Unlimited: Snares and Traps
May 18, 2023 612
And David says: “May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.” (Romans 11:9–10).
At the beginning of verse 9, Paul quotes from Psalm 69:22. The meaning of this quote is that the very thing that should have been a blessing, became a curse to the Jews.
A table should be a place of fellowship and nourishment, but in this imagery, it becomes “a snare and a trap, a stumbling block.” The idea here is of people reclining at a table, half-asleep, and caught unawares by the enemy. The image even evokes the idea of the people having now been captured as slaves by the enemy, so that their backs are forever bent in hard labour.
Even the blessings of God can become a snare and a trap to us, when our focus is on these things rather than on the One who blesses us.
The Jews in the time of Paul were so secure in the idea that they were God’s privileged and chosen people, that they failed to look beyond themselves and their own works, to the truth about God and the grace that he offered them through Jesus Christ.
Their sense of religious security ultimately became their ruin. These verses show that the blessings that they had received because a curse to them.
Whatever is good in our lives, even the blessings of God, can become a snare and a trap to us also, when our focus is on these things rather than on the One who blesses us.
Spiritual Application
Even our religious community can become a snare and a trap to us, when we derive our identity and security from it instead of Christ. Do you belong to Christ first and then to your church, or is it the other way around? Think carefully about this.
Okurut Martin
May 19, 2023
Thanks a lot for your prayers for me. It has come at it's appointed time I needed it so much. There are those who are tempering with my future through their witchcraft but am so much sure that I will defeat them in Jesus' name.