Soul Food - 1/6/9

From today's Reading: Acts 11

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

- Acts 11:25-26

POINT OF INTEREST:

The early followers of Jesus were Jews and continued to think of themselves as such. This despite the fact that they no longer felt bound by many of the Jewish laws and traditions.

With the preaching of the Gospel to Gentiles (non-Jews), the ranks of "The Way" began to grow with people who neither Jew in genealogy or belief and so did not have ties to the Jewish regulations and traditions.

An argument could be made that it was the act of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles that tipped the scale in such a way that the followers of "The Way" were to become a religious entity in and of themselves instead of another sect of Judaism.