July 17, 2024
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Exodus and Romans? Here’s today’s reading:
Romans 9 (NIV)
Paul’s Anguish Over Israel
1 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel.……Continue Reading
Romans 9
I don’t understand very much of this : I thought I did and then it confused me again.
Hey Suzanne, let me know if mine and other’s comments help.
Romans 9
God is a God full of mercy and compassion. Only He decides what course of action He makes. He will bring about everything just as He planned. Romans 9:15b {I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.} Thank the Lord that He chose Gentiles like me to come to Jesus. We were grafted in. Romans 9: 24,25,26b {Even us, whom He hath called, not of Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. —-I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. ——there shall they be called the children of the Living God. May the Lord bless you.
God is sovereign. He uses people to carry out his plan. Some of these verses seem unfair to some people. But as pastor read this week. Man looks at the outward appearance. God looks at the heart. I often wonder if my life was exchanged with my brothers who was abused by catholic priest and died at 57. A lot of questions I can’t answer. But I am content knowing my Father in heaven’s plan will be carried out in both of our lives. He used my brother to expose the Catholic Church, and hopefully continue for many more years for me to show Jesus in my life The end of this chapter sums it up. The gentiles pursued God by faith. The Jews by their works and Hebrew position
Does not the potter have power over the clay! We can not try to question God’s choices or decisions, we can not put an earthly mentality on God. Even when we do not understand we know that God does nothing without purpose or reason. He sees so far beyond what we can even begin to wrap our heads around to question Him is ridiculous. Any mercy we are shown is undeserved, the very definiton of mercy is not getting what we DO deserve. We must not fall into the trap of putting an earthly mentality on an all-knowing and all-powerful God!
Good stuff, Kelly…makes me think of a song from way back in my early days…”Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus…than to trust and obey.”
Romans 9
Paul speaks with passion about his care for the Jews and his desire to see them saved because they have so much going for them in all the benefits they have received from God. But on the other hand, it is not really those who are Jews physically that are true Jews, but those who come to God based on faith. And then beyond that, it is really God’s choice that matters anyway. He is sovereign and He has elective purposes that He has the right to accomplish and use people in the way that He sees fit. Now it is all an expression of His mercy, because no human being deserves anything from Him. And part of that elective purpose revealing His mercy is the fact that Gentiles will be saved by faith, just like the Jews can be. Now it is a divine mystery how this divine election combines with free will, but Paul ends the chapter highlighting the choice that the Gentiles and the Jews have made: one seeking a righteousness by faith and the other by the law. One will be accepted, and the other won’t be because righteousness cannot be attained by the law.
Romans 9
Romans 9
If I am understanding Paul’s whole argument, it is that God has the right to be merciful to whom He wishes. This isn’t about Him deciding which individuals are saved, but rather the means of salvation which is faith in Christ. The Jews would argue that it is their Jewishness and their obedience to the law that gives them salvation, but Paul has just argued in chapter 2 that that “method” will not work for any man. Then he argues that even in the OT men (Abraham, David) were credited with righteousness because of their faith. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. The Jews think that God has changed the rules and that it isn’t fair , Paul argues that God has the right to change the rules. But this was Gods plan all along, from the foundation of the world. Christ is the one seed of Abraham (following the specific bloodline of Isaac and Jacob for confirmation) who would be the means of attaining righteousness by faith in Him and in His gospel.
”For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,“
I Corinthians 15:3-4 NKJV
Roman’s 9
‘It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. ‘ As Kelly said, God’s mercy is not getting what we deserve. It is by faith we have been saved, not by works. I must remind myself of this continually.