‘What shapes our sense of identity?’ by Owen Lynch, 1 September 2024

How does life with Jesus shape us? Owen Lynch looks at the range of people described in Acts of the Apostles who became and grew as believers together. Between them, there were many roots of identity. Were they forced to abandon their sense of who they were, or was God deepening their relationships in their communities?

We are at the pivot point of the book of Acts. The first 15 chapters have centred on the original twelve Jewish disciples of Jesus, but from chapter 16 onwards it’s all about Paul and his companions.

It’s a pivot away from the local indigenous Jewish population of Judea and Galilee and towards the Roman Empire spread around the Mediterranean.

The author said that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost enabled the local Judean and Galilean disciples of Jesus to speak all the languages of the known world. This broke the dam that flooded the known world with the gospel of Jesus.

The gospel of Jesus was not a new story - it was the fulfilment of the redemptive story that the Jewish prophets had been telling for centuries. The story of Jesus is presented by the gospel writers and Paul as a recapitulation of the story of Israel in the life of Jesus.

The virgin birth of Jesus, his death and resurrection reflect the cycle of birth, death and resurrection that we see described repeatedly through the history of Israel.

And of course, this cycle of birth, death and resurrection is a cycle we see throughout the human race and throughout life on earth as the seasons change from Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

The gospel of Jesus is a story of hope and liberation, it is a story for all people, not just one nationality, race or religion.

It is a story of inclusion, but it is fundamentally so much more than that. It is a story of identity.

See for Jews, identity was not a matter of belief or doctrine. Identity was a matter of citizenship, place of birth, identity of one’s parents, or a granted legal status.

I’m British and it’s almost impossible to remove my identity as British, unless I move to somewhere like Australia and voluntarily exchange my British identity for an Australian one.

Even if I do become an Australian, I imagine that most Australians will still consider me to be a “pomme” because I was born in Britain to British parents.

You don’t need to hold certain doctrines and beliefs to be British. Our society is built on the freedom of speech, the liberty to hold different opinions and debate them constructively and respectfully.

At the time of Jesus Judaism was like being British. Everyone had their own beliefs and they disagreed with each other over many fundamental beliefs. Jesus is recorded as having many disagreements with other rabbis about fundamental beliefs, look at John 3 where Jesus has a profound conversation with Nicodemas, look at Mark 14 where Jesus argues with the Jewish leaders.

His radical beliefs may have got him martyred, but that did not change his identity as a Jew. No one said, “if you don’t agree with these fundamental beliefs you can’t be a Jew”. Jesus was a Jew, because he was the son of a Jew.

Downstream from Jesus, it appears that Christianity has become a something quite unlike Judaism. For many people membership of Christianity is defined by belief. Consequently, Christians generally don’t argue very much, because if you argue too much and question fundamental beliefs, then you risk being excluded from the community. Some Christians have statements or confessions of faith that are a set of beliefs that you have to agree to maintain your identity as a Christian, or at least as an Anglican or Vineyardite!

So perhaps we are guilty of comparing apples with pears. Perhaps we should equate being Jewish with being British, or Brazilian or Nigerian?

So if Jesus was Jewish and I am British, what difference does the gospel of Jesus make for me?

The gospel of Jesus is based on the Jewish idea that everyone is made in the image of God and that everyone can relate to God personally. The revelation of Yahweh to Abraham in Genesis 12 was that Yahweh relates to all ethnic groups in the same way that he relates to the descendants of Abraham.

It’s like the story of Yahweh’s relationship with the descendants of Abraham was an example, a prototype of Yahwehs relationship with all families/ethnic groups across the planet.

I think that’s why we see Jesus instructing his disciples to share this story with people from all ethnic groups across the planet.

The gospel of Jesus was a message of hope to remind all people that they are created in the image of God with the capacity for personal relationship with God.

In many senses the gospel of Jesus, during his lifetime and ever since has been the same call that is echoed throughout the Old Testament that segregation and division on the basis of belief is not God’s intention for humanity.

