The Root Supports the Branches

The Remnant, the Olive Tree, and Mercy for All · Romans 11

Story guide: Disclosed visual essay. Gentile believers share the cultivated olive root by grafting and must not boast, because the root supports them. Faith calls for humility and awe; natural branches can be grafted into their own tree again when unbelief does not continue.

Open this scene in the reader →

17But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them and became a fellow sharer in the root, in the richness of the olive tree,

18do not boast over the branches. But if you do boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you.

19You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”

20Quite right: they were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but fear.

21For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

22Consider, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness toward you, if you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.

23And even they, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again.

24For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and, contrary to nature, were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree.

Step through the story beside the Scripture itself. About the People’s Open Bible