Christ saves both Jews and Gentiles
7 Christ has accepted you, so you must accept each other. In that way you will be praising God. 8 Remember this: Christ became a servant of the Jews so that they could understand God's true message. He showed them that God has now done what he promised to their ancestors. 9 The Gentiles also praise God because he has been kind to them. This is written in the Bible:
15:8God had promised to the Jews that he would send his Messiah to save them. Jesus showed them that he himself is God's Messiah. When Jesus lived on the earth, God's promise became true.
‘I will tell the Gentiles about you, God.
I will praise you with songs, to show how great you are.’
10 It says also in the Bible:
‘Be very happy, you Gentiles!
Praise God together with his people.’
11 It also says this:
‘Say how great the Lord is, all you Gentiles.
All people, from every country, should say how great he is.’
12 God's prophet Isaiah says this:
‘The root of Jesse will arrive.
He will come to rule the Gentiles.
The Gentiles will trust him to save them.’
15:12See Isaiah 11:10. Jesse was King David's father. See 1 Samuel 16:1. Jesus was born many years after Jesse and David lived on the earth. The ‘root of Jesse’ means that Jesus belonged to Jesse and David's family. See Matthew 1:1-16. But it means also that Jesse and David come from Jesus. Jesus caused them to be alive, as a plant grows up from its root. Jesus is God. He has always been alive in God's home beyond the earth. He made everything and everyone. 13 God is the one who causes us to hope for good things. I pray that God will bless you very much. I pray that he will cause you to be happy and to have peace in your minds. He will do this because you believe in him. As a result, God's Holy Spirit will make you strong with his power, so that you hope even more certainly.
