How Near the Outsider Could Come

Today anyone can walk in off the street and sit in the front row of a church. No one checks anything at the door. That is part of our world, and much of it is good.

But it was not the world of the New Testament. Picture a man from the nations in the first century. He likes what he hears about Yeshua and enjoys the teaching, but he has no interest in the Torah and no intention of giving up his pork. How far into that world could he have come?

A Wall with a Warning

The temple in Jerusalem had a low stone barrier around its inner courts. Along it, as the historian Josephus records, stood stone signs in Greek and Latin forbidding any foreigner to go further, on pain of death. One of the Greek inscriptions has been found complete, and it warns that whoever is caught will have only himself to blame for the death that follows. A second, broken one has also been found, and both are kept in museums today.

A man from the nations could come as far as the outer court, the Court of the Gentiles, and Solomon’s Portico, and no further.

How seriously was that line taken? Consider what happened to Paul:

Acts 21:28-30 crying out, "Men of Israel, come to our aid! This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people and the nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) and this place; and besides he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has made this holy place koinos κοινός koy-nos'(common, worldly)." For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was provoked, and the people rushed together, and taking hold of Paul they dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the doors were shut.

Trophimus was a believer from Ephesus and Paul’s own companion. He had not gone past the barrier; people only supposed that Paul had brought him in. That supposition alone set the whole city in an uproar.

The Table Had Its Own Wall

The same care guarded the table.

Acts 10:28 And he said to them, "You yourselves know how athemitos ἀθέμιτος ath-em'-ee-tos(lawless) it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man koinos(common, worldly) or akathartos ἀκάθαρτος ak-ath'-ar-tos(impure, unclean).

The word is athemitos (ἀθέμιτος), forbidden, taboo. That is how Peter described a Jew going into a foreigner’s home. And when he returned to Jerusalem, the believers did not ask him what he had preached:

Acts 11:2-3 And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him, saying, "You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them."

“You … ate with them.” Eating together was where the line was drawn.

How Far He Could Come

Think again of the man we pictured, who welcomed the gospel but would not give up his pork.

He could listen at the back of a synagogue. He could stand in the outer court of the temple and hear the apostles teach. But he could not go past the stone barrier into the inner courts. He could not expect a place at a Jewish believer’s table. And the thought of handing him the scroll to read aloud, or of appointing him to lead the ekklesia ἐκκλησία ek-klay-see'-ah, would not have crossed anyone’s mind.

To come any closer, he would have had to leave that life behind.

Acts 15 fits this picture. The four rules were the threshold he crossed on the first day. What came after the first day was Acts 15:21: hearing Moses read every Sabbath and learning, week by week, to live a holy life.

The Line Was Never Removed

Someone will say that surely, as the years went on, the apostles realized this was too hard, and that in the end they removed the distinction between clean and unclean to make room for the nations.

There is no such decision anywhere in Acts. To the end of the book, the apostles lived within that distinction.

The line was erased later, a little at a time. The temple fell. The church and the synagogue parted. Marcion’s teaching, which would have thrown out the Old Testament, found followers. Councils forbade resting on the Sabbath and keeping the appointed times. Over the centuries the line wore away, piece by piece, until we arrived at the church of today.

But the word did not change. Whoever comes to the holy assembly and shares in the Lord’s table today still stands where Leviticus 7 and 1 Corinthians 11 stand. And whoever leads that assembly and teaches it stands in the heaviest place of all.