What was God's purpose for Israel as a kingdom of priests?

Les teaches that God's whole intent and purpose was that Israel, as a kingdom of priests, would at one time go and evangelize the Gentiles. He points out that by the time of Christ's earthly ministry and the Book of Acts, even the Jews had lost sight of this. Using Jonah as an illustration, Les explains that when God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, he went west instead of east, because he did not want to associate with Gentiles. Les notes that the Jewish mindset was that God had no time for those pagan dogs. Even in Christ's earthly ministry, this attitude was implied with the Canaanite woman, who asked if she could have a few crumbs from the master's table. The Jews were in the place of privilege and had the Word of God, but they took this to an extreme, so that when Paul spoke the word Gentiles in Acts, a riot occurred.