I get a lot of email but most of it is spam. But some are from innocent bystanding readers who've witnessed a Rey-Post-Astrophe and had some questions. More often than not, these folk drop me a line and I stammer out an answer but some questions have come up often enough that I feel confident in rewording the questions and sharing my general response sharing my response and Putting It Out There as an Old Testament witness (you know, where you hiss as you walk by the ashes of a blog and see the goatlings prancing about and not even the Spammers make their home there since its so devoid of life). As homage to Click and Clack , here is my first Stump the Chump question plus response: If Adam and Evil were tricked by the Devil—why did they get in trouble?

Some have taken the fact that Gentiles have been grafted into Israel's natural olive tree to mean that Gentiles are now actually Jews. They might try to argue the point by highlighting several verses in Romans (for instance in Romans 2 where Paul points out uncircumcised Gentiles living circumcised lives proving themselves to be more circumcised than Jews).

How anyone can read Paul and see no future for the literal Israel perplexes me to no end. Why would Paul compare a Gentile Branch to an Israel Branch if there is no future for a literal Israel? And if Israel's Future is just to be part of the Church why would Paul make a big deal about God potentially removing the Gentile Branch?

As I took up Paul's main thought in regards to Israel's salvation I intentionally glossed over a major section…with no manipulative intent. I wanted to look at the problem of Israel's unbelief without going into an odd theological place: namely the breaking off the Israel branch from the tree.