what stewardship did Paul have when he went to
the children of Israel like God called him to do?
Act 9:15 But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel
Further, why did Paul go "to you first" (Israel)? What did his going to them "first," prove?
It proved that the salvation of God to the Gentiles, without Israel" "fulness" as a nation "first" was not without merit.
It proved to Israel, that Israel had not only
not wanted their
Prophesied salvation, ending in their fall at Acts 7, but neither did most individual Jews, this side of Israel's fall, their nation now in Uncircumcision, Acts 7:51, want anything to do with this Mystery salvation that Paul preached, Acts 13:45-46; 18:6.
One aspect of what Paul is doing going "to the Jew first" is summarized in...
Acts 28:
25. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers,
26. Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive:
27. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand
with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
28. Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.
Israel's temporary fall was prophesied, but that God would use that to do a work among Jew and Gentile - as if both were Gentiles (Uncircumcision) - was not.
In contrast to, but in alignment with, other aspects of Isaiah (Isaiah 60:1-3, for example) are Malachi 4's words, the fulfillment of which God's Mystery among the Gentiles, temporarily interrupted:
1. For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
2. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.