Who Are Gentiles...

All the people who were not Jews were so called by them, being aliens from the worship, rites and privileges of Israel.

So, Gentiles are all nations except the Jews. In course of time, as the Jews began more and more to pride themselves on their peculiar privileges, it acquired unpleasant associations, and was used as a term of contempt.

The word was used contemptuously by them. In the New Testament it is used as equivalent to Greek.

From the Jewish perspective, Gentiles were often seen as pagans who did not know the true God.

During Jesus’ time, many Jews took such pride in their cultural and religious heritage that they considered Gentiles “unclean,” calling them “dogs” and “the uncircumcision.”

Gentiles and the half-Gentile Samaritans were viewed as enemies to be shunned (John 4:9; 18:28; and Acts 10:28).

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus alluded to the common association of Gentiles with paganism: “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:47). In another place in the same sermon, Jesus noted, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words” (Matthew 6:7). In both cases, the NIV simply translates the word in question as “pagans.”

Jesus came to offer salvation to all people, Jew and Gentile. The prophet Isaiah predicted the Messiah’s worldwide ministry, saying He “will bring forth justice to the Gentiles” and would be “a light to the Gentiles” (Isaiah 42:1, 6).

In Mark 7:26, Jesus helps a Gentile woman who had asked for her daughter’s freedom from a demon.

As the gospel spread in the early New Testament era, many Gentiles were converted. Acts 11:18 records the reaction of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, who “praised God, saying, ‘So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.’”

When the Gentiles in Pisidian Antioch heard the good news, “they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48).

Gentiles were long seen as enemies of the Jewish people, yet Christ provided good news for both Jews and non-Jews.

Paul praised the Lord’s goodness in his letter to the (mostly Gentile) church in Ephesus:
“Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups [Jew and Gentile] one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:12–14).