"God has hedged in all peoples into disobedience," Romans 11:32.
When the Scriptures present God dealing with earth's peoples, it does not categorize them in terms of race, culture, language, tribe, nationality, gender, social status, or those manifold ways as we humans do each other. No. God deals with people from the perspective of two categories: People belong to the family of Abraham and Sarah, or they do not. They belong to Israel, or do not. They are children of promise, or not. (Clearly, God knows all those categories by which we humans identify and classify! Nevertheless, God deals with us on the basis of those other two.) Humans are Jews, or they are Gentiles. And, God's taxonomy further identifies and classifies them all, every one of them, as rascals. Rebels. Disobedient. Unworthy. So that by this, God may extend mercy. Mercy. To all. Mercy.
When we meet up today with a brother or sister, we recognize our desperate need for grace. And, together into all coming ages, we, children of promise, glorify God for his mercy to us in Christ.
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