Given a Shout-Out! Romans 16

We finish Romans today with a look at Romans 16. Any look at these verses will be incomplete, because there are at least 25 names plus a few households greeted. Without addressing all of these, we will miss something. However, there are a few notable names to consider:

1. Romans 16:1: Phoebe. She is a “servant” of the church at Cenchrea. Or perhaps a “deacon” of that church, depending on whether or not Paul envisions that label as a title. It’s hard to see why Phoebe would be highlighted if she did not hold a church leadership role, so there is precious little reason to deny her the same title that is given to others. Further, this is the second mention of Cenchrea in Scripture: it’s a port city near Corinth and where Paul cut his hair in relation to a vow (Acts 18:18).

The main thing I see is this: Phoebe is first on his mind at this point. Perhaps she is headed to Rome, which seems likely. She has helped and supported the work of Paul and the expansion of the Gospel. I would love to see more, but I don’t have anything else on her in my resources.

2. Romans 16:3 brings up Prisca and Aquilla, also known as Priscilla and Aquilla. These two show up in Acts 18, 1 Corinthians 16, and 2 Timothy 4. I like them as a couple team in ministry. One cannot divide the work of the pair, and I think that’s great.

3. Acts 16:7 gives us Junia, labeled in some texts as Junias. This is a Greek word that if you slice it one way, you get a man’s name, and another way gives you a woman’s name. I agree with the Early Church Fathers that this a woman, likely named Junia. There is debate what relationship Andronicus and Junia have—they could be siblings or spouses. We don’t know.

We do see them both held up as “outstanding among the apostles.” That can be taken two ways: as “outstanding apostles” or as “considered outstanding by the apostles.” I’m inclined to read “The Twelve minus Judas plus Paul” where the word “Apostles” shows up, so I think these are two have done much and are considered outstanding among those twelve specific leaders. That is not to take anything from their work—and I could be wrong, because I know there are places where “apostles” equals “those who go out to spread the Gospel” in the New Testament.

4. Romans 16:21 gives us Timothy. I find it interesting that most of the time, Timothy is a co-author with Paul, but here is simply present and sending his greeting.

5. Romans 16:22 brings up Tertius, Paul’s amanuensis for the letter. This is helpful in understanding the context and structure of letter-writing.

6. Romans 16:23 brings up a “Gaius,” which is like saying “Bob!” in modern English. There is also Erastus, who was an official in the city of Corinth—thus guiding us to know where Paul wrote Romans from. Quartus? We know nothing there.

7. Finally, though, is the commendation: to Him who is able to establish you…be the glory forever. It’s a beautiful benediction, likely written in Paul’s own hand after Tertius finished his work.

Here we find what matters the most:

The Gospel as the Revelation of God’s mystery, manifested in Christ. The Gospel, seen in the Scriptures. The Gospel, made known to all people, leading to repentance and obedience.

The Gospel, to the glory of God through Jesus Christ.

May that be our benediction as well.

Nerd Note: Try a little nerd activity and see how many of the names in Romans show up elsewhere, and see what we know about them.

Further, Erastus is one of those awesome names in Scripture: we have, from the time of Paul, archaeology that shows an Erastus as a city official in Corinth. Here it is:

The Right to Bear Weakness: Romans 15

Romans is drawing to a close. I would suggest to you that the end is not mere wrap-up fluff, but rather Paul’s shorter points. These are not of lesser importance, only lesser print. This is especially true as you hit the first verses of Romans 15. Paul comes to his last chapter of instruction, and we start with this:

Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for good, to his edification. Romans 15:1-2 (NASB, with one modification by author)

Many of the commentaries on this passage are quick to tie Paul’s meaning here back into the specific area discussed in Romans 14, namely that of eating meat. Specifically meat sacrificed to idols, as some people were concerned that buying and eating such meat was participating in the sacrifice. (Kind of like today thinking that buying from a company is participating in whatever dark rituals they practice.)

I think we would do better to see that one issue as the example case. Paul is using the question of meat sacrificed to idols to illustrate a wider point, rather than thinking that he only meant this for those who shop near idol temples.

What is the principle Paul is addressing?

The right to bare weakness. We who are believers in Christ have the right to bare our weaknesses among the body. Not to be narcissistic or to demand all the attention come our way, but simply to admit that we are not perfect and need prayer.

Even to admit that we need a little help dealing with a problem, and we need that help from the church. That is the right of every member of the body. Why would it be a right? Because it’s an inalienable need of every member of the body as well. We all have weaknesses, and we have the right to bare those.

The right to bear weakness. The other thing that we tend to do to one another is refuse to accept aid for our weaknesses. I am, personally, weak in a few areas. I am abysmal in others, and we’ll talk about that later. However, there are areas where I am strong, as well.

And those strengths line up with someone’s weak points. Just like it is your right to bare your weakness, it is my right to help bear that weakness. Self-sufficiency is not a Christian virtue. In truth, the pride of refusing help does at least as much damage among the body as the pride of denying help does. Your fellow believers have the right to help bear your weakness, and you have the right to bear theirs. This is not Star Trek V, where holding on to our pain keeps us alive. This is the real world.

