*This transcript was generated by AI, and may contain transcription errors. Please refer to the video, or contact us with any questions or discrepancies.*
We’re going to talk about the term Gentile. Many people have argued or had questions about what a Gentile is. One of the primary messages at the Center for Israel is embracing the identity of Gentiles. If we’re Gentiles and embracing the identity of the Jewish people being Jewish, we believe that that identity marker is as important to God as male and female. They are God-given distinctions, Jew, gentile, male, female. However many people have had questions or have argued that Gentile means pagan. We are no longer Gentiles when we receive Jesus as our Messiah and we become Christians. But this is a misunderstanding of the term Gentile, but it can be confusing. So let’s talk about it.
The first thing we have to understand is the Bible, the TaNaK, the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures were written in Hebrew. So this term that we often translate as Gentile is the word, go or go the plural. This could be translated as Gentile or Gentiles, or it could be translated as the nations, the people of the nations, as we know in the story of what we call the Old Testament, it was God and his people, the Israelites, and they’re often juxtaposed with the people of the nations, the go. Now, when we read an English translation, especially of the New Testament or even the Old Testament, sometimes we have to understand we are reading Hebrew scriptures, and if we’re reading the New Testament, we’re reading Greek. But even when we’re reading the Greek, there is an understanding of the Hebrew because these are Jewish authors, Peter, Paul, John, they’re all Jewish authors with the understanding of the Tanach, the Hebrew scriptures, whether they were referencing the Hebrew or referencing the Tugen, which was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.
They are thinking of these Hebrew terms. The Greek word often translated Gentile is ethnos, where we get our word ethnicity, and this is the same play on the word go, it’s the nations. Now, the reason that some people can understand Gentile as pagan, or even sometimes the reason it’s translated as pagan is because oftentimes in the Hebrew scriptures when they were talking about the nations, they were pagans. They were not followers of the God of Israel. And so sometimes in context it makes sense to translate the gom as the pagans, those who weren’t following God. So let’s look at the two major scriptures in the New Testament that translate this word, ethnos to pagans and why it might be confusing.
The two scriptures that are most often used in this debate of whether gentile means pagan or whether it just means non-Jew is Ephesians two 11 in one Corinthians 12. So let’s look at these two starting in Ephesians two 11. Paul says, therefore, keep in mind that once you gentiles in the flesh were called uncircumcision by those who were called circumcision. So what Paul is saying, or let me start with this, what it feels like Paul might be saying is you were once Gentiles in the flesh and now you’re not. Now you are Christian or whatever our idea of that conversion would be, but he doesn’t say you were once Gentiles. He’s saying that once you gentiles in the flesh, that’s who you are, Gentiles in the flesh. But something changed as he continues, verse 14, for he is our peace talking about Jesus, the one who made the two into one Jew and Gentile became one just like male and female.
When they get married, they become one still male, female, still gentile, verse 17. And he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far away. So the Gentiles in the flesh were far away. Now what did they become once Gentiles in the flesh? Well, their physical lineage didn’t change. They’re not changing physical lineage when they receive Jesus. So what changes their spiritual lineage, which is why Paul later says that we are now spiritual sons of Abraham, where Gentiles in the flesh, our physical lineage didn’t change, but our spiritual lineage changed when we were adopted as Romans eight says, into the family of God. And when you’re adopted, you take on a new family lineage, even if it’s not physical. Ours is now spiritual. So we are still Gentiles, but we have been adopted into the family of God and given a new spiritual ancestry. The second verse or scripture that many people use is one Corinthians 12 where Paul says, when you were pagans.
When you were pagans. And so this word ethnos is the same word we often translate as gentiles. So this is really confusing because Paul just said when you were once Gentiles, isn’t that confirming what we’re talking about, that gentile means pagan and therefore we no longer are gentiles? But that word ethnos, again goes back to the Hebrew understanding of gom nations. And so what Paul is saying is you were once part of the nations, you who were once part of the nations, and then he goes on to say, idolatry. You were far away. But again, you have been made close. You’ve been brought near by Messiah. And again, understanding the Hebrew scriptures, realizing that Goyim or the nations, those were always pagans until we have been brought close by Jesus, which is why scripture then goes on to say in Acts 15, there’s a declaration from the church from James or his real name’s Jacob, the leader of the Jerusalem church.
In Acts 15, he says, write this to the Gentiles. So he’s saying, write this to the Gentiles, not to the pagans. They’re writing to the believing community, the Jesus following community among the Gentiles. He’s not saying, go write to the pagans that this is what you have to do to honor God. He says, go tell this to the Gentiles. Paul says in Romans 1113, now I’m speaking to you Gentiles, as I’m the apostle to the Gentiles. He’s not the apostles to the pagans, he’s the apostle to the believing community that are not Jewish. The word Gentile clearly means all throughout scripture, not Jewish. Gentile could also be translated as the nations, the one who are not physically a part of Israel. But by faith in Yeshua, we have been us. The ones who are gentiles in the flesh have been brought close to God, adopted into his family, and given a new spiritual lineage. But again, just like male and female come into a marriage, and the Bible says they are one flesh. It also says that Jew and Gentile are coming into a new covenant and become one new man. Male and female continues to exist in a marriage, but there is new unity. Jew and Gentile come together and make one flesh still Jew and Gentile, but with new unity that can only be found in Yeshua. Jesus.
