The LORD is inviting us to the wedding banquet of the lamb. He is calling us to come and join in the feast that unites heaven and earth. We must come as little children.
When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet,
do not recline at table in the place of honor.
The place of honor is not earned, it is given. There are not seats with labels like 'Prayed every day', or 'Gave most of his money to the poor', nor are they given based on any other achievement great or small. Yet there are seats of honor. They do exist. And if we are invited to the feast the real key is listen for where Jesus tells us to sit.
Paul helps the Gentiles not to see themselves as better than the Jews. It seems like more of them are coming to the feast at the moment. Yet, the definitive seats are not yet given, Paul cautions. The Gentiles did nothing to merit their own place in the ceremony and the Jewish people's short-term refusal will not stop God from bringing in their full number.
Now if their transgression is enrichment for the world,
and if their diminished number is enrichment for the Gentiles,
how much more their full number.
Humanly, we would be all too ready at one time to praise the Jewish people and at another time to praise the Gentiles for accepting Jesus. We would get the assigned seating all wrong. Our assessment is wrong because, however well or poorly we see people respond to God's call, he is still at work in hidden and mysterious ways to bring as many people to places of honor as he can.
The Lord will not abandon his people.
So let us trust in him with humility rather than allow ourselves to become puffed up with pride because at the moment we seem to e the ones responding to the call.
For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.
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