a. the birth of Jesus marks the beginning of the end of the Old Covenant, the Crucifixion of Jesus seals it.
        b. Jesus fulfills the expectations of the last 1500 years of Jewish history and prophetic prediction, but he also changes the terms of God's relationship to humankind.
        c. During his lifetime, Jesus sometimes expressed common negative attitudes of Jews to Gentiles, but at other times he praised the faith of a Roman, Samaritan or Greek.
        d. Jesus teachings and parables were a revolutionary form of revelation -- understandable by common people, and by Gentiles who know little of Jewish doctrine or history.
        e. How is it that a few Gentiles who had no standing in the Old Covenant were able to exhibit such faith in Jesus' power over sickness that they not only received a healing miracle, but also amazed Jesus himself?
        f. Jesus did not reject the unworthy and ignorant, whereas he scolded the learned and (self-)righteous.
        g. Jesus redefined the community of God's people, by disowning his own natural family when they sought to interfere with his preaching. He welcomed as his brothers and sisters and mother those who gathered around him to hear God's ways and follow them. Loyalty to Jesus replaces the Law and the Temple as the criterion of membership in the people of God.
        h. God's only way of acting redemptively in history now is through the body of Christ.
        i. Jesus pronounced "finis" to God's special relationship to the Jews: the fig tree is barren, the tenants of the vineyard are expelled. The Covenant blessing of God's presence is transferred to a new (unspecified) party. He himself, the stone the builders rejected, is the foundation of God's new covenant with men.
        j. Jesus was the new Samson, who pulled down the pillars of the legal/sacrificial/ritualistic relationship to God.
        k. the Age of the Gentiles coincides with the Dispensation of the Spirit.
        l. Jesus announces a global Gospel, and a global Last Judgment. The scene of God's activity in history begins to shift from the narrow focus of Israel alone to a global movement of redemption.