Unlimited: The Root Supports You

May 30, 2023 808

If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you (Romans 11:18b).

There has always been a temptation, in every age, and in every religious group, to consider your group to be superior to another. It’s usually on the basis that you have more truth or that you are more faithful or obedient. This is a serious error.

The apostle has just told the Gentiles not to consider themselves superior to the Jews. The Jews are the root, and the Gentiles are the branches. The Jews are the root because they were first to receive the revelation of God. The Gentiles owe a debt to the Jews.

We all owe a debt to those who have gone before and who preserved the Good News about Jesus Christ, so that we may have it today.

It is important to remember that the grace of God is not exclusive for those who belong to any people-group, whether it be racial, such as Jews or Gentiles, or religious, such as the many different Christian churches. Instead, we should always appreciate our “roots” and the ways in which they have supported us.

We all owe a debt to those who have gone before and who preserved the Good News about Jesus Christ, so that we may have it today. It is important to keep the stories of the great heroes of the faith alive. We are here today because of the covenant that God kept with the patriarchs and the prophets, the apostles, and all those who have gone before us.

Spiritual Application

Remember that Paul says this of the Jewish people in the same generation in which they had rejected Jesus as a nation and handed him over to the Romans to be crucified. It’s easy to criticize the faults in others and not appreciate the good. Do you have some friends who are believers but who go to a different church? Do something practical to appreciate having them in your life.

– Eliezer Gonzalez

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