“The Jews therefore said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we shall not find Him? He is not intending to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, is He?” (John 7:35, all references taken from NASB)
The Jewish people had become so exclusive that it was beyond their comprehension that someone would preach to anyone but Jews. The reference to the “Dispersion” suggests they were even limiting the outreach only to Jews scattered among the Greeks. The implication is that they considered salvation impossible for anyone but a Jew therefore outreach was unnecessary. Paul’s evangelistic efforts among the Gentiles must have made some of the Jewish Christians uneasy.
If someone was a Jew, everybody knew it by their dress, customs and diet. The Gentiles did not have these cultural customs, making it difficult to tell who belonged and who did not. Any time a group believes it important to distinguish members from nonmembers, rules are necessary. There was freedom in this new Christianity, and the council at Jerusalem concluded that only minimal restrictions would be placed on the new converts. (see Acts 15:20) For centuries, the Jews believed that if you kept all the rules correctly, heaven was yours. For the new Christians to side step all that effort was less than well received by many former Jews with old prejudices.
Paul addresses these prejudices at the beginning of his epistle to the Roman Christians by rehearsing the short-comings of both Jews and Gentiles, concluding “There is none righteous, not even one”. (Rom 3:10) The Galatian heresy that God saves only the circumcised had just recently consumed the time and energy of the leadership.
Probably the best setting in which to understand this Jewish prejudice is to look at how they had come to understand God’s covenant promises to Israel. The Jews invariably described that God’s promises were made to their father Abraham. Indeed they were, but that was not the first time the promise of a Savior was made.
“The covenant of grace was first made with man in Eden, when after the Fall there was given a divine promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head…This same covenant was renewed to Abraham in the promise, ‘In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.’…Though this covenant was made with Adam and renewed to Abraham, it could not be ratified until the death of Christ….yet when ratified by Christ, it is called a new covenant.” (Patriarchs and Prophets p. 370, 371)