What does it mean that God "chose from among the Gentiles a people to bear his name"? -- Acts 15:17 (REB)?

Question

Note: The double posting is Yahoo's glitch. I can't edit it out.

Answer 1

I do not understand your question where James comes in here.

Ac 15:16   ‘Afterward I will return and restore the fallen house of David.  I will rebuild its ruins and restore it,

17   so that the rest of humanity might seek the LORD,  including the Gentiles—  all those I have called to be mine.  The LORD has spoken—

18   he who made these things known so long ago.’

Ac 15:19 “And so my judgment is that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.

Answer 2

The Jews rejected Jesus. So God made a "Spiritual Israel", made up of believing Jews and gentiles.

Answer 3

God also said, "you are my witnesses (Isa 43'10)  That is what He  did. He took out a people for His Name   He wants His name to be known.

These people come from all nationalities.(we can't say jews,but we can say spiritual jews or Isrealites.) FROM ALL TONGUES AND NATIONS  God is not partial. Looks at the heart

Answer 4

Acts 15:17 that the residue of men might  seek after the  Lord.  KJV

Answer 5

There is no evidence that the original Christians were actually called by the personal name of God.

Yet, the prophecy of Amos indisputably applies the unique name of God to the followers of Christ. What should be of the utmost interest to us is that the prophecy of Amos lends itself to application in another time. Because of the importance of this topic, let's consider the original prophecy more closely.

"In that day I shall raise up the booth of David that is fallen, and I shall certainly repair their breaches. And its ruins I shall raise up, and I shall certainly build it up as in the days of long ago, to the end that they may take possession of what is left remaining of Edom, and all the nations upon whom my name has been called,' is the utterance of Jehovah, who is doing this."

The 10-tribe kingdom of Israel was originally destroyed by the Assyrian empire and the Judean kingdom was brought to ruin by Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian kingdom. Eventually Jehovah restored all of the scattered tribes of Israel to their ancestral homeland. But the so-called booth of David was not restored when Jerusalem was rebuilt by the repatriated Jews. In fact, David's kingdom was never restored to earthly Jerusalem. However, the booth of David is simply another way of saying the house of David, which is to say the kingdom of David. And since Jesus was a son of David and the rightful heir to the Davidic throne, the booth of David is actually Christ's kingdom.

Since the apostles applied that prophecy to the newly-formed international Christian congregation, it is apparent that the prophecies that were originally directed to Israel and Judah were at that time transferred so as to apply to a spiritual Israel. That being the case, the ruination and restoration of the booth of David has to do with Christ's kingdom.

The prophecy of Amos is in harmony with all other prophecies that call for God to judge his organization; effecting a final sifting to remove the faithless from the faithful. Amos 9:9 reads:

"For, look! I am commanding, and I will jiggle the house of Israel among all the nations, just as one jiggles the sieve, so that not a pebble falls to the earth. By the sword they will die—all the sinners of my people, those who are saying: "The calamity will not come near or reach as far as us."

According to Amos, the people who are called by God's name are those who become such after the 'jiggling' takes place. The jiggling is when Jehovah rocks all the nations during the oncoming tribulation.

The prophecy of Joel similarly foretells of a great earth-wide catastrophe, where we read: "And I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun itself will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and fear-inspiring day of Jehovah."

Answer 6

God would have some non-Jews serve him and they would be known as his servants by everyone else. Because they'd use his name. Jehovah.