Israel’s God Won My Gentile Heart

I was shocked when my Jewish teaching assistant said to me, “Aren’t Christians God’s chosen people now instead of the Jews?” He was equally surprised when I responded, “No, the Jews are always God’s special, chosen people. Jews will always hold a special place in His heart.”

I am a Gentile, Taiwanese to be exact, and my parents, my grandparents, and great-grandparents, etc., have always believed that God was lower than Buddha. Personally I lived to please myself, and thought that religion and basic morals, such as honesty and generosity, were for the weak and soft hearted.

How was I to know any better?

Israel’s God Won My Gentile Heart

How was I to know any better?

After all, I didn’t have the millennia of history, God’s gifts, and His calling—“the adoption as sons, the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the Law, the temple worship, and the promises.” (Romans 9)

After all, I didn’t have the millennia of history, God’s gifts, and His calling—“the adoption as sons, the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the Law, the temple worship, and the promises.” (Romans 9)

I was sitting alone, hunched over my dorm desk in Branford. My sophomore year: I had to decide what to do with the rest of my life. Well, at the time, choosing my major seemed that weighty.

Sigh. What was the point of it all? I was sick of talking to friends and peers, sick of thinking about things, sick of changing my mind continually. Sprawled on my bed, I looked blankly at the textured ceiling. It stared its own blankness back at me in my tiny single room.

My thoughts raced. Then, I thought, there must be a God, the One I had prayed to while growing up, when my parents fought, and when things were simply beyond mine and anyone else’s control.

I prayed now because I had come to the end of my resources. I didn’t say anything. I just thought, God, I don’t know, I hate this. It’s so miserable. I’m miserable… (complain, complain, complain.)

I had become very existentialistic by then. Kierkegaard, Sartre, Buber, Descartes, Plato…. I was left with no satisfaction, only questions. These were only men writing down their imperfect thoughts.

But some people believe the Bible to be divinely inspired. And what if it were true? The Paradise Garden, Adam and Eve’s choice to disobey God, and their subsequent banishment from Eden, Noah’s flood, the Laws and covenants, the pleas of God for Israel to return to Him—“Israel, a people close to His heart.” (Psalm 148)

The Bible had always seemed an endless string of unrelated details. But what if it were true? Finally, in a moment, I chose to believe it, and suddenly the details came together. And to my surprise, I met a God more perfect, and more like the way God should be, than I had ever imagined. I didn’t put it together, I didn’t reason it out, I just discovered Him. And I praised God.

For the first time, I could say, “Yes, praise the Lord,” and in full agreement. No more questioning, discussion, and debating. And I praised the only true God, the God of Israel.

And since that vivid day, I have met Israelis and other Jews here and there. Of those that I met, only some had read the Holy Scriptures. And of those that read, only a few considered it true. And among those that believed, it was hard to find one who really knew the Scriptures and lived out every word.

And it wasn’t fair—that God had given me a life-changing belief in Messiah Jesus and Scriptures, when many of my Jewish contemporaries were indifferent to Him. And what’s more, it wasn’t fair that someone had told my Jewish TA that the Jews had somehow lost their calling to be God’s chosen people.

But this is what God, the Lord Almighty, says: “In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’” (Zechariah 8)

“God’s gifts and His calling are irrevocable.” (Romans 11)

Denise Chen, Branford ’95, SOM ’00