Journal

Please use one of the prompts below to get your journaling started.

• Explore your fears and what’s behind them.
• Write about a relational conflict you are experiencing.
• List out all that you are grateful for.
• Recall a significant reaction, conversation or event.

• Here are some tools to help you with the devotionals:
  • A Guide to Journaling & Prayer
  • A Guide to Self-Reflection
  • A Chart to help articulate feelings

Romans 11 Commentary

Bible Text:

Romans 11:11-24 (ESV)

¹¹ So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. ¹² Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

¹³ Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry ¹⁴ in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. ¹⁵ For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? ¹⁶ If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

¹⁷ But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, ¹⁸ do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. ¹⁹ Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” ²⁰ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.    ²¹ For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. ²² Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. ²³ And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. ²⁴ For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

Reflection Questions

Romans 11:11-24

“It is good for those that have found mercy with God to be often thinking what they were in time past, and how they obtained that mercy. This would help to soften our censures of those that still continue in unbelief, and quicken our prayers for them.” ^[1]   

• Given that the background of this letter to the Romans is the tension between Jewish and Gentile believers, what lesson is here about how to pursue Christian unity and fellowship?
• What is ironic about the fact that some Gentile believers looked down on the Israelites?
• Are there any ways in which I look down on those who are outside of the community of believers?  Reflect on the words: “So do not become proud, but fear.”  How can I apply this to myself?

[1] Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible – Romans 11

Prayer