As a Gentile, I need to remind myself from time to time what the foundations of my faith are and to whom I owe it. It is popular these days to view the Gospel as universal—and it is, in the sense that it is universally available to everyone. But the fact is, God chose a specific bloodline through which to build the foundation of His larger family.  

Scriptural References

Acts 3:25-26 ²⁵ You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ ²⁶ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” – ESV 

Galatians 3:7-9 ⁷ Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. ⁸ And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” ⁹ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. – ESV 

Blessed Through Abraham

The passage in Acts is referencing Genesis 22:18 and the one in Galatians is referencing Genesis 12:3. These are examples of God stating and reiterating a promise that all the nations or families of the earth will be blessed through Abraham. So, how did this play out? 

The passage in Acts emphasizes the fact that God’s servant (Messiah) came through Abraham’s lineage and in that way Abraham’s Offspring became a blessing to all the families of the earth. But, even here we see that He was sent first to the Jews. And He came through Jewish bloodlines. God had to set a people apart and preserve them as His people, separate from all the paganism in the rest of the world, to be able to bring His son into the world and effectively fulfill His ministry in the only community that honored God at that time. 

Sure, Israel and Judah fell into idolatry at one time, but God honored His covenant with them and disciplined them, bringing them back to their land in due time and back into the faith. 

The Enduring Template

In Galatians Paul points out that Abraham is the one God used to create the template of seeking God by faith. And we still follow that template today, over three thousand years later. And by that faith we join ourselves in a spiritual sense to the family of Abraham through Messiah. Because of this, we come under the very blessings God gave to Abraham when we are born-again or born spiritually into Abraham’s family through Jesus. 

The Scriptures Came From Israel

So, we have the gift of faith and the birth of Messiah that God entrusted to the Jews to bring to the world, but there is one more thing (at least) that God entrusted to them that we take for granted so many times. Every time we open the Scriptures we are reading a sacred text written almost entirely by Jews. The only exceptions being what Luke wrote in the New Testament (Luke and Acts) and the little bit that Nebuchadnezzar possibly wrote in the book of Daniel chapter 4. 

It is these Scriptures, this faith, and Messiah Jesus most of all that have completely changed much of the gentile world from a hopeless state of idolatry and debauchery to having a living hope. We have so much to be thankful for. First of all to God, but also to the Jews as His chosen vessels. 

This is not to dismiss the error of the Jews for rejecting their Messiah. But as Paul states in Romans 11:17, we still must honor them as the root that supports the branches that we are, grafted in as wild olive shoots. And also, as he points out in verse 24 of the same chapter, they can and will be grafted back in far more readily as natural branches than we were as wild ones. 

They Will Be Restored

Romans 11 is amply sprinkled with similar promises of the future restoration of Israel. So, we can honor them for their past faithfulness and look forward to their restoration. This is more important now than ever as we see a tremendous rise in antisemitism all around the world and even here in America—especially in our college campuses. And as this antisemitism raises its head once more as it has so many times throughout history—we who love God’s chosen people must be all the more bold in honoring them and supporting them.