Showing posts with label Chosen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chosen. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 01, 2017

A Non-Binary Proposition

God took a nation for himself from all the peoples of the earth. If you’re Israel, that’s what you might call a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, there was lots of good stuff that came with being uniquely God’s. As Paul puts it to the Romans, “to [Israelites] belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises”, and he goes on to mention the patriarchs and Messiah. Being a Jew was a tremendous privilege.

On the other hand, as another Jew once put it, “With great power there must also come — great responsibility.”

Monday, December 23, 2013

A Chosen Instrument

When the Lord Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, he was blinded and spent three days fasting and praying until the Lord healed him through the hands of Ananias.

Speaking about his conversion to the Jews in Jerusalem much later, he said:
 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day” (Acts 22:3)
A Jew: Was being a Jew useful to Paul in the Lord’s service? No kidding. Had he been only a Gentile, it would have been extremely difficult for Paul to convince anyone, especially Jews, of the critical truth that salvation was now offered freely outside of the legal prescriptions of Judaism. Instead, he could endorse Gentile membership in the body of Christ (and for that matter, salvation by faith rather than works) without any apparent personal agenda.