Thoughts From Romans 15 - Part 2

 and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written:

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;
    I will sing the praises of your name.”

10 Again, it says,

“Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.”

11 And again,

“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles;
    let all the peoples extol him.”

12 And again, Isaiah says,

“The Root of Jesse will spring up,
    one who will arise to rule over the nations;
    in him the Gentiles will hope.”

Romans 15:9-12

            Paul gives 4 Old Testament verses here back-to-back on the inclusion of the gentiles for salvation in God's plan. He could have included at least 9 more. (Gen 12:3, Ps.22:27, Isa.42:4, 49:6, 56:3-7, 60:1-3, Jer.16:19-21, Zech.2:11, Mal.1:11) It does make you wonder why with at least 13 prophetic passages on the inclusion of Gentiles in the body of Christ, the early Jewish believers had such a hard time with it. When Peter went into Cornelius' home, he had to go before what appeared to be a review board questioning his actions and when he explained what happened their response was like, "Wow! So you're saying Gentiles can get saved? Amazing!"

          Certainly, we have to cut them some slack for 3 reasons. First, they were raised in homes where the law was taught and to associate with Gentiles would make you unclean. You can wonder about a God who makes rules like that but when you see a dispersed people for hundreds of years come back in 1948 as a pure people, you can see that these laws to separate and not inter-marry kept them from being absorbed and no longer a Jewish people. Also, we can see as believers the dangers of being unequally yoked from besties all the way to marriage, different beliefs about Jesus, the Bible, worldviews gradually destroy one's faith and degrees of separation are a good thing.

        Secondly, they didn't have access to those prophecies like we do. I probably have 20 Bibles in my study while I imagine they had to go to the synagogue to have access to scriptures. They couldn't have a morning Bible Study like I am today. What a blessing having the complete Word of God at my fingertips! What's my excuse for not knowing what's in there?

       Third, they were prejudiced, they thought they were better people than the Gentiles because they were God's chosen. This may be bad of me to say, but I think Jews may still feel that way about the rest of the world which triggers anti-Jew resentment among the rest of the world. I'm not saying anti-Jew sentiment is their own fault by any means. I think the Devil is and always has been the instigator because he hates God and therefore hates God's chosen. But if you feel superior to someone innately, you are going to have a hard time accepting them as equals.

           Paul, as he did in Romans 9-11 is once again trying to bring Jews and Gentiles together as equal brothers in Christ just like today, with racism still present, we bring blacks and whites together in Church as equal and without differences, yet it is still an uphill climb for all the same reasons- our upbringing, lack of understanding of the scripture, and prejudices. Let's not condemn the early Church if we can't get it right either.