Romans 9:22-33
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:
Romans 9 Commentary
Bible Passage: Romans 9:22-33 (ESV)
22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? 25 As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’
and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”
26 “And in the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, 28 for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
29 And as Isaiah predicted,
“If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring,
we would have been like Sodom
and become like Gomorrah.”
30 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. 32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33 as it is written,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Reflection Questions
Romans 9:22-33
“The implication for Jews was that they did not pursue… the righteousness which is by faith, but instead relied on their birthright as Jews or on their supposed good works in obedience to God’s laws.” [1]
- What warning does this passage give against Christians who presume upon God based on their own good works, service, or spiritual heritage?
- Think of the paradox of this passage, that those “who did not pursue righteousness” have obtained it. As a Gentile believer who “did not pursue righteousness,” how does this passage amplify my gratitude for God’s sovereign choice to provide Jesus as the savior of the world “to all who believe?”
- Reflect on the words: “whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
[1] John MacMarthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Romans 9-16. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991) 67
[1] John MacMarthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Romans 9-16. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991) 42-43
Prayer