Er scripture disputes you
1 Peter 2:9 (ESV) — 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
The real disconnect would be to imagine spiritual blessings are dependant on ethnicity
God's promise of the Holy Spirit made first to Israel is fulfilled in the church
You will not accept this and you surely will not believe it but Peter made it very clear to whom he addressed his letter. I will quote it for you.
,
1 Peter 1:1-2
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
His second letter was to the same ethnic group.
2 Peter 3:1-2
1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2
That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
He is speaking to people who have a foundation in the OT prophets in circa AD 66 after some 35 years of church age experience. These certainly are not gentiles for several reasons but this would not make sense if they were:,
1 Peter 2:11-12
11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
12 Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
These are not gentiles. They are strangers and pilgrims. A stranger in this context is someone who is sojourning in someone else’s land besides their own.
Notice what Peter said in this same context.
1 Peter 2:9-10
9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
10
Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
This is key to understanding Peters mission.
1) in time past were not a people
2) now they are the people of God
3) they had in time past had not obtained mercy
4) now they have obtained mercy
Who has these things said about them before?
The answer is here.
Ho 1:1 The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
[remember the blessing and the curse in the Palestinian covenant in Deut 30]
2 The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, [departing] from the LORD.
3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.
4 And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
5 And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.
6 And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Loruhamah: for
I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.
7 But
I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.
8 Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.
9 Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.
10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. (read 1 Peter here)
11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.
Paul spoke of these people in Rom 9 some 700 years later;
22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
25 As he saith also in Osee, (Hosea) I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. (Read 1 Pet 2:2 now)
27 Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:
28 For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.
29 And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.
30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.
31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.
32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;
33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
What we learn from the above is that God counts his covenant people as gentiles and as strangers from the covenants of promise and not his people when they are outside of their national boundaries. Those of this ethnic group who are saved by faith in Christ are considered a remnant. According to the prophecy in Ho 1:11 they will eventually be united with Judah back in their land and be the people of God with one head, Jesus Christ.
Ga 2:1 Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also.
2 And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.
3 But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised:
4 And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage:
5 To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
6 But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man’s person) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me:
7 But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;
8 (For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles)
9 And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.
10 Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do.
Remember who Peter wrote his letter to.
2 And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.
3 But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised:
4 And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage:
5 To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
6 But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man’s person) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me:
7 But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter; (
NOTE: this is not two different gospels but two different ethnic groups)
8 (For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles)
9 And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.
10 Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do.
11 But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.
12 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.
14 But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?
15
We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,
16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
17 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.
18 For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
19 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
1Pe 1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
A logical deduction and reasonable assumption is that the strangers scattered in Galatia were among the circumcision or it would make no sense to find Peter ministering to them and writing holy Scripture and claiming that Jesus Christ is fulfilling OT prophecy by what he was doing. These people were the same as Hosea wrote to ethnically.
You greatly err by not rightly dividing the word of God and you reach wrong conclusions by not believing the words you read. Peter did not pass on church doctrine to the strangers, Paul did that in this same area. Peter dealt with the faithfulness of God in his dealings with these people in his prophetic promises. These people were the first to be ministered to in this age before the gospel went west to the gentiles of Europe where Peter and the other apostles did not go.
Paul wrote to these churches to teach them NT church doctrine and explain their privileges in the New Testament. Look at the amazing words of the apostle Paul to these strangers and pilgrims;
Eph 2:12
That at that time (at what time - read verse 11) ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and
strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
Eph 2:19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
Here is admonition to Timothy, a convert of Paul from Ephesus.
1Ti 5:10 Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged
strangers, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.
Now we know who the strangers are.