The Gospel of Jesus is that we are one human race, just as God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit are one (John 17).

We have been seeing this in the first 15 chapters of Acts, and we can see it here in chapter 16 as well: Acts 16:1-5

Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. 2 The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3 Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.

Timothy has a Jewish Mum and a Greek Dad, thereby benefitting from two rich cultures that were dominant in the Eastern Mediterranean at that time.

The gospel of Jesus had reached this area we know now as Southern Turkey and the author describes Timothy as a disciple of Jesus and his Mum as a ‘believer’.

So Timothy’s primary identity was as a Jew and also a Greek. He has not been circumcised like all Jewish males, so Paul circumcised him, one assumes with Timothy’s consent, so as to not antagonise the Jews who lived in that area.

Why would this have antagonised them? Well we don’t know, but since Timothy’s Mum was a Jew, we can surmise that Timothy should have been circumcised at birth as all Jewish male offspring are. We don’t know why he hadn’t, but Paul and Timothy agreed that he should be faithful to his Jewish customs and identity.

Clearly Paul thought that Timothy’s Jewish identity was important and that he should preserve it. We know that Paul was very proud of his identity as a Jew. Philippians 3:5-7

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. 7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

Paul never exchanged his identity as a Jew for that of a Christian. Others have done that to him since, but Paul’s identity was primarily a Jew. But his pride in his Jewish identity didn’t impede his ability to see that the gospel of Jesus was for all people.

In fact, Paul’s letters reveal his central conviction that Abraham was not just the Father of the Jews, but the Father of all human beings, Romans 4:16-17:

16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17 As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.”

Paul was not on a mission to make every Greek and Roman a Jew, far from it - he repeatedly argues against the attempts of other Jews to circumcise Greeks and Romans who embraced the gospel of Jesus. Using persuasive words he says in Galatians 5:1-2

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.

So Paul respects the primary identity of Greek and Romans and insists that the gospel of Jesus doesn’t require them to exchange their identity for a Jewish identity.

However, in the case of Timothy, Paul encourages him to embrace his Jewish identity fully by becoming circumcised.

Paul seemed to see the gospel of Jesus as an enabler that deepened and enhanced one’s familial/cultural identity, rather than destroying it.

Paul argued that the gospel of Jesus calls out the best in people with what he called the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22-23

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

These qualities would be evident in someone who embraced the gospel of Jesus, regardless of their identity.

What could be more beautiful in a Jew, a Brit, a Russian, an Iranian, a Nigerian, or a Japanese person than love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?

Is this why people from all ethnic groups and nations have embraced the gospel of Jesus?

But it wasn’t just ethnic identity that the gospel of Jesus affirmed, it was social identity too.

In Acts 16, Paul and his team travel by boat to Philippi in northern Greece and encounter two women from the two ends of society, Acts 16:13-15

13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

Lydia is a wealthy business woman who has power and prestige. She has a large home and invites Paul and his team to stay with her. She is most likely to be a Greek women who admires and respects the Jewish tradition.

The other woman is a slave, Acts 16:16-19

16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

19 When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.

This woman is not named, but she is a slave. She has few rights and her owners exploit her ability as a fortune teller to make them money. She clearly sees something unique and powerful in Paul and is such an annoyance to Paul that he loses his patience and commands a “spirit” to leave her.

Both women from either end of the social spectrum are liberated by the gospel of Jesus. One is wealthy and the other is poor, but both are liberated to live freely as human beings - not defined by the abundance or lack of money.

What I think we see here in Acts, is that the gospel of Jesus did not force people to abandon their roots and join a cult. Instead, the gospel of Jesus enabled them to deepen their relationship with God within the context of the communities and culture that they inhabited.

How does Jesus want us to deepen our relationship with God within the context of the communities and culture that we live in?

Do we feel secure that whatever our beliefs about God, we are loved and included in this church community?

Is our identity based on agreeing with the right doctrine or is it based on simply being a human being who is loved and accepted by God?

More in this series