God's Exceptional Choice
God Calls Abraham's Family
The Faith of Abraham
Live in the light of God (Isaiah 2:5)
Romans 9:17-29
New International Version17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." [a] 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. 19 One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?" 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" [b] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? 22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 25 As he says in Hosea: "I will call them 'my people' who are not my people;
and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one," [c] 26 and, "In the very place where it was said to them,
'You are not my people,'
there they will be called 'children of the living God.'" [d] 27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality." [e] 29 It is just as Isaiah said previously: "Unless the Lord Almighty
had left us, descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah." [
For Reflection
There is a division in the maturing Church. Some members seem to think His mission to the gentiles corrupts the Church's integrity and a rejection of God's own people. As a result, some recent converts refuse to accept Jesus Christ.
The truth of the matter is that we humans do not know that which God God knows. We do not understand the paradoxical nature of God's strategies. Therefore are angry with God because we measure God with human eyes and through common cultural assumptions. To compound matters, we are arrogant enough to challenge God.
God does not seek riches and glory in the same manner as humans and is not corruptible. Instead, God calls all to his side, even those who seem wicked. Therefore, we must be mindful of the promises despite our unfaithfulness. The Kingdom of God is not an exclusive group.
"In some ways," writes Israel Kamudzandu, justification and salvation do not depend merely on being a Christian but on the basis of being in loving relationships with others. Despite the privileges of justification and salvation, through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, Christians have the potential of being a closed community; and like Paul, church leaders must prayerfully and sadly reflect on this predicament."*
In this 21st century of growing national, ethnic, tribal, and racial exclusivism, we must pray for the salvation of all humans.
*https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18/commentary-on-romans-91-5-5 PrayPray that despite the pressures to humanize God in our image, we resist and remember the love in God'God'smise. Pray that all people find salvation in the living God,
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