Side note: the only thing more difficult to admit exists than Star Trek V is Indiana Jones 4. Neither film deserves to occupy a space on your shelf or hard drive.

The right to bear weakness. Again?

Yes, again.

Because this brackets with baring our own weakness, and that is the right to have weakness. Too often we want to instant-fix our brothers and sisters. The extent of that which is motivated by love and the desire to limit pain is good. When we get beyond that, though, into thinking that we should get to be surrounded by people with no weaknesses, or expecting that one church service will fix all of their problems, we are very, very wrong.

While we do not have the right to willfully wallow in our sin, we must acknowledge that some weaknesses go deeper than Bob Newhart’s Counseling Service:

We want to help, we want to overcome, but we must admit that it will take some problems a lifetime to lift. We have the right to bear weakness in the church.

We should learn to bare, bear, and bear within the church.

Today’s Nerd Note: A note on letter writing. Romans 15 feels like the end of the letter. Paul has told the church what he has to say, he shares his travel plans, and he says “Amen.” What is the deal, then, with having one more chapter?

Letters, especially from important teachers (Paul was one of many in the Roman world,) were often dictated through a scribal process. The proper term is, I believe, amanuensis for the individual who wrote letters. This person would be told what to write, write it, come back and have it approved or corrected. Then the actual sender would write a closing in their own handwriting. This allowed good handwriting to reign across the bulk of correspondence. I think, and this is partly based in some research, that we likely have the end of the “dictated” (not really the right term, since it implies word-for-word writing, but I’ve left that book elsewhere) portion in Romans 15. There are the closing farewells that are likely recorded by the amanuensis in 16, and then Paul’s farewell.

An additional thought: Paul writes in vv. 24-28 of his desire to go to Spain. Some traditions put him there in later years, but others do not. Do you think he got to Spain? Why or why not?

Have we never read this? Romans 14

Moving on through the whole Bible, we come to Romans 14. If we thought Romans 13 gave us trouble (check here), I wonder how many of us have actually even read Romans 14. This chapter addresses how we treat our fellow believers who understand Scripture differently than we do.

Now, it is easy to see this only in terms of the specific examples Paul gives in the chapter. Most of us are not excessively concerned with meat sacrificed to idols, and few of us actually debate whether or not church should be on Sunday or Tuesday. There are those who like to bicker about celebrating Easter or Christmas, and we would do well to consider these passages when we talk about those subjects.

I think, though, that we should examine these passages to grasp the principle here. The exact circumstances are fairly clear, and fairly infrequent for us today, so for what reason would the Holy Spirit inspire this passage into Scripture? There is a reason this is here for us today.

The principle here is not too hard to find, if you are willing to look. It is summarized in Romans 14:7-8, where Paul points out that “not one of us lives for himself.”

We make a fundamental mistake when we read Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” We read this and then jump to the conclusion that our freedom is all about us. We are free from sin, free from the Law, free from obligation! We are free from dead religion, free from pursuing righteousness to never find it, free from condemnation and hell! Hallelujah!

Yet then we assume that our freedom is for us to do whatever we darn well please. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our freedom in Christ is certainly about being free from condemnation. Certainly about being free from sin and death. It is not, however, about being free from obligation to our fellow believers.

This is Paul’s message here. You are free. You are strong in the faith. You fathom so many mysteries and subtleties and nuances and happenstances…

Yet you use your freedom and depth of understanding to run roughshod across the needs of your brothers and sisters in Christ. This is plainly unacceptable. So you are strong enough in faith to eat anything, drink anything, worship anytime?

Congratulations. How are you using that for the body? Because you do not live for yourself. You live for the Lord, and are the Lord’s, and ought to strengthen the Lord’s people in all things.

Instead, we continue to judge people by their weaknesses. We go ahead and label based on the temptations, struggles, or failures that we know of. Then we gloat that these are not our problems.

Yet our churches continue to struggle. Why?

Because in our pride of strength, we forget Romans 14:11: Every knee will bow.

Every knee.

Including yours.

Including mine.

There is not a one of us who will not kneel before God Almighty and confess Jesus as Lord and be made acutely aware of how much grace we needed. We will give an account for the stumbling blocks we have set before our weaker brothers. We will give an account for the ways we have been self-serving and chased after meat instead of fellowship.

I cannot think of one church conflict I have seen that was not over failing to live out Romans 14. I know of some from history that were truly over whether or not the Church would be Bible-centered Christian, but many current frets are over demanding that the Christian life be about us.

And it is not, nor has it ever been, about freeing you to do whatever you please. It has always been about freeing you to serve God.

Today’s Nerd Note: Camp out on the last phrase: Whatever is not from faith is sin. What do you do with that?

How can you neglect considering that in the Christian life?

Can we skip this one? Romans 13

I’ll say it up front: I would be far happier if Romans 13 were not in the Scripture. All the other parts of Romans, all of the slightly hard to understand parts, all of the deep theological parts, all of those I am fine with. I enjoy wrestling with those, debating those, pondering those.

Romans 13, on the other hand, is not hard to understand. It’s not really “deep theology” either. There’s nothing here to wrestle with. This is straightforward, no nonsense, action-oriented writing.

