word “Christos” or “Χρίστος” predates Serapis Christus
 
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I think it sounds like you have fallen into a pit of logical fallacy and can’t find your way out of it?
The pagan religion wasn’t “transitioned to the Church of Jesus”. Christ fulfilled the Jewish faith and made a way for ALL nations to be saved through Baptism, the act of Faith in Him, and established a Church to lead ALL nations to Himself. It doesn’t matter what language that was written in.
 
FranciscoN2001 said:
To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God…
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Here is the Introduction to 1 Peter NABRE - USCCB:


“This letter begins with an address by Peter to Christian communities located in five provinces of Asia Minor (1 Pt 1:1), including areas evangelized by Paul (Acts 16:6–7; 18:23). Christians there are encouraged to remain faithful to their standards of belief and conduct in spite of threats of persecution. Numerous allusions in the letter suggest that the churches addressed were largely of Gentile composition (1 Pt 1:14, 18; 2:9–10; 4:3–4), though considerable use is made of the Old Testament (1 Pt 1:24; 2:6–7, 9–10, 22; 3:10–12).
The contents following the address both inspire and admonish these “chosen sojourners” (1 Pt 1:1) who, in seeking to live as God’s people, feel an alienation from their previous religious roots and the society around them. Appeal is made to Christ’s resurrection and the future hope it provides (1 Pt 1:3–5) and to the experience of baptism as new birth (1 Pt 1:3, 23–25; 3:21). The suffering and death of Christ serve as both source of salvation and example (1 Pt 1:19; 2:21–25; 3:18). What Christians are in Christ, as a people who have received mercy and are to proclaim and live according to God’s call (1 Pt 2:9–10), is repeatedly spelled out for all sorts of situations in society (1 Pt 2:11–17), work (even as slaves, 1 Pt 2:18–20), the home (1 Pt 3:1–7), and general conduct (1 Pt 3:8–12; 4:1–11). But over all hangs the possibility of suffering as a Christian (1 Pt 3:13–17). In 1 Pt 4:12–19 persecution is described as already occurring, so that some have supposed the letter was addressed both to places where such a “trial by fire” was already present and to places where it might break out.”

This is from the commentary following 1 Peter 1 from the USCCB Website:


"This is the word that has been proclaimed to you.
  • [1:1–2] The introductory formula names Peter as the writer (but see Introduction). In his comments to the presbyters (1 Pt 5:1), the author calls himself a “fellow presbyter.” He addresses himself to the Gentile converts of Asia Minor. Their privileged status as a chosen and sanctified people makes them worthy of God’s grace and peace. In contrast is their actual existence as aliens and sojourners, scattered among pagans, far from their true country.
  • [1:1] Dispersion: literally, diaspora; see Jas 1:1 and Introduction to that letter. Pontus…Bithynia: five provinces in Asia Minor, listed in clockwise order from the north, perhaps in the sequence in which a messenger might deliver the letter.
  • [1:3–5] A prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God who bestows the gift of new life and hope in baptism (new birth, 1 Pt 1:3) through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The new birth is a sign of an imperishable inheritance (1 Pt 1:4), of salvation that is still in the future (to be revealed in the final time, 1 Pt 1:5)."
 
A lot of athiests, Jews, and cultists will make the generalization that the religion of Serapis was transferred to Christianity, which is obviously false
 
Yes, exactly. Thanks for clarifying. If I were to tell a group of kids that they are “the future,” it doesn’t mean they are the only kids who are the future.
 
FranciscoN2001 said:
one really knows the direct descendants of the Israelites
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Who cares what the BHI movement thinks?

They’re an utterly insignificant heretical modern sect with zero credibility… I’d be surprised if there was a million of them in the entire world.

If we stressed about every insignificant whacko heretical sect, we’d never be able to do anything else because there’s literally thousands upon thousands of them.

The arguments that the BHI put forth matter less to me than you could even imagine… And they should matter that much to you as well.
 
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I’ve noticed the BHI movement’s members are almost everywhere
 
Anyway, it doesn’t say that’s it’s written to “God’s chosen.”

It says, “eklektois parepidemois”, which means “to the chosen sojourners/strangers/aliens.”

Or, if you like, “to the sojourner chosens.” Doesn’t really matter.

Both of them are adjective forms being used like nouns, both of them are the same case and number.

Obviously “chosen by God” is implied, but that’s not what it says. Gotta love all this modern insertion stuff.

Either way… we tend to think of Jews as being the only ones involved in the Diaspora (‘scattering’), and James 1:1 does address a letter to specifically Jewish people. But the whole point of Christianity was that the Gentiles whom God made Christian were now also the chosen people. More to the point, thanks to all sorts of persecution as well as evangelization, Christians were also now scattered in a Diaspora, and Peter could correctly address them as such.

So Peter talks a lot about the former ignorance of those Christians who were once Gentiles, and talks to them directly about how they were called out of darkness into His light, those “who were once not a people, but now are the people of God; those who had not received mercy, but now have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:10)

So clearly, if he’s addressing the Gentile Christians directly in part of this same letter, his salutation to the “elect sojourners” of Asia et al, must have included both Jewish and Gentile Christians.

Then he goes straight on, and points out that all the Christians are in fact “aliens and sojourners” in their area, the exact same sort of people that God had directed the tribes of Israel to treat kindly, remembering their own nomadic and expatriated days. Because they are aliens and sojourners in Asia et al, they have to be conspicuously non-shady in all their activities, and therefore make the nations who do not know God give glory to God because of their good actions.

(This also could be an implied criticism of anybody who thinks he’s better because he’s a Jewish Christian, and not one of those latecomer Gentile Christians.)
 
It’s not so much obsession and if you look closely you will see them
 
“Black Hebrew Israelites” A cult of people who believe African Americans are the descendants of Israelites.
Now you may think “that’s not so bad, it’s just their belief,” but they have this theory that modern day Caucasians are the descendants of Esau because of some description of his skin being red. They use insults like “white devil” to harass white families that walk down the street. They believe that the white race as a whole is the “Synagogue of Satan” when there’s absolutely no proof of this and they make up lies saying “Cornelius was an Israelite” to justify that only Israelites can be saved. It’s just a radical doctrine as a whole
 
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Well, they are fringe, but I am pretty sure there was an episode of Forensic Files or The FBI Files about them. Cult murders, fun with financial malfeasance, and incest and sexual abuse, as I recall.

Could be a different fringe group, of course.
 
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