I’m waiting for someone to point out to accuse anyone who claims that Jesus had twelve disciples during his lifetime must be guilty of “another gospel.” After all, Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples” (John 8.31). That settles it right? At most Jesus had eleven disciples and no more. Anyone who claims there were twelve disciples is obviously redefining orthodoxy in order to come up with an “objective” discipleship.

And what about people who speak of “unbelieving Jews” in the First Century? Isn’t this a clear-cut demonstration that the speaker doesn’t believe that Romans 2.28-29? “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” Obviously, anyone who treats ethnic Jews as an identity that obtains with both the regenerate and the unregenerate has been submitting to Second Temple Jewish literature rather than to Paul here or in chapter 9.

After all, if one can be a disciple of Jesus whether or not one is elect and/or regenerate then what is the difference in claiming one can be in God’s covenant whether or not one is elect? If we allow this sort of objectivity of discipleship or of Jewishness, we will not be able to refute those who claim that the preface to the First Commandment teaches all professing Christians that God “is a God in covenant, as with Israel of old, so with all his people; who, as he brought them out of their bondage in Egypt, so he delivers us from our spiritual thraldom; and that therefore we are bound to take him for our God alone, and to keep all his commandments.”

But now perhaps I am merging into another series of posts (PART ONE / PART TWO).