And it is very, very difficult to take. Start with verse 1 and realize that this applies to any aspect of government that does not demand clear disobedience to God and God’s Word. Any. That traffic control sign? That excessive tax? That annoying body cavity search before flying?

All of it. Why? Because governing authorities are established by God, even ones that photograph every piece of mail in the system. And those authorities are there to keep order. This is why we go ahead and get building permits and don’t park in front of fire hydrants.

“Wait a minute! What about when the government is wrong?” Wrong how? Wrong biblically or wrong for your convenience? Are they making you drive slowly or taking more of your paycheck than you want, or demanding you pay to kill unborn children? See, when it’s the former, we need to come back here. When it’s the latter, then Acts 5:29.

Additionally, for those of you in the United States and other constitutional republics (we are NOT a democracy—never have been, see Nerd Note 1 at the end): are the branches of government the authority? Or is it the founding documents and constitution of your nation? This is relevant: the US, UK, and many other Western-style republics work like this: the ruling authority is not a person, it’s a codified system. For the US, it is primarily the US Constitution, as amended (also in Nerd Note 1), and the body of laws built out of that. Your responsibility is to the law, not the Congress or the President. Your loyalty is always to Christ Jesus.

Keep in mind, Paul writes this to the church at Rome. Not the church at Jerusalem or at Britannia or at Hispania, the churches at the edges of the Empire. He addresses those right smack in the middle of the power. No one would have been more aware of the issues of the government than the Romans. No one would have been more inclined to be involved in conniving to replace Caesar, either.

Paul’s point is that the Christian life is focused on following Christ, and that allowing squabbling with the government to get in the way of that is foolish. Pay the taxes you owe, fulfill your responsibilities, and then focus on loving your neighbor and living as children of light, even in the midst of the darkness.

Further, Paul’s closing verses are equally challenging. Put aside carousing, sensuality, strife, jealousy—and make NO provision for the flesh to follow these. Too often, we make little provisions for the flesh in these matters. We allow the flesh to be entertained by these things, we allow the soundtrack of our lives to glorify these things.

Then we wonder why our faith barely sustains us in the hard times and transmits to others with more difficulty than passing a Frisbee in a hurricane. We give allowance to the flesh and then the flesh takes it all. This is not to call us into a dead legalism, and it certainly is not about me being the Holy Spirit for you—but it is about each believer using their freedom to glorify God.

Really and truly, while Romans 10 is challenging about being deliberate to spread the Gospel, Romans 13 is jam-packed with practical commands from God through the Scriptures. And the real life implications of those commands are pretty stout:

• Honor all laws legally instituted that do not contradict God’s Law.
• Focus on showing love to the people around you.
• Behave properly, as one who expects their behavior seen and known.

All pertinent and troubling. That’s enough to keep me busy for a few years. How about you?

Nerd Note 1: The US is not and never has been a “democracy.” We have the freedom to vote on the representatives who will make the laws that we, in turn, agree to follow. This is for practical reasons—can you imagine needing to have 200 million people vote on every law? This is for reasonability reasons—look simply at Justin Bieber. Is a majority of Americans always sensible?

The end result, though, is that we elect people not because of what we think, but because we think they will do the right thing. It is actually not that a Representative or Senator is obligated to do 51% of the constituency wants. That person was elected to vote what that person thinks is the right thing to do. The accountability comes at the next election: if 51% disagree, then a new person is elected.

Further, this complicates both race and gender issues. There’s much nonsense about how male legislators vote on “women’s issues” and shouldn’t, since they are not women. Except that our system of government does not work that way. My wife is represented in the Arkansas Legislature and the US Congress by men. I do not know if she voted for them, nor will I ask. But insisting that a man not vote on a so-called women’s issue removes her representation in government.

Additionally, the Constitution is the “Supreme Law of the Land.” There are methods for amending the Constitution, and those amendments, while separately listed, technically become the text of the document. So, the Constitution has been corrected for bad decisions in its writing, like allowing slavery. With the exception of the 18th and 21st Amendments, every Amendment has been positive for the nation. Those two cancel each other out, so they are not anything.

But following the Constitution is following it as amended. Because that’s the document. And that is the ultimate rule of law in this nation. Which means that there are conditions and situations where one might openly rebel against Washington D.C. and not be in violation of Romans 13, even if the spark of that rebellion was not a call to disobey God. Our established authority is the Constitution and all legally authorized laws established through its means. If the Federal System or a state system exceeds those means, then they are not the authority.

Nerd Note 2: Look at the idea of paying what is owed, but then connect Romans 13:7 with Romans 13:8: pay what you owe, but owe nothing if possible. While perfectly relevant for your Dave Ramsey course, this extends even farther than that, just as the rest of the chapter is all-encompassing. Do not limit this to being just about money.

Gifts of Transformers: Romans 12

There are certain realities at work in the world in which we live. One of those is the lingering impact of sin on humanity. We are not, any one of us, near the kind of person that we ought to be. When you assemble us together, we are much more like the Avengers in the first part of the movie, when they are more interested in fighting each other than they are in dealing with the enemy.

