Chris, this question about continuity is a difficult one. Clearly there is covenantal discontinuity – the new covenant is not with a racially defined group in a land but with those who trust in Jesus. But I’m not sure that I get your argument for discontinuity of purpose. For example: Paul understands the new covenant in the Spirit as in some way a fulfilment of the covenant with Abraham; Peter describes the ‘elect exiles’ as ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession’ (1 Pet.2:9). Don’t these terms suggest a continuity of purpose?

I’m not sure the argument about evangelism really helps. Under a covenant of faith rather than of birth surely ‘evangelism’ is simply the means by which the people of God prospers numerically – it corresponds to the multiplication of descendants promised to Abraham. Israel didn’t need to evangelize, just have babies. Evangelism is the means by which the people become a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. Jesus, I would suggest, instructs his followers to make disciples (not save souls) from all the nations for exactly this purpose – that the new community of God’s people, centred around himself, should be a presence for blessing throughout the world and not merely in Judea - not as a physical temple to which the kings of the earth make pilgrimage but as a temple of God’s presence through the Holy Spirit, wherever two or three are gathered in his name. Rome was an immediate and very potent obstacle to this programme, but you are right to argue (I think Peter makes essentially the same point in his evaluation) that it is covenant purpose that shapes the larger narrative. New Testament eschatology is for the most part what it took for the new covenant community to get beyond this obstacle and become an effective presence throughout the world.