Romans 11:1-12
Remnant is a peculiar word. Nowadays I expect the average person might use it only for a scrap of material left over after making a garment or a bit of carpet. But in bible times it was a word used to describe those people remaining after a pogrom of extermination. In the passage in Romans 11 Paul talks of Elijah the prophet worried he was the only one left after the believers were being attacked. So this verse:
4 What answer did God give him? "I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not worshiped the false god Baal."
One of the big fears Christian has is of thinking himself alone. No-one wants to hear what Christian has to say, she (he) is increasingly attacked in the media, in the workplace. “Religion and politics” are often coupled together and banned implicitly or explicitly. Christian’s solution is to keep her head down, to say nothing, keep private. Christian might well come to think of herself as “one of the Remnant”.
In these verses, Paul admits that in the past there were few in who truly believed, and there may be few now. But few is not none. In verse 1 Paul is emphatic
I ask, then: Did God reject his own people? Certainly not!
He says this of , but it equally applies to Christians today. In a poll suggested that 67% believe in God, and more than 40% believe in Heaven, life after death and Jesus as Son of God.
Christian, don’t fear! “Salvation has come to the Gentiles”, Pauls says. We don’t need to fear to tread, for we have God’s Promise, God’s Outcome, God’s Message and God’s Welcome. God’s Remnant is bigger than we think. So let’s make it bigger!