If you then take that tendency and put us in large groups, we form societies, and those rarely turn out perfectly either. The end result being that we cannot simply assume that every thing that is publicly acceptable is also acceptable for Christians to do. How do we shake out the difference?

Romans 12 gives us some insight into how we as Christians ought to live amid societies that are not driven by Christian teaching. (Which, by the way, is every society ever…some closer than others, but none perfect.)

First, we see this: our minds are not automatically what they ought to be. Otherwise, Paul would not have admonished the Romans to have their minds transformed. And if Roman society could have accomplished this for them, the call would not be to remain unconformed to the patterns of the world. Enlightenment cannot make us into the image of Christ.

So, what can?

That is what we see second in this passage. A list of some of the gifts of transformers for our mind, given by the grace of God through His spirit.

What are these?

First, there is the diversity of the body. We learn by being part of a community made up of people that are different from us. This is true whether the differences are in giftings, backgrounds, ethnicity, age, or gender. A church community that becomes one-dimensional on any of these weakens itself.

Second, there are the functions of members. People are gifted to help the church, and they are gifted in different ways. We are strengthened by learning from each other in those areas and manners. We are transformed to be more generous by knowing the ones who are gifted in giving. We are transformed to know the Word by the teachers, and become capable ourselves. We are transformed from inactivity by those who lead us to act!

Third, there are the fundamental acts and attitudes that we ought to have. Love without hypocrisy, devotion to one another, commitment to prayer. Returning good for evil, even when evil has been meted out to you in abundance. These are not the behaviors of worldly society. These are often not even the behaviors of nearly-Christian society.

And we wonder why our influence wanes. We strive to overcome evil with politics, to repay insults with insults. We want the power back to repay the abuse of power that we have seen. Within our own churches, we fail to give preference to one another or take diligent action to grow in faith.

What, then, do we expect?

Fellow believers, the reason we are losing ground in our churches is that we do not work through the life-transforming implications of the Gospel. Jesus died, rose again, and ascended that we could be alive in the Spirit—and then we take our cues from death about how to live.

While we will see society around us move in ever-varying directions, our own internal behavior is what we can and should control. Why would the spiritually dead seek life when our life looks just like their death? The current state of much of what we call the Western World is the result of the living looking dead so long that the dead think they’re alive.

This is no easy task, but we are not alone in it. Take a look back at Romans 12:1-3. We are given the grace and faith necessary.

Let’s put it to work.

Today’s Nerd Note: Notice the mood shift from Romans 1-11 to Romans 12 (and following). The Epistle hinges on the “therefore” in 12:1 and pivots from expressing general ideas to practical applications. That is not to say there is no practicality in Paul’s initial section and no ideas in the latter portion, but that is the general pattern.

It is important that we also seek a similar balance in our teaching methods. People need to understand the why as much as they need the what.

Failing for You: Romans 11

I wish I could say I understood every last nuance of Romans 11 (link). I don’t. Paul is at his most Baptist self here, as he connects rhetorical questions with Old Testament quotes and covers history from Abraham to his present day, including his own heritage. He has a point, but he also has a half-dozen sub-points.

I think we need to note something about those sub-points. I believe the Bible to be completely correct, truth without any mixture of error, God’s Word. However, I do not accept that we can cut out a phrase and claim that, absent its context and authorial intent, it means something odd or obscure. We need to be careful: Paul is not attempting to clear up every question the Romans hold on any theological issue that comes to mind.

He is focused on a single big question here: “God has not rejected His people, has He?” (Romans 11:1)

That is the point under consideration here. Now, we may accurately draw from this passage other ideas, but we need to not put words in Paul’s mouth here. Not simply because it’s unfair to Paul, but because the Holy Spirit did not inspire them, so we ought not add them in.

Now, back to the passage. Paul is discussing why it is that Israel has even been permitted to stumble. He has, over the past few chapters, expressed the depth of his concern for his people, Israel, and their rejection of Jesus.

We get into Romans 11 and we find Paul explaining why Israel was allowed to reject Jesus. Quite frankly, they were allowed to stumble in rejecting Christ because of us Gentiles.

They were, quite literally, failing for us.

If you read through Acts, you will see that the primary times the Gospel message went beyond the original audience of Jews and synagogues was when that audience rejected the message. Even the early examples of Gentile converts to Christianity were connected to Judaism: proselytes, God-fearers, and Samaritans.

As Paul is driven from the synagogues, though, he takes a more direct approach to moving the Gospel beyond those boundaries. The first recorded conversion to Christianity in Europe is of Lydia—a Greek woman who was praying by the river. I cannot, in the space of a blog, tell you all the ways in which that twists traditional religion.

The point Paul is driving at is this: be careful knocking down those who were instruments in God’s work in your life, even when they appear to have rejected Him. Why?

First, because oftentimes there is a history of godliness that are current generation may be ignoring. It would have been easy for the Gentiles to act superior, but the reality was that God had worked through the Jews for millennia. Just because there is an older generation not like you does not make them wrong…or fools.

Do you ever criticize former generations without truly considering what has changed since then?

