10:1
“My heart's desire and prayer to God is that they may be saved”. There are two implications of this. One is that not all Israel is saved. There are some who seem to almost think that being an Israelite means you are saved. This is manifestly unbiblical. We have the words of Paul, we also have the words of Jesus, and the whole record of the Old Testament. The second implication is that we should desire that Israel is saved, that the many Israelis come to believe the gospel, to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord. There have been periods when parts of the church have been anti-semitic, and there is no excuse for this. God loves Israel, and so should we.
10:2
Paul’s words are concerned about serious Jews. At the time this probably included most of them. Nowadays many Israelis seem to be rather atheistic. Anyway, Paul is talking about Jews with a zeal for God. Paul did not question this, but their zeal was misdirected, it was not based on knowledge. Today we have a tendency to think someone having the right motives is enough, that having “faith” in itself is good. But it matters what that faith is in, how one intends to achieve a certain goal. The Bible is concerned about objective truth, not subjective rubbish. It is only faith in Jesus Christ that is effective for salvation.
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