Separations of Concern

[organgrinder]

Good call. My apologies. Titus was not part of the original seventy sent out in Luke, but according to "orthodoox" Christianity resources, he was later ordained as part of the seventy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventy_disciples

I looked at that link. The information comes from the 13th century, some 1,200 years after Titus was around. I haven't found any other documentation from the earliest church resources that show Titus or anybody else on that list specifically ordained as part of the 70/72. The link also shows Titus being commissioned in Jerusalem along with Stephen and some others in that Book of the Bee.

1. These are the seven who were chosen with Stephen:

Philip the Evangelist, who had three daughters that used to prophesy;

Stephen;

Prochorus;

Nicanor;

Timon;

Parmenas;

Nicolaus, the Antiochian proselyte;

[the next three are listed with the preceding seven]

Andronicus the Greek;

Titus;

Timothy


It is understood, I recall, that Titus was evangelized by Paul. Paul was consenting to Stephen's death. I don't think that makes "The Bee" list accurate, especially being some 1,200 years removed from the events. My opinion.

Communion is taken every service every week. Many churches just do it monthly or quarterly. Salvation by grace through faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9) is paramount. Good works are then to follow one who claims to be a professing believer. Gifts of the Holy Spirit are not discouraged but are not preached from the pulpit, primarily because of its divisive nature in some believers who hold to a more experiential Christianity that isn't grounded in the written Word of God. In other words, "feelings" can lead astray. Everything must be judged by the word of God and the local assembly.

There are other things we do very well and some things we just don't do that other area Christian church do. However, we are united in the same faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Bible as the only revealed written word of God. The "church" as a body of believers in our area (not a single individual church assembly) will be doing all what Jesus said and taught.

I'm lumping these parts of your post because I think there's a common thread I'd like to address. Do you believe that ordinances performed in the Old Testament, were under a different authority than those under the New Testament? The same God is worshipped, right?
f that's the case, could a non-jewish person start following jewish practices of his own accord and consider himself a non-gentile? And I'm sure you would say "but it's not about works" and I'd agree, but what's the balance of "works...ordained that we should walk in" (Eph 2:10) and "every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." (Acts 10:35)?

As far as I can see , ordinances, specifically Temple ordinances, were ordained by God and given through Moses. There is nothing in scruipture that shows Adam had any such "ordinances" to perform. He sacrifices and had a moral law. Specific law was given by Moses on Sinai and engraved on stone tablets and later put to parchment scrolls. The modern Jews have those ordinances and will very soon be performing those ceremonies and ordinances when the third temple is constructed. All plans are readied and the priests are being trained as this is being written.

Most important is the fact that the Temple ordinances, etc. were done away with by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, His burial and resurrection and ascension into heaven where He alone sits as our Great High Priest as related in the letter to the Hebrews. The physical temple is no longer a stone building. As Paul writes in letters to the Corinthian church, believers are the temple of God/Holy Spirit. Jesus has made a new way.

A non-Jewish person could start following Jewish practices, dietary laws, etc. but would not be considered a Jew in Israel. In the New Testament, Paul writes in Romans that :

Rom 2:26-29
Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?
27 And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law?
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh;
29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.
NKJV

It is by faith alone we have been grafted into the vine of Israel (Romans 9,10,11).

What are the works we are to walk in? Whatever the Holy Spirit tells us at the moment. we have God's moral law and we have teachings in the scriptures of how to live. But we also have examples of how living according to the Spirit sometimes violates the letter of the law given to the Jews (walking only a certain distance on the sabbath, plucking grain and eating them on the Sabbath, eating pork and other foods deemed unclean, etc.
I have seen folks in Hebrew Roots churches dress as if they were Jews and try to impose their beliefs and practices on those who are not. The Jerusalem Council settled that issue by simply saying don't sacrifice to idols, don't eat blood and abstain from sexual immorality. we have been set free from the "law" and it's temple sacrificial ordinances (nailed to the cross) . It is the Spirit that leads us into good works, whatever they may be. That may also differ from specific "church" rules and regulations.

Jesus answered this question in this manner:
John 6:27-29
Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him."
28 Then they said to Him, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?"
29 Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."
NKJV