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EARLY GENTILE BELIEVERS CELEBRATED THE FEAST OF PENTECOST

We need first to get acquainted with the term used in the Jewish Scriptures for the non-Jew: "stranger."

Strong's Concordance defines "stranger" :1616 ger (gare); or (fully) geyr (gare); from 1481; properly, a guest; by implication, a foreigner: KJV-- alien, sojourner, stranger.

Brown-Driver-Briggs' Hebrew Lexicon defines "stranger": 1616 ger or (fully) geyr- sojourner

• a) a temporary inhabitant, a newcomer lacking inherited rights
• b) used of foreigners within Israel, though they had conceded rights

In order to understand what comes next it would be important to begin to look for a "pattern" in the verses that follow not only in this article but the rest in this series as you will come to see that God included the non-Jews in the observance of not only the Festivals but the Sabbath as well. This pattern can be found not only in the Jewish Old Testament Scriptures but the New Testament as well. Having seen this then one has to wonder how we lost and deviated from such a pattern which was established in antiquity by God to the point where we have lost such obedience and observance today. One would have to ask Rome that question.

Deuteronomy 16

• 9 Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from [such time as] thou beginnest [to put] the sickle to the corn.
• 10 And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the LORD thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give [unto the LORD thy God], according as the LORD thy God hath blessed thee: {a tribute: or, sufficiency}
• 11 And thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that [is] within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that [are] among you, in the place which the LORD thy God hath chosen to place his name there.

Answer for yourself: Can there be any doubt that God included the non-Jews in the observance of Shavout (Pentecost) which was the rejoicing over the giving of the Torah to mankind? Don't you find it strange that a non-Jew would be rejoicing over the giving of the Torah (613) to the Jews or is it just possible that he, being instructed correctly in the Covenant and Laws of Noah, was rejoicing in God giving him the Torah in the Covenant of Noah which contained the Laws of Noah which, when obeyed, brought right-standing and acceptance with God? You see he was rejoicing and observing this Feast because he was thankful that God had given him the knowledge whereby he could be in good relationship with God. What did they know then that we have not been taught today?