Who is Israel?

The story of Jacob (a.k.a., "Israel") and Esau, helps us see Israel as a faithful people who, being flawed, struggle against Heaven and against man. And doesn't that sound like much of humanity today?

Whoever Israel was, ethnically, it's a people who traveled desert places before finding victory in faith, a people who struggled most desperately under Babylon, Egypt, and Rome — and a people whose internal conflicts included genocide of the mixed-race heritage it had in Edom (i.e., Idumea).

But God has cherished Israel: knowing "His people" would steadfastly hold to faith in Jesus (Ye-su), the promised Redeemer, our one heavenly Savior.

Like us as African Americans who later believed, God gave His word and plan to His most faithful people of struggle. Says a Bible prophet:

In his love and mercy he redeems them; He lifts them up and carries them all the days of old.

Isaiah 63:9

God gave His word, plan, and deliverance to the faithful: to the faithful who were pressed by this world and its trials.

And through His planned appearance, as Jesus, He opened the door to bring believers from all walks of life, into one mind, one body, one understanding, one people who we call "the church."

In Jesus, we have a new name not written on tablets of stone but in our feeling hearts (Revelation 2:17; 2 Corinthians 3:3).

Nonetheless, the name Israel does matter today, as most of our history matters. But, in making willing mankind His church, God has made the way to end our strife.

Spiritually, God has made the way for believers to be one "building," with many different dwelling places (churches).

"Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." (Ephesians 2:19-22, NIV)

In Jesus, we each, individually and as the church, are dwelling places for the Holy Spirit, our comforter, our guide, our inner voice of Jesus.

Amen?

No one knows what the ancient Israelites looked like. There is not very much evidence. And we're not supposed to believe by eyesight alone, anyway!

People such as myself only believe God had to begin His ministry in earth somewhere. He had to start somewhere with clear, direct messages to this wayward world. So, He chose to begin with Israel, a people whose errors led to bondage. God began with Israel. That was His choice.

God knew their errors, and their faithfulness. And He knew they would NOT be proud or supremistic, but that those who persecuted them would be and would need salvation in Him, too. 

No one should make the mistake of getting stuck on how different the architecture is in today's Israel. On a hillside in Israel, a monastery that had life some 500 years after God gave His life for His church's good, is evidence that Israel remained influenced by Greeks and Romans long after Jesus broke the bonds of Roman oppression in Israel. And just as Egypt's influence in northern Africa faded from view over the millennia, much of Israel's archeological history was buried by earthquakes, floods, and disuse.

But, in Jesus, we have the church, a city that endures the ages, a city not built entirely with human hands.