This post contains most of an interesting thread, started on 2/8/2026, by non-scholars at BSA titled Equality In The Kingdom. All emphasis is mine.
John R.‘s Original Post — In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” On the surface, Paul appears to imply that all believers are one in Christ; that is, Jews and gentiles are all equal in the kingdom of God. But would the historical Jesus have agreed? Of course, even for Paul there are major caveats to his message: there may be no Jew or gentile, slave or freeman, or male or female in the coming kingdom, but until the kingdom arrives, inequality reigns. Jews are to remain practicing Jews, slaves are to remain enslaved, and women are to remain silent in church. The question I want to ask here appears simple. Did the historical Jesus include gentiles in the Kingdom of God, and, if so, will they be equal to Jews? The answer, it turns out, is not obvious.
Perhaps the majority of the literature I have read argues that the gospel of Jesus was not restricted to Jews, but that he preached a universal message—repentance for all people. Several passages are frequently provided in support of this opinion. The Great Commission and the parable of the Good Samaritan are two such examples. In the Great Commission, Jesus tells his eleven remaining apostles, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) This sounds quite definitive. However, as with any question we ask of the scriptures, there are multiple, often conflicting, answers, as we shall soon see.
The parable of the Good Samaritan, it is said, lends credibility to the idea that Jesus preached a universal message of love and forgiveness. In this parable, Jesus tells an expert in the Mosaic law that one must love God and one’s neighbor. When asked who his neighbor is, Jesus describes how a Samaritan helped an injured man, not a priest or Levite. In modern times, this is interpreted to mean that anyone in need, even someone you are supposed to hate, is our neighbor and must be loved, for God loves all people.
Another parable attributed to Jesus is the Judgement of the Nations, also known as the Sheep and the Goats, where the Son of Man, the king, will judge the nations of the earth based upon whether or not they help people in need. No distinction is made between the Jews and the Gentiles—all are judged solely based upon their actions towards the poor, sick, and hungry. (Matthew 25:31-46)
Despite all of this, there are major problems with the claims that the gospel of the historical Jesus applied to all people. For one, we actually do not know if these parables go back to Jesus or originated after his death. When it comes to the Great Commission, it is the resurrected Christ, not the historical Jesus, who allegedly gives the commission to the apostles. Moreover, most readers often overlook a key part of the commission where Jesus demands that new disciples “obey everything that I have commanded you.” In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is insistent that his followers adhere to the Torah. Indeed, Jesus demanded his followers adhere to the Torah in a stricter manner than even the Pharisees. The Matthaen Jesus said the Torah will remain until heaven and earth pass away, and that anyone who teaches someone to break a commandment will be called least in God’s kingdom. (Matthew 5:18-20). Jesus presumes his followers will continue to obey the Torah after his death since he tells nursing and pregnant women they should pray that the Son of Man does not come in judgement in winter or on the Sabbath. (Matthew 24:20) Gentiles were certainly welcome in Matthew’s community, and he likely was one, but based upon his gospel he likely believed Jesus expected all his followers would abide by the Torah.
When it comes to the parable of the Good Samaritan, there are many reasons to believe it cannot be used to support that the gospel of Jesus included all people. For one, scholars disagree if it is an authentic saying of Jesus. I agree with Geza Vermes that the details are an invention of the later church. Even if the saying is authentic, its message has nothing to do with gentiles. To a non-scholar like me, the point of the parable is that if a Samaritan, someone who most Jews hated, can show compassion towards an anonymous Jew in need, how much more should a Jew show compassion towards another Jew? Samaritans were not gentiles, but worshippers of the God of Moses who adhered to the Torah. This passage tells us nothing about the attitude of Jesus towards gentiles.
The idea that the gospel of the historical Jesus was intended for all nations becomes tenuous when you examine several rather inconvenient passages. The Matthean Jesus instructs his twelve apostles to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, avoiding any road leading to gentiles or Samaritan towns. (Matthew 10:5-7) If the gospel of Jesus was universal, and Jesus praised a Samaritan, why did he forbid his apostles from preaching to gentiles and Samaritans? Since these words are absent from the same account in Mark and Luke, it would be easy to presume this anti-gentile and anti-Samaritan mission was added by Matthew. However, there are passages in the other gospels which support the idea that Jesus had not preached a message inclusive of gentiles.
