Opus 2024-395: Built, Not Chosen

We tend to talk about Israel being God’s chosen people.  We’re so used to that phrase we don’t start to think about the actual chronicle that is laid out in scripture.  I’m thinking that maybe Israel was not so much chosen as built.

God called Abraham out of Haran and told him to go to the promised land.  I would venture to guess that He had been building the gene pool to the point where Abraham was ready to be chosen out of all humanity.  In spite of all that, Abraham, I believe, still have the opportunity to say, “No.”  Since he said “yes”, we know about him.  We don’t know how many others refused before God finally got Abraham to agree.  Could God force the issue?  Yes.  Did God force issue?  We don’t know.

Once Abraham agreed, God started building on another level.  God seems to build very slowly.  This is one reason I believe in the old earth more than the seven 24 hour days of creation.  God seems to build slowly, creatively and methodically.  He’s capable of parting the Red Sea, and then having a crash down again, true.  But His tendency it’s more to let the nation of Israel wander in the desert for 40 years while they gradually died off.  He didn’t smite them and start over again.  God plans long-term and He makes things develop long-term.

When you you build using human beings, it’s a game of attrition.  You pick Abraham.  You wait a long time and finally he has a son.  Then you wait for another generation.  And another generation.  Then you have the roots of the 12 tribes moved to Egypt and sit there for 400 years before they are brought out.  What kind of growth was being supervised there?  Based on the results we saw in the wilderness, there were a lot of weak branches.  It took a long time to develop enough foundation to allow people like Joshua, Samuel, David, and other outstanding saints to emerge.

Even today, what is Israel?  Is it a nation in the Middle East?  Is this everyone who has an ounce of Jewish blood around the world and down through time?  Has it been replaced by the church?  These are serious questions.  I’m not sure that we know the answers.  Basically, we have to live with the knowledge we have.  God is working with us.  Paul told us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  That takes time.

Remember the acronym,PBP,GINFWMY.  “Please be patient, God is not finished with me yet.”  Or you could get one of those signs that say, “building under construction.”  It remains to be seen how the results develop.

homo unius libri