The Significant of God-Fearers for the Formation of Early Christians Identity in Acts 8-10

Abstract

This study attempts to analyze the critical role of God-fearers in developing the early Christian identity. Luke-Acts uses ethnic reasoning to define the Christian community. They use words such as gentiles, unbelievers and other ethnic group such as Romans, Greeks as outsiders. The race and ethnicity study provides the theory to understand how people from different groups attempt to accept each other and negotiate their differences, such as their cultures, belief, and social relationship. God-fearers have an important role in the early Christian mission because through them. The mission goes out from Jerusalem to the entire Roman Empire. The mission in the diaspora has mixed members, including Jewish Christians and Gentiles. Both groups enter into table fellowship, which develop a distinct Christian identity.