Why did God only pick the Jews for his message?

Status
Not open for further replies.
F

farronwolf

New member
A while back while sitting up late around the campfire on a Scout outing. The Bishop’s MC (one of our assistant Scoutmaster) and myself got into a discussion about how/why God would only bring his message to the Jews first off, and then through Jesus to what became the Catholic Church and Christianity in general.

Of all the people in the world at the time Jewish traditions started and God gave his message to them, why did he pick them? Not the folks in China, or Africa, or South America. He could have just as easily spread his message across the world for all to follow what became the Jewish teachings. Based on the world at the time, lack of travel and lack of communication God would have know that the message would be very slow to spread to the entire people he created.

After quite a long discussion the only thing I could come up with is that the Jews were a test. He picked that small group to see what true human nature was. He would test them to see if they could abide by the rules set down by him.

Then after a time, (millennia) test us again to see if they would accept himself, presented at Jesus, with a message of forgiveness and love.

Maybe I am way off on this. Curious what others feel.
 
An interesting question. Some thoughts:

Our God repeatedly surprises us in many ways. He walked among us as a man and knew all the pains of being fully human. He came not as a conqueror but as a servant, born not in a palace but in a stable. He was God for everyone, not just the rich or the elite.

With that as a background, He revealed himself to those who were often subjugated or at a minimum were perhaps heavily influenced by, or buffeted by, those around them - whether the Persians; the Assyrians; the Romans; etc. To me that would be more consistent than revealing himself to some empire prospering then, i.e, the Incas; the Indus Valley civilization; etc.

Curious to see what others think.
 
Last edited:
farronwolf said:
Based on the world at the time, lack of travel and lack of communication God would have know that the message would be very slow to spread to the entire people he created.
Click to expand...
To be fair…everything is “slow” in the eyes of God.

He need not have tested us, as he made us, and is closer to we are than we are to ourselves.

Why does God make a tree grow from a seed? Why does he make a river slowly erode the ground into a great chasm. Why did he create the expanding universe from a single point.

Why did he come as a helpless baby.

God seems to enjoy things growing 🤷‍♂️ I don’t know why, so I can’t help you there, but it’s fun to contemplate that.
 
There is nothing wrong with asking why God chose to act the way he did and attempt to find the meaning behind it. Your reply takes a very anti-intellectual approach to the original poster’s question.
 
From my viewpoint, the pagan religions originally broke off from the Truth…it is really astounding, some of the insights some of them have. They are mingled with corruptions/falsehoods, but they still have some truth in them.
So it is not like the Jews only had it, but rather that, after a time, the Jews were given the teaching in a clear, correct manner what they preserved a fragment of. It corrected the pagan follies, through the seed of Abraham, with whom God made a covenant.

His wise laws and guidance were given to the Jews as a sign of what was to come…and then, after a time, when the morality (and even the monotheism, to a certain point) spread around, when the time was ripe, God sent His only begotten Son for the salvation of the world. Gentile and Jew made one.
 
Last edited:
We assume the Jews were of a particular race or ethnic group. It might not have been so. Despite their general endogamy, they did accept others under certain conditions. Over time, being a “Jew” was probably more a matter of religion than of race.
 
So to expand a bit. God wants all his children to accept Him, His Son, and his teachings and be gain Heaven when we die.

So what happened to the souls of the millions and millions of people who died prior to Christ coming, or after Christ was crucified, that had no chance at salvation? Certainly God didn’t just abandon them because they had not heard God’s calling to believe in him. Did God choose not to enlighten them with his teachings/word. Or did he make an attempt and they simply ignored his calling, which is why there are no historical record of it?

If He created us all in his image, but only picked a segment of the populace to hear his word, what does that mean for the rest of the souls.

Without being able to answer those questions, I have to revert back to the “test” theory for the Jews to determine the true nature of man.
 
I have heard it expressed, that the Jews were “at the crossroads of the world”, so to speak, and that anything which developed in that particular location would be bound to spread throughout the known world more quickly than it would have if, let’s say, Jewish and Christian religious ideas had originated in Spain, sub-Saharan Africa, or India. This does not take into account “outlier” civilizations, such as China, Japan, the Mayans, or the Incas, that did not receive the true religion of God until fairly late, but the point should be clear. The religion of Jesus Christ came, so it seems, at “just the right time” — civilization from Spain to Mesopotamia was more or less united under Rome, there were the common languages of Greek and Latin, and it spread like wildfire, again, as I said, taking into account the “outliers”. From that core (and it was a pretty big core) it spread even further outward.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
such as China
Click to expand...
Fun fact: the earliest Christian mission to China was by Nestorians in the 7th century. As a matter of perspective, the first documented missions to Russia took place in the 8th century.

