Today's encouragement comes from Romans 2:28a & 29a, where we read these words:
"For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly . . . but he is a Jew who is one in-wardly . . . "Paul here (above) affirms that the true Jew is one who believes in Jesus—be he or she a Jew or a Gentile (by ethnicity). All of the Old Testament Jewish believers put their trust in Jesus (though they did not yet know His name). The same is true in the New Testament, and in the era of the New Covenant (in which we currently live).
The "new" "Israel of God," the New Covenant church (cf. Gal. 6:16b), is made up of Jews *and* Gentiles; and they are all the authentic sons of Abraham, the father of our faith. Let us (especially who were Gentiles by birth) thank God that He has ingrafted us into the one great Vine of Christ.
[Puritan quote of the day: "If the church is beautiful beyond all other of the children of men, how beautiful is Jesus Christ, from whom the church derives all its comeliness?” —Thomas Vincent, in, "The True Christian's Love to the Unseen Christ"]
