The Two Olive Trees

The Two Olive Trees
ROMANS 11.16-24

‘This place isn’t big enough for both of us!’

We’ve all heard it, or perhaps even said it. Sometimes it’s in an office where two managers are both wanting their plans to go ahead. Sometimes it’s in a sports team where two players both want to be the star. Sometimes, tragically, it’s in a home where two squabbling teenagers both want to run things their way. It’s even uglier when this kind of rivalry gets played out in a church; and that’s what Paul is anxious about here. He is still facing the question: granted that most Jewish people have rejected the gospel of the Messiah, does that mean God has written them off? Granted that some Jews, like himself, have formed a small number, a ‘remnant chosen by grace’ (verse 5), can any more Jews be saved, or is God now concentrating solely on non-Jews, on Gentiles?...