What is the meaning of the word ‘gentiles’ or ‘goyim’? Hear from Asher Intrater about seeing Gentiles (ethnic groups) from Gods perspective.
The word ‘gentile’ is found 164 times in the New Covenant. One of the favourite verses of the Jewish believers is Romans 11:26 “And so all Israel will be saved…” That’s our banner. That’s our hope. But it doesn’t say ‘all Israel will be saved’ but ‘and so all Israel will be saved’. In other words, something happens in verse 25 that causes verse 26 to happen.
Romans 11:25: “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”
The fullness of the Gentiles brings about the salvation of Israel. Those of us with Jewish ears, we hear two different things: there is kind of a negative sound to it. In Hebrew we call it ‘goy’ which means a non-member of the Covenant, even ‘pagan’. But in the Greek New Covenant, the word used is ‘ethnos’ which means ‘ethnic group’. This means that there is nothing negative about the word. So the Jewish people are also ‘goy’ or ethnic group.
For us as Jews, there is no looking at any other race of people as second class people. There is no word ‘Gentile’ but ‘ethnic group’. So there is no place for that tendency for us to speak of the ethnic groups as something evil. We Jewish people are ourselves are an ethnic group and so are all the other national groups.
There’s a huge root inside of our people of ethnic pride that we need to be cleansed of so that we can understand that God’s purposes are not only for our own ethnic group but for all the ethnic groups around.
I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘Gentile Christian’ but Christians from every different ethnic group around the world including us Jews. We respect one another in our different ethnic groups. Let’s get all that racial pride and ethnic pride out. God has a beautiful plan and destiny for one another and for all of us and we ought to bless one another together.