Embracing Our Jewish Roots: The Early Church in Acts and Why It Matters Today

It is deeply important for the Church today to understand how intricately tied the Christian faith is to its Jewish roots. These roots shine clearly through the practices of the early Church, recorded by Luke in the book of Acts. As Dr. Robert Wayne Stacy notes, the way in which the early Church was still worshipping, celebrating, and eating as Jews gives evidence for its Jewish roots.¹ Even the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which are central to the New Testament Church (Acts 2:38-41, 2:42), have their roots in the Jewish mikvah and the Pesach seder.

Not only are the practices of Jewish life shared, but so are the promises of Jewish hope. As Dr. Robert Wayne Stacy discusses in “Pentecost and the Eschatological Setting of the Early Church in Acts,” the promises of the Old Testament, such as the promise of Joel 2:28 and its fulfillment in  Acts 2:15-17, are a shared eschatological hope between the Old and New Testaments that often finds an “already, but not yet” aspect.² The Church finds the fulfillment of Old Testament eschatological hope in the person of Jesus Christ, true Son of God and Messiah, while still awaiting the final culmination of redemption at the second coming of Christ. These promises and their fulfillment were not seen as a replacement for the Jewish faith but as a natural progression of it, prophesied from the beginning (Genesis 12:3).

Yet, not all Jews accepted this transition into the Church age. Many rejected the inclusion of the Gentiles without demanding circumcision and obedience to the Law, as seen at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15),³ and still more denied that Jesus was the Christ (John 1:11). Nonetheless, each of these instances demonstrates how closely knit the Early Church was to the Jewish faith. This seems to be, at least in part, why Luke went to such lengths to depict the early Church as authentically Jewish. His record orients the New Testament Church to the foundation of its existence and practice, while providing a helpful narrative for navigating the transition from the Old Covenant to the New. Even today, Christians should not overlook the various Jewish aspects of their faith. The Scriptures they read are predominantly Jewish books (Romans 3:1-2) written by Jewish authors that point to a Jewish Savior (Micah 5:2) who came from a Jewish people (Matthew 1:1-17), observed Jewish practices (Luke 2:21-24), and lived in a Jewish land (Luke 4:16).

The danger of the Christian disassociating themselves from any form of “Jewishness” is that it is all too easy to fall prey to common antisemitic rhetoric that has plagued the Church for centuries and has made a resurgence in modern times. Viewing the Jewish people as “Christ-killers,” worthy of judgment in every generation, has been a common trope for believers who adopt supersessionism. Denial of the Jewish roots of the Christian faith also demonstrates a failure to rightly interpret and apply the overarching story of Scripture in which God is faithful to His promises regarding the nation of Israel, of which the Church is grafted in (Romans 11:11-31, Galatians 3:29).

Christians must take great care to remember the uniqueness of the Jewish people both before God and in relation to the Christian faith. May the words of Charles Spurgeon serve as a helpful exhortation to all Christians on the importance of this matter: “A Christian is the last person who ought ever to speak disrespectfully or unkindly of the Jews. We remember that our Lord belonged to that race, and that his first apostles were also of that nation; and we regard that ancient people as the very aristocracy of mankind, tracing back their pedigree to those before whom the mightiest kings might well veil their faces, and bow in lowliest homage; for I reckon that, to be descended from Abraham, “the friend of God,” and “the father of the faithful,” is to have a lineage higher than that of any of the princes of the earth.”⁴

1. Robert Wayne Stacy, “The Jewish Setting of the Early Church In Acts,” video lecture in NBST 520 New Testament Orientation II, Liberty University, Canvas, n.d., https://canvas.liberty.edu/courses/924099/pages/watch-the-jewish-setting-of-the-early-church-in-acts?module_item_id=98204259 (accessed January 22, 2026), 1:20–1:30.

2. Robert Wayne Stacy, “Pentecost & the Eschatological Setting of the Early Church in Acts,” video lecture in NBST 520 New Testament Orientation II, Liberty University, Canvas, n.d., https://canvas.liberty.edu/courses/924099/pages/watch-pentecost-and-the-eschatological-setting-of-the-early-church-in-acts?module_item_id=98204283 (accessed January 22, 2026), 7:20–7:30.

3. Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough, Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey, ed. Walter A. Elwell, Fourth Edition, Encountering Biblical Studies (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2022), 189.

4. C. H. Spurgeon, “Walking in the Light of the Lord,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 47 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1901), 61–62.