I have over the last 5 years or so come in contact with this heresy by teachers such as Les Feldick and Robert breaker and a couple of others, of this idea of that there are two Gospels.
They separate the two gospels as:
1) the gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus and John and Peter and James preached, and they tell you that that that's the gospel of the kingdom it has to do with law and works that they did not understand in Jesus himself did not understand the gospel of grace.
2) Now on the other hand, they will tell you that there's the true gospel that Paul preach which is the gospel of grace that we are saved by grace and these false gospel people ,(Jesus James John and Peter), have a certain gospel that is works based, and work centered, and it's different than the gospel that Paul preached.
I'm wondering if anybody else has come across such of a teaching?
Really none of that is going on.
What is going on here is a common error in study and understanding. Whatever you are reading, you have to take it in context, always remembering conditions and circumstances of the time period and the chronological progression of the storyline. It is not that easy, which is why it is a common error, it is not like reading the local Sunday paper.
FYI The term Gospel does not mean Good News. In the Greek it is a military term…. euangélion (εὐαγγέλιον) is what they call a compound term…. In ancient Greece and Rome, euangélion was a military term that referred to a proclamation of victory by the winning army. In the New Testament, the authors repurposed the word to refer to the declaration that believing in Yeshua would save us from Hell and offer an eternal reward in Heaven --- The word euangélion was translated into Latin as evangelium in the Vulgate, and into Old English as gōdspel. The Old English term was retained as "gospel" in Middle English Bible translations and remains in use in Modern English. But if that was it, it would be a pretty short story. The rest of the New Testament is about the history of how that all happened.
The changing of the definition of Greek words was common with the Apostles and other writers of the New Testament. Christian terms do not appear in the Pagan Greek language. So the Apostles would take like words like Hades and sin and change the definitions to a Christian meaning….It is called Christian Greek.
Some things to keep in mind as you are reading the New Testament. Christ’s ministry occurs during a time when the Old Covenant was still in effect and the Jews were following the Mosaic Laws.
Christ does not stop the Mosaic Law it continues for those Jews that do not believe He was the Messiah---the Son of God---and a God
and those that converted to “The Way” were required to follow them also.
If you look closely at the conversations that Christ had, it was mostly with Jews and the topic more often than not was about Judaism and or the Mosaic Law. Some conversations do not pertain to Christianity. The most famous of which was the discussion He had with the Jews about divorce. He was talking to Jews who could have had 5 wives or more and brought up Moses allowing them to divorce but Christianity did not adopt the Letter of Divorcement from the Mosaic Law. There is a ton of background on this but it does not pertain to Christianity
Some conversations do pertain to Christianity….mostly indirectly. And mostly about forgiveness. Still at times Christ was talking to His Apostles and the topic could be more about the teachings of the New Covenant. Then there were private conversations with people like His secret disciples Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.
The first member’s of The Way were Jewish-Christians and their form of Christianity had a distinct Jewish “flavor” For instance the Temple was part of their religious observances of the Saturday Jewish Sabbath and they participated in the seven day Passover. The scriptures do not say they sacrificed animals but if they were worshipping in the Temple and refused they would have been killed or kicked out.
The Jewish-Christians still obeyed the Mosaic Law to differing extents. For example, to be part of The Way they had to be circumcised. Of course the Jews were circumcised but anyone else that wanted to convert they had to be circumcised and learn and obey the Mosaic Law, worshipping Yahweh on the Saturday Jewish Sabbath, in accordance with the Mosaic Law.
This is where we need to put our thinking caps on and consider the scenario. The Jewish-Way was the first expression of what came to be called Christianity and it was very Jewish. And the scriptures do not indicate this was wrong…..except when Christ was talking about putting new wine in old wine skins….And I do not think they picked up on the meaning.
Now exactly what is going on with the twelve Apostles, we do not know the whole story. For most of the Apostles what we have is folklore from extra-biblical sources. But in the four Gospels we do hear from Matthew and John who were part of the twelve chosen Apostles. And we hear from Mark and Luke who were disciples of Peter and Paul respectively.
From what we read about Peter we would think that he was the leader of the twelve Apostles but as it turns out James the brother of Christ becomes the leader of the twelve. But maybe the word leader is not exactly descriptive. James was the leader in a sense but Peter’s input was highly respected.
Okay, now let us put a pause on the storyline. What if Paul was not converted by Christ? What if the Jewish-Way was all there was to Christianity? We would still be following the Mosaic Law. To be a Christian we would have to be circumcised. The scriptures never place a moratorium on polygamy. Would we still be having multiple wives and still be treating women as property and buying our wives? And no weddings, the sexual union forming the marriage in the bridle chamber?
Although these are legitimate questions, it is still speculation considering the understanding of the Jewish religion and culture and that the twelve Apostles were Jews. Peter, John, Matthew, and the rest of the Apostles lived, walked, and talked with Yeshua and from that they believed that should worship in the Temple and probably sacrificed animals to Yahweh. Apparently from all their conversations with Yeshua they felt that they were still obligated to observe at least part of the 613 Mosaic Laws and required any new converts to observe the Law. If the converts were not Jewish they could not worship in the Temple but instead had a place outside were they could observe the Jewish Saturday Sabbath.
Continued....
