Why the Jewish were chosen?

  • Thread starter Thread starter CR2009
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

CR2009

Guest
I have always wondered…Why did GOD choose the Jewish people as his chosen? Why didn’t he choose others?

Thank you
 
Oooh, can’t wait to read the replies from the people who really know things!

For my part, I always think that they were perhaps the most advanced people in the world, and at the stage in their evolution and development that they could accept God as their creator.

And fortunately, God sent his only Son, so that us “johnny come latelies” could also have a chance to be in his presence.

Nice question! 😃
 
I’ve always found these passages from Deuteronomy interesting. However, they speak about why God chose to give the Israelites the Promised Land rather than as to why He chose them to be His people.

Deut. 9:4-6 “Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land’; … Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to posses their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is driving them out from before you, and that He may confirm the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people.”
 
I can’t find the passage at the moment, but I recall God telling the Jews someplace that they were the least of the peoples. He chose them because He wished to; not for any merit of theirs.

Another case maybe of God’s preference to do things the hard way just to show how powerful He is. Note that He could have answered Jesus’ prayer in the garden at any point, but He waited until Jesus was dead and in the grave three days.
 
Yes, that is correct. It was nothing the Israelites did that made them God’s Chosen People.

That’s the beauty of God’s Love for us. Its nothing we do to deserve that Love, He just does.
 
CR2009 said:
I have always wondered…Why did GOD choose the Jewish people as his chosen? Why didn’t he choose others?

Thank you
Click to expand...
Deuteronomy 7
For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: 8 But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

God choose them because He wanted to; in the same way He chooses who will be redeemed. Let’s hope we are all part of that.
 
Because it was God’s soverignty to do so - not out of merit, but out of grace.

Similarly, we (as believers) are grafted into the rootstock, not out of merit, but out of God’s grace.

None of us may boast - neither Jew nor Gentile and there is no distinction between Jew (Jewish believer) and Gentile (Gentile believer) in Christ.

Blessings,

Brian
 
Timothy_Piper said:
Deuteronomy 7
For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: 8 But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
.
Click to expand...
Like the Scripture I cited, these words are spoken approx 600 years after God called Abraham. Don’t know of a Scripture passage that addresses why God chose Abraham to be the one who would be “father” of His chosen people. (Altho Abraham was not perfect, he was certainly an amazingly good man - which helps one understand why God chose him.)

A little later in the Deut. 9 passage I cited, Moses tells the Israelites that God was going to destroy all of them and start a new line from Moses. (Deut 9:13/Ex 32:10)
Moses intercedes for the people on the basis of God’s “reputation” among the Egyptians, and because of the Divine promises made to “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Ex 32:11-14/Deut 10:26-29).
Those seem to be two of the reasons God continued to uphold the Jews as His chosen.
 
We do not believe that G-d chose the Jews because of any inherent superiority. According to the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 2b), G-d offered the Torah to all the nations of the earth, and the Jews were the only ones who accepted it. The story goes on to say that the Jews were offered the Torah last, and accepted it only because G-d held a mountain over their heads! (In Ex. 19:17, the words generally translated as “at the foot of the mountain” literally mean “underneath the mountain”!) Another traditional story suggests that G-d chose the Jewish nation because they were the lowliest of nations, and their success would be attributed to G-d’s might rather than their own ability.

see:jewfaq.org/gentiles.htm

Of course the other possibility was that we were chosen because of our winning smiles and highly developed sense of humor:blush:
 
We were the only group where obsessive-compulsive behavior was a natural trait. 😉
 
God made a Covenant with Abraham and He chose to make a nation from that man’s line — Isaac, Jacob and the Twelve Tribes of Israel. This covenant lead to the nation of Israel.

All of our choices have consequences. In this situation, the right choices of Abraham made his seed line God’s choice.

It is through the people of Israel that God introduced His Plan of Salvation. Salvation is from the Jews.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top