The problem was that, for a variety of reasons (mostly state persecution), Christianity did not take hold in China. The early Nestorian communities essentially became extinct after two centuries and lay dormant until Catholic missionaries arrived in the 16th century.
 
farronwolf said:
So what happened to the souls of the millions and millions of people who died prior to Christ coming, or after Christ was crucified, that had no chance at salvation? Certainly God didn’t just abandon them because they had not heard God’s calling to believe in him. Did God choose not to enlighten them with his teachings/word. Or did he make an attempt and they simply ignored his calling, which is why there are no historical record of it?
Click to expand...
I’ve heard it put that each soul longs for God - that’s why so many religions popped up everywhere (E.g. The Great Spirit for American Indians). Therefore - and this is all me, and I’m kind of off right now so if I’m heretical someone tell me - I believe that God knew their spirits, their desires, and had mercy on them in the afterlife. Maybe just because they didn’t know God’s tenants, doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been “accidentally” following them.
 
Lets face it. Most of us come to religion based on what is taught to us by our parents/family/friends/society.

We tend to follow what is familiar to us. Yes, some as they get older seek answers elsewhere but that isn’t the norm. Before modern written word, it was based on verbal stories and traditions told to them from elders in their culture.

Did the cultures who practiced sacrificial offerings whether it be animal or human really desire to kill something for their God/gods, or was it simply tradition based on lack of true knowledge?
 
farronwolf said:
So what happened to the souls of the millions and millions of people who died prior to Christ coming, or after Christ was crucified, that had no chance at salvation?
Click to expand...
"We have been taught that Christ is the first-begotten of God, and we have declared him to be the Logos of which all mankind partakes [John 1:9]. Those, therefore, who lived according to reason [Greek, logos] were really Christians, even though they were thought to be atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclitus, and others like them. . . . Those who lived before Christ but did not live according to reason [logos] were wicked men, and enemies of Christ, and murderers of those who did live according to reason [logos], whereas those who lived then or who live now according to reason [logos] are Christians. Such as these can be confident and unafraid” -St Justin Martyr, First Apology
It’s at least what this early Christian saint thought.
Keep in mind that Heaven was not yet opened (see “Limbo of the Fathers”), so technically “salvation” did not quite yet come to those who lived before Christ until the harrowing of Hell.
 
Last edited:
Personally I think the Jews were/are uniquely gifted in such a way as to be capable of being the torch-bearers for world salvation, regardless of how well they may or may not understand their role. So God picks one little group of people in one little dusty corner of the world and begins to work out His plans from there, of revealing Himself & His will over time, educating that one group through grace and experience in order to bring them to the point where, in and through them, He gives birth to and carries out His ultimate plan.
 
I understand on Limbo.

So if I understand the quote from St. Justin. any, who lived with the belief in God, would not be excluded from attaining salvation.

Would that apply to current day as well? Even though they may not call themselves “christian” if they live with reason, they may attain salvation?
 
farronwolf said:
Would that apply to current day as well? Even though they may not call themselves “christian” if they live with reason, they may attain salvation?
Click to expand...
Well, there’s at least a concept of “implicit baptism of desire” whereby a person may, by the Grace of God. I would think we shouldn’t “bank on it”, though, if you know what I mean, for the various people. We’re not God, so we can only go so far.
 
Last edited:
According to scripture the Hebrews were a good instrument for God to work his salvation because of their lowly state.
 
Last edited:
So based on that line of thinking, the folks who spout,
“If you don’t do such and such you will never get to heaven”
Might actually be wrong.

I in no way think that Gandhi for example might not be in heaven, or at least not in hell because he didn’t believe what “christians” believe.

I am no way saying that we as Catholics should not do our very best to live by Jesus’ and the Church’s teachings. I was always told by my father that as a Catholic you have an obligation to remain Catholic since you have been given the truth. Those that haven’t been given the truth or are unaware of the truth have no such obligation.

If one does agree with St. Justin, God has not forsaken much of mankind who is not aware of the truth.

If that is the case, that should give us all a bit of joy.
 
Hawkmaid7 said:
I’ve heard it put that each soul longs for God - that’s why so many religions popped up everywhere (E.g. The Great Spirit for American Indians). Therefore - and this is all me, and I’m kind of off right now so if I’m heretical someone tell me - I believe that God knew their spirits, their desires, and had mercy on them in the afterlife. Maybe just because they didn’t know God’s tenants, doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been “accidentally” following them.
Click to expand...
If there has ever been a primitive or ancient culture that was atheistic, I’ve never heard of one. All cultures I have ever heard of, at the very least, had some kind of transcendent or spiritual ideals, even if there wasn’t what we would think of as a “god”. So far as I am aware, the French Republic in the 1800s, and the Marxist Communist states of the 20th century, were the first brutal, materialistic, godless, totally man-centered regimes in the history of the world. And even the French state enshrined reason as a higher, abstract value, which I suppose is better than nothing.

In all fairness, if the American system were to reject religion and become either some sort of atheistic socialist utopia on the one hand, or a Randian objectivist libertarian “business state” on the other hand, it would be just as bad.

Edited to add: this article that I just happened to find online tonight, while doing something totally unrelated to this conversation.
 
Last edited:
  1. It couldn’t have been a test, since that would indicate that God wouldn’t know the outcome.
  2. It’s the same reason that the Greek gods only appeared to the Greeks and the Hindu gods only appeared in the area of India.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top