Have you ever wondered, if you were an Israelite at the time of Christ’s coming, if you would have “missed it?” I have. I wonder if I would have missed the fact that the Messiah I had been taught to hope and wait for had come, because he had come in a way I was not expecting. I have surely made assumptions about what God’s goodness, and “good gifts” look like in the past!
I am studying the book of Romans with a group of friends via FB-group, and today’s reading was chapter 10. Paul is writing about the fact that many Israelites rejected Jesus as the Messiah. And I as pondered it, I wondered how likely I would have been to make the same mistake. They were actually taught to expect a certain outcome from his arrival. They had misinterpreted what the promised deliverance was from. They assumed it was from Roman rule. But it was in reality deliverance from themselves.
And then I wondered, how likely is it that the way I talk about God to others, to friends, to my kids, gives people a false picture of what to expect from God?The only truly safe point of view is to simply remind ourselves and others of what scripture says.