Jesus lived and died an observant Jew. His mother and his initial followers were all observant Jews. They understood his identity in terms of Jewish expectations of the Messiah. It is no surprise the first generation of Christians looked on following Jesus as a further expression of their Jewish faith. That non-Jews, Gentiles, were attracted to following Jesus caused something of a crisis for the nascent Church. Did the Gentile Christians need to become Jews and adopt Jewish practice in order to be faithful disciples of Jesus? St.Paul answered that question with an emphatic “NO.” It is faith in Jesus that matters. How we live out the faith will depend on one’s starting point. Does God belong to Jews alone? Does he not belong to Gentiles, too? Yes, also to Gentiles, for God is one. To the objection that “we’ve all done it this way,” Paul insisted that faith in Jesus is not something added to Judaism but the basis of a new relationship with God. People today sometimes will yearn for how the faith was lived in the past. Like St. Paul the contemporary task is to help people find their relationship with Jesus and let the practice of the faith express how modern people connect with Him.
