In 1896, Mark Twain moved to Austria and witnessed government-sanctioned anti-Semitism spread from neighboring Czechoslovakia into Austria. His experience caused him to write an article entitled “Stirring Times in Austria,” which was published in Harper’s Magazine in March of 1898.

The article caused a big response and got a lot of people talking about the atrocities and the uniqueness of the Jewish race.

Sometime later, an American lawyer (Jewish) wrote a letter to Mark Twain which piqued his curiosity: “Will you kindly tell me why, in your judgment, the Jews have thus ever been, and are even now, in these days of supposed intelligence, the butt of baseless, vicious animosities?”

Twain’s response was as follows:

“...If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it.

“The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

What is their secret? Why have they outlasted EVERY one of their enemies? Overcame every adversity? (Hittites, Amorites, Jebusites, etc.) Even the Apostle Paul, a Jew himself, calls the purpose of God for Israel a mystery.

This Sunday, we’ll continue our study in Romans 11 and see if there is a correlation between their continuity and the Word and the Purposes of God.

John