In Luke and in Acts, the followers of Jesus (before his resurrection) seem oblivious to the idea that gentiles were included in the Kingdom. After the death of Jesus, disciples on their way to Emmaus express their shock that Jesus was crucified and said that they expected Jesus to be the one to redeem Israel. (Luke 24:21) It sounds as if they considered Jesus the Jewish King who would release Israel from their bondage to the gentile Romans. The disciples demonstrate no prior knowledge that Jesus had been crucified for the sins of the world or was offering salvation to gentiles. Acts provides an even clearer example that the apostles were oblivious of such a message. In Acts, Peter is totally unaware of the Great Commission that Jesus allegedly gave to him and the other ten apostles as described in the Gospel of Matthew. Instead, Peter appears to believe that the message of Jesus applied solely to Jews. Peter had to have a divine vision prior to a visit by the gentile Cornelius before he realized that God shows no partiality and that any person who fears God and practices righteousness is acceptable to God, regardless of whether they are a Jew or not. (Acts 10:34-35) If Jesus preached a gospel inclusive of gentiles, or told his apostles to preach his gospel to the world, wouldn’t Peter, of all people, know this? Despite Acts not being historically reliable, this passage still tells us that the author of Acts knew that a mission to the gentiles did not exist during the lifetime of Jesus.
Lastly, there is a historically credible story that indicates Jesus may actually have despised gentiles. There are two independently attested accounts, one in Mark and one in Matthew, of Jesus expressing contempt towards a gentile woman who was pleading for him to help her daughter who was ill. Since at the time that the gospels were written, the churches were largely gentile, it would be extraordinarily unlikely that they would invent a saying of Jesus that denigrated their own people. In Matthew’s version of the account, Jesus refused to respond to the woman’s persistent pleas for help. His disciples, frustrated at her annoying persistent shouting, urged Jesus to send her away. Huh? Doesn’t their unwillingness to help someone in need violate Jesus’ own teachings that one should show compassion towards all people? Did Jesus’ disciples fail to pay attention to his message? Moreover, what Jesus says in response to the gentile woman’s plea for help totally conflicts with the idea that his gospel was meant for anyone other than Jews. “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” (Matthew 15:26) That Jesus considered gentiles inferior to the Jews could not be any clearer. The Jews were God’s children, not the gentiles. Gentiles were animals. Jesus and his disciples had no interest in helping her until she openly denigrated herself before Jesus. She had to appeal to his ego and superiority before he would help her. Any claim that Jesus preached a gospel that included all nations must address this highly credible story.
The idea that non-Torah-observant gentiles could join the followers of Jesus appears to have arisen after his death, most likely due to the mission of a man who never actually knew Jesus, Paul. The gospel of Paul did not come from the historical Jesus, but from his personal visions of the risen Christ in which Jesus made him a missionary to the gentiles. Based upon his letters, Paul seems to have convinced Peter and others within the Jerusalem church that the salvation of Jesus could extend to gentiles without requiring them to observe the Torah. Paul taught universal love in Christ, and his followers were highly influential on the authors of the Gospels and their message.
What are we to make of all this? As with all things biblical, any conclusion depends upon which passages you choose to accept and which you reject. At the moment I feel the evidence favors the idea that the historical Jesus had little regard for gentiles. His gospel was for Jews. Would gentiles be included in the coming kingdom? Probably, if they willingly or by force abandoned their gods, turned to the God of Israel, and embraced the Torah. Those who did not would likely see the unquenchable fire and gnashing of teeth. It is Paul and his Christ who we should thank for the gospel of universal salvation and love, not the historical Jesus.
Nathaniel Alpern — I’d say Luke promoted salvation and love more than Paul. Paul does give a lot of rhetoric that sounds adjacent to a universalist kind of language, but Paul wasn’t intending his letters to mean much beyond preparing people of an impending apocalypse. Thanks to Luke’s language, Paul’s universalism can be reinterpreted to conform to what you’ve been saying concerning Christianity being about universal salvation and love, so I think Luke is instead more deserving of that credit!
Keith P. Myers – If you look at the mission of Jesus and his early followers, I think it is pretty clear that they were not extending the message to the Gentiles/Pagans. They had an Apocalyptic belief based on scripture, and that scripture said that the people of Judah would be “gathered in” first, and then the lost tribes of Israel, and only then….the “nations” meaning everyone else.
The Gospels have several examples of Jesus saying he was there for the Jews and no one else. Remember, Jesus & his followers did NOT see their mission as “saving sinners”. They saw their mission as getting people to repent (change their ways) and return to God. Peter was the Apostle that went out to the Gentiles, but very likely his mission was to those “God-Fearers” and converts to Judaism in the out-lying Synagogues. This is why Paul saw his own self-assigned mission as so important. He saw himself as filling the last part of the overall mission….taking the message to the “nations” so that the Kingdom of God could come. Of course, he ended up developing his own understanding of what that meant. But Jesus & his early followers expected the establishment of a Kingdom of God on earth, that would start with the Jews and only afterwards extend to include everyone else.
