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.
You Are Not a Stranger Anymore: The Extraordinary Privilege of Being a Child of God
There is a story about a man who boarded a cruise ship with a carefully packed bag of his own food. The ticket had cost him everything he had, and he assumed the meals on board would drain whatever was left. So for the entire month-long voyage, he sat in his cabin eating crackers and canned goods while the rest of the ship feasted. At the end of the trip, he discovered the devastating truth: his ticket had been all-inclusive from the beginning. Every meal, every amenity, every privilege of the ship had been available to him the entire time. He had simply never known to reach for it.
That story is a portrait of how many believers live their Christian lives.
God has not merely forgiven us. He has not simply declared us righteous and left us standing at a polite distance. He has pulled us into his family. He has given us his name. He has seated us at his table. And yet so many of us spend our days eating crackers in the cabin, completely unaware of what has been made available to us.
Romans 8:14-16 opens a door into one of the most breathtaking realities in all of Scripture: the doctrine of adoption. Paul writes that those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God, that the Spirit we received is not a spirit of slavery but one of adoption, and that by this Spirit we cry out to God as Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
To understand the weight of this, it helps to know what adoption meant in the Roman world. Wealthy families frequently adopted heirs not to provide a home for a needy child, but to grant full legal sonship to someone chosen and set apart. Once the adoption was finalized, everything changed. The adopted child received a new family, a guaranteed inheritance, and a completely new identity. All previous debts were canceled. All old records were wiped clean. Even if the family later had biological children, the adopted son retained his full rights. The adoption was permanent, legal, and total.
Paul reaches for this image deliberately. It is the closest human picture he can find to describe what God has done for us in Christ. We were not born into this family. We were chosen into it. And that choosing cost God everything. It cost him his Son. It emptied heaven on our behalf so that we could be called sons and daughters of the Most High God.
That is not something to receive casually.
Led by the Spirit Into Something Real
The first privilege of being a child of God is being led by the Spirit. But Paul's meaning here is more specific than guidance about careers or relationships. In context, he is speaking about the Spirit leading us into war against the sin that once ruled our lives. Romans 8:13 makes clear that by the Spirit, we put to death the deeds of the body.
This is not passive. It is not polite. Sin is not something to manage or negotiate with. It is something to put to death.
But the Spirit does not only lead us toward what must die. Galatians 5 describes what the Spirit is simultaneously producing in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The Spirit-led life is not simply about what is being removed. It is about what is being formed. Hatred gives way to love. Rage gives way to patience. Selfish ambition gives way to kindness and goodness.
This is where the Christian life can quietly go sideways. We become deeply interested in what the Spirit can do through us while paying very little attention to what the Spirit wants to produce in us. We celebrate spiritual gifts while neglecting spiritual fruit. But 1 Corinthians 13 offers a sobering correction: without love, every impressive spiritual ability amounts to nothing more than noise. The goal of the Spirit-led life is not a more impressive spiritual resume. It is a life that looks like the Father.