Shattered Dreams

Jesus replaced the synagogue system with the church system and a decentralized style of leadership. The born again Jews were happy in Jesus but they struggled with the deeply ingrained Talmudic prejudices and had difficulty integrating with Gentiles.

Paul addressed this issue when he admonished Christians not to build cliques in the local churches, but to treat one another the same way as Christ treated them. While it’s true that Jesus was an Israelite who came to His own people first, Paul wanted the Gentiles to know that salvation was also available to them regardless of race or gender and they should treat the Jews with love.

Paul had been commissioned by God to preach the Gospel and go where no churches existed. This was the reason he traveled extensively throughout the Roman Empire and wanted to visit Spain but he was also mindful of the needs of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and collected money for the poor.

Paul did not know that events in Jerusalem would not go as planned; instead, he was almost murdered by the Jews, arrested, and finally brought to Rome as a prisoner two years later. Paul trusted God implicitly but his carefully laid plans were shattered by these unexpected events.