Second, because there was a wisdom in their rejection. God used the rejection by the Jews to bring salvation to a lost and dying world. How could one criticize the very action that brought life? It would be akin to coming out of heart surgery and complaining about medical dissections of cadavers: you live because of what you mock.

Do you recognize the gains in your life that have come from other people’s losses?

Third, because grace is enough. Paul highlights that even though there was some rejection of Christ, there were also those from among Israel that accepted Him. Grace is enough, for once and for always.

Do you rely on God’s grace so much that you know it must be what holds the world together?

Get Your Feet Moving: Romans 10

If you want to know where I come to Scripture and feel the most inadequate, I don’t know that I will tell you my biggest struggle. Usually that fluxes between loving the Lord my God with all my heart, loving my wife as Christ loved the church, and not exasperating my children to wrath.

But consistently in the second spot of Scripture passages that motivate, convict, inspire, and flat-out smack me in the face is Romans 10. Specifically, Romans 10:14-15. Allow me the liberty, if you will, to express why.

To get there, we need to clear the verses around the ground in question. The section in question really starts with Romans 10:8 and runs through 10:17, so we will start there.

Romans 10:8-11 addresses the issue of how a person receives salvation in Christ Jesus. It is not a matter of making a pilgrimage or giving an offering; it is not a matter of personal self-denial or wanton indulgence. It is the combination of a true belief in the heart and the public confession of Christ. This is not merely reading off a statement or acknowledging an historical possibility, but a declaration based in the decision-making centers of life, coupled with the emotional, volitional, and spiritual parts of our nature. It is a willingness to agree that your eternity and your present are found only in the most impossible thing imaginable:

That God became flesh, dwelt among us, died for us, and then rose from the dead.

Now, I will not sandbag and say that self-denial and offering, worship and obedience do not follow this, but they cannot precede salvation and have any value before Almighty God. Salvation is by grace through faith alone, and the presence of that faith is revealed by confession!

This is the opening point on the passage, and it is the starting point for all who are believers. We should always remember where we start, but then we need to move on and move forward.

Moving forward, I am going to skip over the next two verses and deal with them later. Instead, let us jump ahead to Romans 10:13-15. Here is where this passage hits me the hardest. Why?

• “For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” That is not a possibility, that is a reality. While I would agree we have plenty to discuss regarding how people are enabled to call, and who will call, and whether or not God pre-picked or just pre-knew.

That is not the major point here. The point is this: whoever does call will be saved. End of discussion. It is not possible for a person to call upon God for salvation, believing that He is, that Christ is raised from the dead, and have God not respond to that prayer.

• “How, then, will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?”

Here is where it gets close to me: people do not call on Jesus because they do not believe. Why do they not believe?

Because they do not know. They do not know about Him or they cannot trust the sources they have for information, like we Christians. WE CANNOT CONTINUE TO MAKE THE GOSPEL UNBELIEVABLE BY OUR ACTIONS and INACTIONS.

• “How will they believe if they do not hear? And how will they hear without a preacher?”

Here is where it hits me hard. This is my life: I glorify God by passionately communicating truth to those I encounter. That is what I am supposed to do. So many times, though, I fail to do this. I miss the opportunities to speak the truth. I fail to live the truth.

I wait for the opportunities to come to me instead of going out after them. This is an area that I must improve. It is my largest, consistent failure in life.

That is why this passage disrupts me every time I read it. This is my calling. This is what I should do, what I must do.

This is what we should be about God’s people and Christ’s Church. Nothing less than providing the clear explanation of the Gospel to all those who need to hear. Whether it is those who need to hear amidst the clamor of drying American religion or those who have never heard at all.

Yet we do not. Moreover, I do not.

That must change.

It will change.

 

Let us all get our feet moving.

Today’s Nerd Note: Romans 10:12. No distinctions. Not in class or race, not in wealth or poverty. Not even in language or lack thereof.

We have, for centuries, rebuilt the barriers that Christ tore down. That has to stop. We must strive to proclaim the Gospel in all places, to all people, in ways that they can understand.

Never forget home: Romans 9

I am an American. I was born in Texas and have grown up either in the United States or attached to a US military base overseas. This country is my home. More than that, I have a certain region of the country that draws my heart more than any other, and that’s the region that I have spent the most time, here in the South where we say “coke” then ask if you want Coke for that coke or something else.

That’s who I am. Religiously, I’ve been a Southern Baptist since nine months before I took my first breath. Along the way, I have become a Christian and followed that up with becoming a Baptist preacher. A Southern Baptist preacher. And I continue to live in the South.

In short, I’m as Southern Baptist as Paul was Jewish. And when I look at his words in Romans 9, about his compassion for his people to know the truth. About his willingness to suffer for the sake of his home, I am put to shame.

Paul does not pull back, prop up, and lament how bad off things are and how they would be better if people would listen to him. Paul does not highlight those issues which annoyed him, nor does he lament that no one has come along and revitalized the faith.

Instead, he pours out his heart: that if it were possible, he would be cut off from God for his people. His heart is so much driven to the needs of others that he would pay any price possible.

I then stop and consider all the issues that I see in my own people.

I see the running problem with our heritage of racial issues here in the South.

I see the American government continue its decline into tyranny.

