How do you normally graft a pecan tree?
In normal pecan grafting, the old native pecan root is kept because it survives the local climate and soil, though its fruit is poor. The old original trunk is cut off, and a bred hybrid—a big, nice, soft-shell, paper-shell variety—is grafted into that native root. This is the normal method, the opposite of the olive tree illustration.
Les explains that Romans 11:17 is the direct opposite of normal grafting. Normally, you take the old root that is native to a particular area, because it has survived the climate and soil. Its fruit, however, probably isn't all that good. So horticulturists breed up a good hybrid. Les says the only example he is acquainted with is the pecan tree, because they had done it with one. They got the old natural pecan, then took a hybrid—the big, nice, soft-shell variety—cut off the old original trunk of the native pecan, and grafted in the beautiful paper shell. That is the normal way. But Romans 11 is opposite: it takes the beautiful tree, casts it aside, and grafts in an old wild olive tree, which produced no fruit, was worthless, and was just like a bad weed.
And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;