May 22, 2011 – Romans 9

It feels like I should have a lot to say about this chapter but I'm finding it hard to come up with any kind of reflection. There is this understanding about the first born in the tradition that they receive the blessing of the Father or the inheritance of the family, but throughout the Jewish heritage, at least from Abraham and his family, you have this very odd circumstance that over and over again the second one is chosen as the favored one. Paul relates this to the understanding that the Jews were the first born and the Gentiles the second born, but because the Jews killed Christ, even though the entire tradition of the Jewish faith and God's path was leading to a Jewish Messiah, because of their denial God was moving on to the Gentiles. I wonder what the Jewish people thought of Paul and his writings about this. I know I talked little while ago about the movies depicting St. Paul and St. Peter and their lives during Acts, and you really get the sense that the Jewish people that became Christian or believed in Christ as the Messiah didn't care for Paul and all. There appears to be different motivations for this. First, he did persecute them for being Christians in the very beginning and then once he converted he wasn't trusted then he was sent away to other parts and was never really considered a part of the original group, the guess you could say. At least that is the way is depicted in the movies. How much of an outcast Paul really felt from the Jewish Christians, I don't know of it really comes across in his writings. It is obvious that Paul did not feel Gentiles had to follow Jewish traditions. That is absolutely clear, but it doesn't appear Paul ever gave up his Jewish traditions. I believe, even towards the end Acts, when Paul comes back to Jerusalem, he preaches to them in the temple and is allowed to come into Temple because he is ritually clean and able to come in. St. Paul also writes that he becomes all things to preach to all people, he would adapt himself to where he was preaching in order to convert as many people as he could. I really just wonder how much there was this tension between the Jewish Christians in the Gentiles Christian's or if we just build that up.