Today’s passage is Romans 11:13-24. Paul hopes he can make the Jews jealous of his ministry to the Gentiles who have been grafted by faith onto the original tree of God’s revelation to humanity through the Jews. He warns the Gentiles not to become proud because God can break them off just as he did the unbelieving Jews.
1(14) Have I given up asking my unbelieving family members to accept Jesus, showing them by my changed life that living in the Lord is more than worthwhile?
2(18) Do I feel proud and boastful over unbelievers, even if I don’t say it?
3(22) Do I reflect daily on God’s justice and mercy, fearful that I may fall through my arrogance?
Salvation Pride
My daughter’s mother, Mallory, is a Jew. She is not a believing Jew.
When we lived together she often said she envied my faith.
During Tess’s last visit when I pushed Tess hard to accept Jesus and be baptized, Mallory got angry and told me to let Tess find her own spiritual path which, for me, was tantamount to letting her drift into the New Age spiritual mush of my son, where there are no demands for obedience or belief, only the excitement and pleasure of the possibility of some Higher Power or Deeper Meaning or Spirit World.
I got angry at that.
My attitude towards my daughter and her mother’s fuzzy spirituality colored my behavior towards my daughter and I failed to truly show her my love let alone God’s love. All she saw was an overbearing, unforgiving father.
Mallory sees her Jewishness as racial rather than religious or spiritual.
She does not go to synagogue.
Tess has been a few times because, as far as I know, it was her grandparents who took her. Mallory’s family are, from my very limited acquaintance, rich, Hollywood Jews.
I never discussed their relationship to God, so I don’t know what it is.
Mallory’s relationship with God I do know and it is non-existent in her mind.
Given the history of my relationship with Mallory, our non-marriage, Tess’s birth, and my very limited involvement in Tess’s life to date, I am hardly an advertizement of Christian life.
I have nothing to boast about except my faith in Jesus and my salvation.
Even though I am daily reminded of my sinful nature, I still feel an unearned spiritual pride over my daughter’s Jewish mother.
The Bible is a dead book to her and the history of her people, especially the part of Nazi Germany, has produced what I see as a victim and vengeful attitude in her.
For example, she won’t ride in a Mercedes because Benz made the ovens that burned the Jews in the concentration camps.
Her attitude may in fact be more nuanced than I’m portraying here but we never talked a lot about it because I was focused on marrying her rather than on her salvation.
I never examined my own relationship with God nor my own sinful state during the entire time of our relationship, so I can hardly be one to point fingers.
But I do.
By Jewish genealogical rules, if one parent of a child is Jewish, then the child is a Jew.
Tess’s naive view of her background makes me think.
She sees herself as both Jew and Christian, both Canadian and American, which reflects her childish combining of her parents’ reality.
The real issue, as today’s passage makes clear, is whether she believes in Jesus as her Savior, whether she has salvation or not.
I cannot sit on my stupid pride of salvation nor can I continue my lack of fatherly and godly love for my daughter.
She is coming to Korea next June. I have just over eight months to give birth to a humble salvation attitude and discover my loving acceptance of her, my Jewish daughter.
God gave her to me love and direct to him.
I have failed so far, but I have hope because I see how badly I have failed and how merciful God remains towards me.
Application: continue my weekly phone calls and letters to my daughter, expressing my sincere interest in her and in the time we will be together in June.
Lord, let me boast only of your loving mercy towards me and not regard myself as superior to anyone, especially my family members.