I see the Southern Baptist Convention ignore real issues as if it were a parody of itself.

And I can muster a vague “meh” and think about where my future lies. I shift to wondering why I do not just move on to another time, another place. Why do I care about finding positives to remember Stonewall Jackson by, in place of his slave-holding? Why do I want to see us get back to actually using the Constitution after a ten-year hiatus?  Why do I want to see soul competency, priesthood of the believer, and an end to the hierarchy building?

I want it for me. I want my future to be secure, my situation to be fine.

Where is my heart?

That just does not sound like the right thing. It sounds like my attitude falls far short of the ideal. Why will I not pay any price?

This is the challenge of Romans 9. This chapter is not simply about sorting through eschatological issues or discerning the identity of Israel. (Here’s a hint, there: Israel is descended from this guy in Genesis who is called….Israel.)

This chapter is about a simple question: Why will we not make simple sacrifices for the sake of home?

Home needs us. Yet we are worried about a great many other things. More than that, home needs the Gospel.

This is not a call to abandon the mission of telling the world. Nor a call to ignore everything else—I agree with the classic quote that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere (first record I can find is Martin Luther King, Jr., although I think I have seen someone attempt to trace where he first heard it.).

It is, however, to make this point: never forget home. Never forget where you came from, and be willing to do whatever is necessary to meet the real needs.

Today’s Nerd Note: The rest of Romans 9 is rich with Old Testament references and allusions, pointing to the electing purposes of God and to the glory of God’s grace. Take a read through it. Think about it.

Then look at Romans 9:21 and consider the old standby hymn that has us sing “Thou art the potter, I am the clay.” Are we going to complain that God molded some of us ordinary, while others got the looks, brains, whatever else? I am what I am.

Let me be grateful for His grace and be used as His vessel.

Labor Pains: Romans 8

The Apostle Paul and I share something in common. Neither of us have ever experienced labor pains, but that does not mean we will abstain from speaking of them as an illustration. Now, depending on your view of Paul’s biography, I may have a minor leg up in that I have been with someone through three sets of labor pains and he likely was not, but being there and being the one laboring are quite different.

Romans 8, though, uses the metaphor of childbirth to make a very clear point about the reality of the world we live in. Starting in Romans 8:18 and running through Romans 8:224, Paul underlines the contrast between the present suffering of creation and the future glory of eternity. Amidst that, he highlights the prominence of Christian believers in both of those aspects.

The comparison to childbirth makes the point well. There is the anticipation of something great, something that is partially known but not completely, yet it awaits on the other side of much pain and trouble. I can well remember waiting on our first two children to enter this world, not knowing if we would be seeing a little girl or a little boy. There was anticipation in the midst of the mystery and misery. There was that question—is this worth it?

I remember watching the pain and struggle on my beloved wife’s face as she went through the labor process. A few thoughts passed through my head. One of them being my responsibility for the pain she was in…another being about how the end of this, no matter how hard, was going to be worth it. And one being about how, no matter what, there would be a special bond between mother and child that would start at that point, and it would take years before Dad shared in it.

Then the pain got worse, and all I could see was the suffering. That’s it. Just the pain, just the frustration. The tears. When our son was born, I could see the strained look on the medical people’s face as they looked at blood pressures and saw them unhooking everything to roll down the hall for him to come out differently. That didn’t happen—the doctor took a last look and realized that he, after delaying to the point of trouble, was coming right then.

I think Paul is in those stages, and sees his fellow believers in those stages, when he writes this part of Romans 8. There is no fluffy “We can do this without pain medication!” talk anymore. There’s no watching M*A*S*H reruns (or baseball games!) on the LDR room TV. There is barely any thought of the outcome.

Just the painful process.

And he writes this to remind us a few important things:

1. You are not the only one suffering through the pains right now. It does not lighten your burden, true, but there is something to be said for not being alone. I will take Ann’s word for it, but she claims that having me there with her, even though I was not in pain, helped. Realize this: even though others are not suffering like you are, they are with you. They are there for you.

2. Go ahead and carry that image: it is the stuff of TV programs where the nurses, the doctor, and the patient are all pregnant and in labor at one time. In reality, there is one person going through the process and others are there to help. Some via expertise, some via presence. And some by staying away and keeping others safe, like Ann’s parents who had our other child/children both when the next one was born. If you are not in the midst of it, you are there to help others who are in it.

Alongside this: that is not the time to discuss how it happened. If you wanted to discuss family planning with us, during the birth our children was not the time. Nor was it the time to tell me about all my other shortcomings or how inadequate of a father I would be. One can address those things at a more appropriate time.

3. Paul points to the other side of suffering. He does not minimize the reality of it—after all, his view of birth pains did not include epidurals, sta-dol, or even Motrin for recovery. He simply focuses on the far side, the end-result and tells the Romans the suffering will be worth it.

That the suffering gives us the opportunity for hope, and that hope is what sustains us.

That’s a good thing, is it not?

We need the hope. The glorious thing about the hope we have in Christ is that there is no downside: there is a certainty that God will bring us through, that the result will be better than a baby that sleeps at night and smiles and snuggles all day long.

