June 27 - Romans 11: Deep, Deep Wisdom

Lately, the idea of mystery has been on my mind. A recent sermon at church raised the question for me about the mystery of God and what we can humanly comprehend of God's ways.

In this chapter, Paul discusses the mystery of God's call and God's dealings with the Jews. I confess I don't fully understand how God is using the Jews of our day, but I realize that I have a shortsighted view of things. It's mind-boggling to think about God's ability to graft me into His tree (10:17) and at the same time, his ability to graft the pruned branches, the Jews, back in at will (10:23). As Paul says,

Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It's way over our heads. We'll never figure it out. (11:33)

It's a mystery. Scripture itself says we'll never figure it out.

And in light of my recent questions about mystery, I appreciated Eugene Peterson's comments on the subject:

"Paul reviews his new knowledge and concludes that it's the deep, deep wisdom of God. In a word, it's a mystery... 

"It's important to see just what Paul arrives at as knowledge and what he concludes as mystery. Mystery for Paul doesn't mean there's an impossibility of knowing anything. Mystery isn't used as an excuse for not thinking. Romans itself is proof of that... 

"There are two kinds of mystery - the mystery of darkness and the mystery of light. The mystery of darkness is that there's some evil act that has been committed under cover of other people's ignorance or absence. Now there are clues and evidence lying about, but no one seems able to put the whole picture together. 

"The other kind of mystery is the mystery of light. That's the mystery - or deep, deep wisdom - Paul is talking about here. All the evidence we have is illuminated from a central Source. The world is ordered and beautiful, and we see things in relationship shaped toward a goal. But as the light gets stronger, our eyes can't bear to look at it. The closer we get to the light, the less we can see. We blink, we squint, and finally we must shut our eyes all together. But we don't think for a minute that our blindness is because someone is hiding something from us or preventing us from seeing. The mystery comes not from hiddenness but from human limitation. 

"And the only proper human response is not further probing but simply stopping at the threshold of mystery, kneeling, and offering praise. 

"Which is precisely what Paul does. And precisely what we should do." Conversations, pg. 1759

Father, I praise You as the Source of deep, deep wisdom. I praise You as the Author of mystery. Thank You for being the eyes that enable me to see and the mind that enables me to understand. May I be diligent in studying Your Word and using my brain to comprehend Your truth, and at the same time, may I be humble enough to recognize my God-given human limitations. I pray that my automatic response to Your mystery will always be kneeling and offering praise, for You alone are worthy.