 | Charlie Traffas has been involved in marketing, media, publishing and insurance for more than 40 years. In addition to being a fully-licensed life, health, property and casualty agent, he is also President and Owner of Chart Marketing, Inc. (CMI). CMI operates and markets several different products and services that help B2B and B2C businesses throughout the country create customers...profitably. You may contact Charlie by phone at (316) 721-9200, by e-mail at ctraffas@chartmarketing.com, or you may visit at www.chartmarketing.com. |
Religion
2005-06-01 09:50:00
How odd of God... to choose the Jews
: Who said that the Jews are God's chosen people? Does this mean God favors Jews over all other people?
ANSWER: Both the Old and New Testaments bear witness that the Jewish people are special to God. Recorded history begins with God calling Abraham (Genesis 12). The Bible goes on to show God's special favor to Abraham's son Isaac, and to Isaac's son Jacob, and Jacob's sons and grandsons, the forefathers of the Hebrew people. In the gospel of John, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well: "Salvation comes from the Jews" (Jn 4:22). In his epistle to the Romans (chapters 9 and 10 and 11) St. Paul discusses this topic in great detail. He writes that "they are God's people, God chose them and revealed to them his glory, . . . and gave them the Law and the true worship; they have received God's promises, . . . and Christ, in his human nature, belongs to their race" (Rom 9:4-5). This choice of God stems from God's special love for those forefathers and some of their descendants, especially Moses and Elijah and King David. But this choice of God entails on the part of the Jewish people: their special responsibility to live according to God's commandments and to witness to God's truth in this world. Time and time again the Jewish people fell away from God through idolatry, for which reason God punished them again and again. But always a remnant of faithful Jews kept alive: the true faith in the one God. "In the fullness of time God sent his Son, born of a human mother, who lived under the Jewish law" (Gal. 4:4). This is Jesus, who came to complete God's revelation to mankind and to redeem humans from the consequences of sin. Jesus also taught St. Paul that "whoever believes in him will be saved. That includes everyone, because there is no difference between Jews and gentiles: God is the same Lord of all, and richly blesses all who call upon him. . . . Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved" (Rom 10:12-13). St. Paul explains that the gentile Christians (non-Jews) have been called by God to share in the promises God made to the Jewish patriarchs and prophets. He compares the non-Jews to a wild olive tree, whose branches have been grafted onto the tree of the cultivated olive tree (the Jews), and joined to it: so that non Jews share the strong spiritual life of the Jews" (Rom 11:17-18). Thus the non-Jewish Christians have become the spiritual descendants of Abraham, and share in Abraham's faith and the blessings of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. This is God's plan for the salvation of all peoples: so that no people can boast arrogantly over another people, as all have been invited by God to salvation. All people have sinned, and everyone needs salvation.This choice of God and his invitation does NOT mean that everyone will be saved automatically: whether by being descended from Abraham, or by belonging to Christ through faith and Baptism. All people are invited to share this faith and to live it. But only those who believe in the faith revealed by God and, according to the light of their conscience, sincerely try to live that faith, will be saved. Those who decline to believe and to live according to God's Will, as expressed in His revelation, freely choose to be separated from God in eternity; i.e. they cannot be saved and will be condemned. God's special favor extends to both Jews and non-Jews alike, to all who seek Him in faith and in obedience to God's law, as did Abraham and Jesus.