That is the hope of Christ. That God will, by the power of His Spirit and the sacrifice of Jesus, bring about better than can be imagined. That we are not left to find the light and follow it, but are drawn by God and pulled in by His love.

Today’s Nerd Note: Romans cannot really be done justice with a chapter a post, but that’s all I’m doing. Read it, re-read it.

Get it all in context. Be careful of the oft-misrepresented passage at Romans 8:28. All things are not good. All things work together for our good. There is a substantial difference.

Further, this chapter gives us a great hold on the assurance of salvation. Read 8:26-39 again. Look at how God is the one who saves, ordains, predestines, and sustains. Nothing separates us not from our faith but from His love. That’s a beautiful difference—it is not our strength but His will.

Natural Behavior: Romans 7

The most frequent excuse for our behavior is this: “It’s just natural!” Whether it is in the refrain of “Kids will be kids” or “I just couldn’t help myself,” typically we find our desire to cover up by blaming others just comes, well, naturally. The response is often that we should exercise more self-control, but Paul’s argument in Romans 7 is that self-control is useless, unless the self has changed.

Take a read through the passage. Sin is the owner and driver of human nature. Behavior that is ‘natural’ is not automatically good, and can in fact be quite bad. This can apply across the spectrum of human behavior—just because you like it and it comes naturally does not mean you should do it.

After all, I’ve yet to meet a gluten-allergic person who actually hated bread. Just ones for whom the ingredients were toxic but who had a love for it. Same with many other problem-raising behaviors: most of the time, it feels good. It’s the after-effect that kills us.

The difficult is that in the spiritual realm, it is not enough to reject the doing of sin by living according to the Law of God. Unlike learning to abstain from gluten or avoiding peanuts, or always carrying your Epi-Pen in case something slips past, we start off with the toxic effects. The Law only serves to demonstrate just how many ways we have this problem.

Seeing the Law as the source of the problem is like blaming cardiologists for congenital heart defects: it’s just the messenger, not the cause. Rather, we are born with the problem. It will, eventually, kill us. Some of us may exacerbate the difficulty by piling on issues, but it will get us all in the end.

The solution is not to act naturally. The solution is to change natures. This is where we are in Romans 7:4. Our old natures are not just to be controlled. Instead, they are to be put to death with Christ.

Then, by the settled work of Jesus at the Cross, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are made alive to live based on what is His nature, not ours. We still struggle with falling into our habits, falling back into what was once natural.

We can see that when we learn new things—consider handwriting. Consider my handwriting. It’s awful. Why? Because I learned to write with a broken arm, and have only lately begun to try and retrain myself. I still handwrite with my elbow locked at 90 degrees. I look foolish, and it’s quite inconvenient.

It just became natural when I started writing that way. I don’t have to do that anymore, but I still often do. Why? Muscle memory, old habits, call it what you will…

But it’s not necessary. I have to change the nature of my writing. It is a process which I am working on, when I think about it. (Aside: I’m using a Journible to go through Psalms, and I’m seeing positive improvement. Hoping to be legible by Psalm 119.)

Likewise is the life of the Christian. We are not locked into the cast of sin any longer, and are free to move in obedience to God. Instead, though, we often fall back and obey the old hardened self. It’s not necessary, and quite the opposite of what God has created us to be.

You see, that’s the problem for us: what is natural prior to being made new in Christ is the dead opposite of what God created us to be. We are naturally bent toward self, but are made to be bent toward God. And self-control is not the answer. Christ control, through the Spirit and the Word, is.

Today’s Nerd Note: There’s an old legend regarding a Roman punishment that connects to Romans 7:24. Allegedly, the Romans would chain criminals to corpses in some form of “body of death” punishment.

There’s precious little to substantiate the idea, and much to mitigate against it. That the concept is even considered reflect poorly on many of us preachers and teachers: there is no reason to repeat or recycle things that are probably not true. Be cautious, and teach with truth.

I Earned This! Romans 6

Carrying on through the whole Bible, it’s back to the New Testament and Romans 6. Paul continues to expound on the glory of salvation and the grace of God in this chapter. Romans 5 ended with the idea that grace increases to match the amount of sin present. Romans 6, then, starts with a very clear statement:

Do not sin just to experience grace.

That really should not have to be said, but it did then and it does now. True, we live in the freedom of the Spirit and are not obligated to the Law, but there is a difference in living freely under the Holy Spirit and living like God has no standards whatsoever. The Word guides us in living, and Believers in Christ cannot live in violation of God’s holiness without the Spirit moving in their lives to convict and change them.

And we certainly do not sin just to see what it is to be forgiven. Doing so shows a poor understanding of sin: sin affects far more than just your personal situation. It impacts across your entire circle of influence, and that cannot be taken lightly.

This is not the focus of Romans 6, though, merely the opening statement. There’s something to be learned from Paul here in terms of rhetorical methods and teaching styles:

Be aware of the likely misunderstandings of what you say and take time to correct them.

Diverting into modern blogdom, especially, we need to see how Paul does this. He does not wait until the end of his letter and then say, “Keep in mind, I didn’t mean (reference to misinterpretation).” He does not wait for the Second Epistle to the Romans to fix the misunderstandings. Neither does he say that people should no better than to think he would ever mean such a thing—he simply sees the pitfall and corrects. Immediately.

