Why don’t they get it? Maybe you have family members or close friends who don’t believe in Jesus. You’ve tried and tried to explain the gospel to them, but they’re just not interested – they just don’t want to hear it. Why can’t they see what you see?

This was Paul’s experience, for the Jewish people of His time were His kinsmen, people he knew and loved. And time and time again, he went into their synagogues and told them what the Old Testament said about Jesus. But no matter how carefully he explained the real meaning of the Scriptures to them, many of them refused to listen. If Jesus really was their Messiah, they didn’t want Him.

So, how was Paul to understand the promises that God had made to Abraham, promises to be the God of Abraham’s descendants? Well, in the first place, Paul remembered that this wasn’t the first time in the history of God’s people that many of them had turned away from God. In the days of Elijah, regardless of the amazing miracles he had done, and regardless of the truth of his preaching, many people preferred to worship Baal than to worship God. Elijah became so discouraged about it that he wanted to die.

But God reminded Elijah that no matter how many of His people turned away from Him, there were others that remained faithful (v. 4). That was certainly true in Paul’s time. After all, he himself was Jewish, as were all the apostles. The Book of Acts says that thousands, multitudes of the Jewish people of his time had become followers of Christ. So God was in fact keeping His covenant promise to Abraham. God had not rejected His Old Testament people out of hand (v. 2).

But Paul also understood that those who had come to believe in Christ had done so because of God’s grace (v. 6). It was God Who had opened their eyes to see Jesus. It was God Who had opened their ears to believe the words of the gospel that they had heard. God had saved Paul and Paul was confident that God would save others in the same way.

And God is still the One Who comes to sinners like us and our loved ones, drawing us to Himself and making us His own. So don’t give up on those who don’t yet trust in Christ. Keep praying for them and keep pointing to Jesus, just as Paul did. After all, God used Paul to save many of his kinsmen – maybe He’ll use your words and prayers in a similar way, in His time.

Romans 11:1-24 (ESV)

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?
3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.”
4 But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.
6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened,
8 as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.”
9 And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them;
10 let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.”
11 So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.
12 Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!
13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry
14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.
15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
16 If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,
18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.
24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.