Grafting~Unknown Author

Grafting ~  Nov. 30, 2010

Romans 11:7

When I was growing up, in South Florida, my  mother did something I
thought was  

rather strange and useless. She called it grafting, and today "grafting"
has an entirely  

new meaning for me.
We had hibiscus bushes behind our house, and each spring mother would
start her  

procedure with them. She began by placing some moss on the stalk of the
bush and  

wrapping it in saran wrap. She would check the progress regularly,
making sure the  

saran wrap had not fallen, that the moss  was moist, and no bugs had
gotten in her  

graft.  After a certain amount of time, the graft would be complete.
Eventually, when  

the time was right, she would cut the graft and from ita new plant would
begin. The  

same was possible to do if she wanted to add a graft to the existing
plant.  She would  

carefully follow the program and graft  something into the hibiscus.
The new shoot  

would thrive and grow out of the nourishment sent from the main stem of
the bush.
In Romans 11:7 Paul compares the Gentiles to a wild olive shoot, grafted
into an olive  

tree. The trunk of the olive tree symbolizes Abraham who was the father
of the  

Hebrew nation. The dead wood represented the Jews, and as they chose  to
turn their  

hearts from the Gospel, they were pruned away. The newly grafted
Gentiles "took"  

when we believed the Good News of Christ, as Paul spread it throughout
the early  

Christian church.
As Christians, we need to be mindful of our Hebrew heritage. We also
are from the  

seed of  Abraham, father of our faith.  We must be humble and mindful
that the trunk  

of the tree conducts the nourishment into the new branches, but the
nourishment  

comes from the root—that  is God, the Father, Son and Hold Spirit.