Hos. 9-11
In all this declaration of doom for Ephraim and Israel, God says, “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?…My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.” (Hos 11:8). God has always loved His people, but His people “are bent on turning away from [Him]” (Hos 11:7). He has to do the difficult thing in order to bring them back to Him. They say that you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. So by removing His presence from them God opened their eyes to what they had in Him. Speaking in human terms, it broke God’s heart to send His people away, but it was the loving thing to do.
Rom. 15:14-33
I find Paul’s comment regarding the Gentile’s “contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem” (Rom 15:26b) interesting. He said, “they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings.” (Rom 15:27b). Paul went to great lengths earlier in this letter to the Romans to explain how the Gentiles were “grafted in” to God’s family. It was because of the Jews’ rejection of God’s spiritual blessings that those blessings were then extended to the Gentiles. So now all who have received God’s spiritual blessings – both Jewish and Gentile believers – are part of the same family and so should share their material blessings as well. Because that’s what families do, right? They help each other.
Jews aren’t saved simply because they are Jewish. They are saved the same way that we Gentiles are – through grace by faith in Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins. But they are still Jews. And this Gentile, for one, is grateful for the part that they have played in God’s great plan for all of mankind.