Whispering Pines Church

In Romans 11, Paul asks the same question several different ways. The question is: did God reject His people? Paul answers, “By no means” because Paul himself is a Hebrew. He himself is an example of how God has not rejected the remnant of His people (11:1). Paul gives several metaphors to explain that the remnant of Israel sanctifies the whole. The remnant of dough sanctifies the rest of the dough and the root sanctifies the branches. Paul also commands the Gentiles to be thoughtful and kind in their relationships to Jewish Christians because they have both been grafted on to the “olive tree.” Gentile salvation depends on the mercy given to the Jewish people. Paul highlights the grafting of Gentiles onto the Jewish people by using the ridiculous metaphor of grafting wild branches onto cultivated roots. Anyone would have understood how unnatural and strange this command from Paul sounded. Paul says that both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians are the branches. The Gentiles remain Gentiles, the Jews r