A Jewish perspective on the early church

It was not long before the Christians were saying that the Law was too hard for any man to bear. It did not matter what food a man ate: God was not concerned with such things. When one considers the almost divine place given to the Law in Judaism it can readily be seen that the diminution of even the ceremonial part of it would irrevocably alienate the Jews. Worse still, the sacred rite of circumcision was soon left behind by this new movement. The very sign of the people of God which had stood from the days of Moses, indeed of Abraham, was impiously banished to the scrap heap. Entry to the people of God was now offered on equal terms to Greeks and barbarians alike, without any insistence on the costly repentance involved in the symbolic cutting away of Gentile impurity in circumcision. This was truly appalling. Instead of devotion to God's age-old Torah, this new cult taught worship of a second God, born of a virgin and executed as a criminal. Instead of the Sabbath, the first day of the week was kept for worship and called, impertinently, the Lord's day - as if it was not the seventh day with God had specially set aside. How could such a people, so manifestly disobedient to the commands of God, have any claim to be his representatives?   p32 Evangelism in the Early Church, Michael Green.