Study Desk

God said to Moses, "I will show kindness to anyone to whom I want to show kindness, and I will show mercy to anyone to whom I want to show mercy."

So God will choose the one to whom he decides to show mercy; his choice does not depend on what people want or try to do.

So God shows mercy where he wants to show mercy, and he makes stubborn the people he wants to make stubborn.

So one of you will ask me: "Then why does God blame us for our sins? Who can fight his will?"

You are only human, and human beings have no right to question God. An object should not ask the person who made it, "Why did you make me like this?"

It is the same way with God. He wanted to show his anger and to let people see his power. But he patiently stayed with those people he was angry with—people who were made ready to be destroyed.

and we are those people whom God called. He called us not from the Jews only but also from those who are not Jews.

"They were called, ‘You are not my people,' but later they will be called ‘children of the living God.'" Hosea 1:10

So what does all this mean? Those who are not Jews were not trying to make themselves right with God, but they were made right with God because of their faith.

The people of Israel tried to follow a law to make themselves right with God. But they did not succeed,

because they tried to make themselves right by the things they did instead of trusting in God to make them right. They stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble.

Brothers and sisters, the thing I want most is for all the Jews to be saved. That is my prayer to God.

I can say this about them: They really try to follow God, but they do not know the right way.

Because they did not know the way that God makes people right with him, they tried to make themselves right in their own way. So they did not accept God's way of making people right.

Christ ended the law so that everyone who believes in him may be right with God.

If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved.

We believe with our hearts, and so we are made right with God. And we declare with our mouths that we believe, and so we are saved.

But about Israel God says, "All day long I stood ready to accept people who disobey and are stubborn." Isaiah 65:2

So I ask: Did God throw out his people? No! I myself am an Israelite from the family of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

God chose the Israelites to be his people before they were born, and he has not thrown his people out. Surely you know what the Scripture says about Elijah, how he prayed to God against the people of Israel.