Update:
I found your reply on post 103 and the added one. I will go over it and reply back to that post. Is there a way to know when someone replies to you and not the thread?
I'm afraid not. And when a thread goes nuts with bunches of people throwing in their two cents, posts can sometimes get lost.
One gospel with different audience.
16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
If it's the same gospel but just aimed at the Gentile then why did Paul preach it to the Jew first, as your own cited verse clearly states?
Further, there would be no way to preach the gospel that applied to the Jews only to the Gentiles without it having changed so either way you have a different message being preached.
Further still, the question(s) no one has answered is, if its just a different audience then where's the need for Paul in the first place? The Twelve had already been told to go to the whole world and they did not do so - why?
I agree with everything you have said except we see the end of the old covenants and the beginning of the new happening at different times. I would think the answer to this question should make it clear one had ended and the new began so here it goes.
Acts 2:38 Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
By what covenant did they receive the Holy Spirit and have their sins forgiven?
You're switching terms on me here. I am not a covenant theologian and I don't think you are either so I'm going to use the term you use but just be wary of the potential for confusion.
The direct answer to your question is, the Covenant of Circumcision, or what I've been referring to as the Dispensation of Law, or the Dispensation of the Kingdom. Acts 2 and the events therein is all about the direct fulfillment of the Feast of Weeks (a.k.a. Pentecost), a Feast ordained by God in Leviticus 23. The events of Acts 2 happened directly on the Feast of Weeks. Not a day or two before or after, but exactly on time just as had been the fulfillment of Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits a few weeks before. There can be no doubt that these events had to do with Israel and the prophesied program that had been in place for Israel for centuries.
The plan was for Christ to return quickly, within a year or so (Luke 13:6-9) and to give Israel its kingdom. This is why it is commonly referred to as the dispensation of the Kingdom and why their gospel is often called the "Kingdom Gospel" and they, "Kingdom believers".(Note that Peter was given "the keys to the Kingdom"). And, if you'll recall in my previous post with the long quotation from chapter three of "The Plot", Peter's references to "the times of refreshing" and specifically to the prophet Samuel, make it clear that Peter was offering Israel their Kingdom (2 Samuel 7:12-16), the requirement for which was that they corporately repent, which is what Acts 2:38 (the verse you quoted above) is about. Its the same gospel that Jesus and the Twelve had been preaching throughout the gospels except that now the Twelve understand what Jesus meant when He talked about His death and resurrection and how it fits into the plan that God has had all along for the nation of Israel.
Acts 2:29 “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,
36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
The term 'Christ', as you know is 'Messiah', the anointed One, and in the mind of a first century Jew, the anointed Prophet, Priest and King. What is being offered here is not merely individual spiritual salvation but the return of Jesus as their promised Messiah and the beginning of Israel's promised Kingdom.
Acts 3:17 “Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. 22 For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ 24 Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. 25 You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ 26 To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.”
Resting in Him,
Clete
