What About Israel? Faith, Proximity, and the Heart of God
There is a prayer that cuts through theological complexity, cultural noise, and the weight of unanswered questions. It is short, honest, and desperately needed: Lord, increase my faith. It is the prayer of someone who recognizes that what God is doing in the world is bigger than any single perspective can contain. And it is the prayer that must anchor us as we wrestle with one of the most profound and often avoided questions in the Christian faith: what is God doing with the people of Israel?
This is not a question reserved for scholars or political commentators. It is a question that lives at the heart of the book of Romans, and it demands something from every person who claims to follow Jesus.
Reading Scripture With New Eyes
For many Western Christians, the book of Romans has been read through a narrow lens, pulled apart into memorable verses and memorized passages, stripped of its original context and audience. But Romans was written to both Jews and Gentiles, and chapters 9, 10, and 11 deal specifically with a question that Paul could not stop wrestling with: why have so many of God's chosen people rejected the Messiah they were promised?
Paul makes his heart plain in Romans 10, where he expresses his deep longing that Israel would be saved. He acknowledges their zeal for God, while also recognizing that their pursuit of righteousness had become about works rather than faith. And here is the stunning thing Paul argues: it was always supposed to be about faith. Even the law, even the promises given to Moses, pointed toward a righteousness received not by human effort but by trust in God.
The righteousness that Paul describes in Romans 10 is breathtakingly simple. Declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. That is the path of salvation, and it is the same path for every human being, Jew or Gentile alike. There is no difference in how grace is received. The same Lord is Lord of all.
The Question of "They"
One of the most clarifying moments in reading Romans 10 carefully is noticing a single repeated word: they. How can they hear without someone telling them? How can they believe without hearing? How can anyone preach unless they are sent? And then, almost immediately, Paul pivots back to Israel specifically.
The answer to who "they" refers to is both general and specific. There is a universal truth about how the gospel spreads through proclamation, through sent messengers, through people willing to carry good news into unfamiliar places. But there is also a specific application: Israel has heard, and yet many have not believed. And still, God has not withdrawn his hand. The image Paul leaves us with is striking. All day long, God has held out his hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. Not past tense. Not a closed chapter. All day long.
Is God Doing It Wrong?
There is a moment most of us have experienced — watching something unfold in a way that seems backward, inefficient, or simply wrong, and feeling the almost irresistible urge to step in and say so. We do it with our families, our coworkers, and if we are honest, we do it with God. We look at the circumstances of our lives, or the state of the world, and somewhere deep in our hearts we think: this is not how I would have done it.
Romans 9 invites us into exactly that tension. It is one of the most challenging passages in all of Scripture, and it refuses to let us stay comfortable. It raises enormous questions about God's character, His faithfulness, and His plan — and it does not always answer them in the neat, tidy ways we prefer. But that discomfort is not a sign that something has gone wrong. It is an invitation to trust someone whose understanding is infinitely higher than our own.
The Anguish of Unfinished Things
The apostle Paul opens Romans 9 with raw, personal grief. He is not writing from a distance about abstract theology. He is writing as a Jewish man who loves his people deeply, who recognizes everything God has given them — the covenants, the law, the promises, the patriarchs, and the Messiah himself who came through their very lineage — and who is heartbroken that so many have rejected Jesus as that Messiah. Paul goes so far as to say he would be willing to be cut off from Christ himself if it meant his people could be saved (Romans 9:3).
This is not the posture of someone who has given up. It is the posture of someone who cares so deeply that the ache is almost unbearable. And it sets the tone for everything that follows. Before we wrestle with doctrine, we are invited to feel the weight of what is at stake.
When Everything Feels Like It Is Falling Apart: Is God Still For You?
There is a question that most people, at some point in their lives, find themselves asking in the quiet moments — when the diagnosis comes back with bad news, when the marriage begins to unravel, when the job disappears, when grief settles in like a weight that will not lift. The question is simple, but it cuts deep: Is God against me?
It is a question born out of pain, not rebellion. When life presses hard enough, even the most faithful person can find themselves wondering whether God has turned his back, whether something they did has caused him to withdraw his love, whether their salvation is even real. If you have ever been there, you are not alone. And more importantly, there is an answer.
Romans chapter 8, beginning at verse 31, speaks directly into that question with a boldness that is almost startling. The apostle Paul, writing to believers who knew suffering well, does not offer platitudes or easy comfort. He offers something far more durable: a case built on what God has actually done.
Since God Is For Us
Paul opens with a declaration that has become one of the most quoted phrases in all of Scripture. He asks who can be against us if God is for us. But it is worth pausing on the word "if." In the original language, this word does not carry doubt. It carries certainty. A better reading might be: since God is for us, who can be against us?
This is not a promise that life will be smooth or that opposition will disappear. The word "against" in this context carries the idea of working against us to our undoing — to overturn or unravel what God has done. Paul is making the point that no force in existence can undo what God has accomplished in redeeming a person. The salvation God gives is not fragile. It does not depend on our ability to hold on. As Philippians 1:6 reminds us, the one who began a good work in us will be faithful to carry it through to completion.