Rom.11:13-15 – But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
Paul became God’s vessel during the changing of the seasons. For hundreds of years the Lord worked through the seed of Abraham, He delivered them from Egypt, gave them the Promised Land, protected them, prospered them, and disciplined them. He gave them prophets, the written word of God, and was among them in His manifest glory. Paul’s conversion and ministry marked God’s new season, Paul was ushering in the age of the Gentiles. Paul still had a passion for his fellow Jews but he saw that the seasons had changed. Here is how Luther describes this.
“How does he magnify his ministry? By glorying in the fact that even though the Jews have fallen, he is announcing to the Gentiles the riches of Christ. For he seems to be reproving the Jews for receiving nothing and diminishing themselves and making themselves sinners, whereas through his ministry the Gentiles have been made rich. Therefore, if such great good had come out of the Gentiles through his ministry, whereas it was taken away from the Jews, by this action he is surely proving the greatness of his ministry. But he does not glorify in such a way that he thereby brings pleasure to himself, but he does it for the salvation of others, so that the Jews, when they hear that they have fallen and that the Gentiles have been made rich and have accepted their riches, might be stimulated to seek the riches of the same ministry. But they would not be so stimulated if he said he had ministered something worthless to the Gentiles or that the Jews had lost nothing.”
As Paul lived at the beginning of the age of the Gentiles, we live during its last moments. There is not much time, we must finish the job of world evangelism as this season rapidly concludes. Apparently the Lord has one last chapter for the Jewish people, the harvest of the Gentiles will be followed by a final harvest of the sons and daughters of Abraham. What a great day that will be when the glory of God returns to the land of Israel.