Jun 7, 2022
2SAMUEL 2:
David heard of Israel’s terrible defeat and of
Saul and Jonathan's deaths, and he exacted the death sentence from
the lying messenger. David and his men mourned for the deaths of
Saul and Jonathan, and David composed a funeral song for
them.
PSALM 107b:
Yesterday I commented on how quickly our
culture forgets about God. After a natural disaster, it becomes
popular in the media to talk about praying for the victims. But God
is not even mentioned, and soon any pretense of awe or fear of God
is dropped. But Psalm 107 speaks of people who see God’s hand at
work and make lasting changes. The poem ends with this
summary:
NLT
The godly will see these things and be glad,
while the wicked are struck
silent.
43 Those who are
wise will take all this to heart;
they will see in our history the faithful love
of the LORD.
ROMANS 11b:
Paul
comes to the end of a long parenthesis at the end of this chapter.
He ends with a conclusion just before a doxology:
NLT
33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How
impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his
ways!
34 For who can know
the LORD’s thoughts?
Who
knows enough to give him advice?
35 And who has given him so
much
that he needs to pay
it back?
NLT Translation notes:
Rom
11:11 Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course
not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the
[non-Jews//Gentiles]. But he wanted his own people to become
jealous and claim it for themselves.
12
Now if the [non-Jews//Gentiles] were enriched because the people of
Israel turned down God’s offer of salvation, think how much greater
a blessing the world will share when they finally accept
it.
13 I am saying all this especially for you
[non-Jews//Gentiles]. God has appointed me as [an//the] apostle to
the [non-Jews//Gentiles]. I stress this,
14
for I want somehow to make the people of Israel jealous of what you
[non-Jews//Gentiles] have, so I might save some of them.
16 And since Abraham and the other patriarchs
were holy, their descendants will also be holy—just as the entire
batch of dough is holy because the portion given as an offering [to
God] is holy. For if the roots of the tree are holy, the branches
will be, too.
17
But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree—some of the people
of Israel—have been broken off. And you [non-Jews//Gentiles], who
were [like] branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in.
So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and
his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of
God’s special olive tree.
21
For if God did not spare the original branches, he
won’tf spare you either [if you turn from your
belief].
25 I
want you to understand this mystery, dear brothers and
sisters,g so
that you will not feel proud about yourselves. Some of the people
of Israel have hard hearts, but this will last only until the full
number of [non-Jews//Gentiles] comes to Christ.
28
Many of the people of Israel are now enemies of the Good News, and
this benefits you [non-Jews//Gentiles]. Yet they are still the
people he loves because he chose their ancestors Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob.
30
Once, you [non-Jews//Gentiles] were rebels against God, but when
the people of Israel rebelled against him, God was merciful to you
instead.
31
Now they are the rebels, and God’s mercy has come to you so that
they, too, will [some day/eventually] share in God’s
mercy.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.