Do the same thing in your writing, teaching, and preaching.

Paul, though, is not writing to provide an example of rhetorical styles. We can learn that, but he’s got bigger fish to fry. His focus throughout this chapter is on what we people manage to earn with our efforts.

His point is right at the end of the chapter where he highlights that the wages of sin are death. (Or that the wages of sin is death, depending on your translation.)

Wages. What are wages? Quite frankly, we all know what wages are. Wages are what we earn for doing things. Sin earns death. It is not that we as people are naturally good and only a few people are so bad as to deserve death.

It is that we all, when we sin, earn death. We deserve it. Humanity, even when we see people come together and care for one another at crisis times, consistently earns death through our actions.

This runs counter to the common cultural critique that many preachers are always condemning people and being judgmental. Actually, we’re not. We are expressing that all of us are in the same boat, and that’s a boat that is not just going down, but going down fast.

Paul spends Romans 6, though, not on how bad the situation is. Instead, his focus is on the solution. His focus is where ours ought to be:

The gift of God.

Grace. Mercy. New life. Freedom from sin.

This is who Christ has made His followers: alive in Him, never to be mastered by death again. This is Paul’s focus, and so it should be ours: not what we were, rather

Focused on the One who has made us what we are and what we will be.

The call of the Christian is just that: to acknowledge that everyone of us were pulled from the same death, brought to the same life, and all by the same Savior. Since this is true, we go forward and seek Him and those He brings across our path to share the same message with: life, grace, and hope.

Let this be our push: most people already feel dead and hopeless. Proclaim the new life bought by the death of Jesus to them, and let Him work in their lives. It will be worth it.

Live your Christian life as if you were alive in Christ, not still dead, or at least mostly dead, in your sins. You are not waiting for full potency: get to it!

Today’s Nerd Note: Consider the all-encompassing nature of Romans 6:10. The death that He died, He died to sin once for all.

That “for all” is nicely vague in the Greek, and I think that’s actually what is intended. Was the death “for all” the redeemed? Certainly. Was the death “for all” the power of sin to end? Absolutely. Was His death “for all” time, without needing repetition? Without a doubt.

One thing to be wary of in Biblical translation and interpretation is this: At times, Biblical writers were vague or ambiguous on purpose. They wanted to economize on words and say as much as possible in as few words as possible. After all, it was a time of hand-written, hand-copied, and orally delivered messages. You wanted that.

So do not make something finite on only one side of a meaning, even if it does seem to add clarity. It’s just not always the right decision.

A certain reign: Romans 5

We continue into the book of Romans. I will again confess to you that a good commentary or two will help you as you dig through this text and will certainly be more exhaustive than my own offering here. That being said, here’s a look at Romans 5: it’s about the reign of death.

Well, and the end of that reign.

Romans 5 is a prime example of why, even though verse-by-verse and word-by-word study is helpful, you cannot only study the Bible in small blocks. Instead, we see here why it is necessary to take the sweep of Scripture together in order to understand the smaller units.

Paul’s points in Romans 5 are these:

1. Death came through Adam
2. Death kept reigning even with the Law from Moses
3. Life comes through grace
4. Grace came through Jesus.

Now, without knowing Adam and Moses, how well do we grasp the first two of Paul’s points? Not very well. The latter two points are the positive ones, and they are well worth knowing—but the importance is somewhat diminished if we do not understand the deficit we start with.

This is critical to understanding of Paul’s line of thought: there is no “neutral ground” in the concepts of Scripture. One is either dead or alive, righteous or wicked, eternally secure or eternally lost. This is before we started shading things into “mostly dead” and “slightly alive” or other such halfway-positions. Our modern viewpoint puts slides where hard jumps ought to be: certain things are absolute. Life and death are one of those.

Life and death are the picture used by Paul to illustrate the spiritual reality of humanity in Romans 5. While we are not physically dead, we as a species are spiritually dead from the get-go. That death keeps us from God, because in Him is life, and death and decay are not found in His presence.

A note is due here regarding exceptions to the rule: there are none. That does not mean that God, in His mercy and righteousness and justice, treats those incapable of spiritual action, like infants or those whose mental conditions prevent it, in a fully appropriate, grace-filled and loving manner. I think the ability to do this and satisfy the laws of righteousness and justice is made possible by the willing sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, but exactly how one would “chart” it I will not speculate.

Death came in through the first created man: Adam. Good old Adam. He has left such a heritage that we even deny his existence these days. Through his and Eve’s willful decision to violate God’s one command, “Don’t eat that!” they brought sin into the world. Death followed sin, because the wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23). Physical death is the side effect of the spiritual death that sin brings. Why? Because humanity was created in the image of God, who is spirit (John 4) and so people are spirit in a body. And losing the spiritual vitality of that initial creation wrecks the body as well.

Death came in then, and stuck around. Even in the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12. Even in the Exodus and all of the Law and Tabernacle and everything surrounding the Exodus, death reigned: people still died, most without a knowledge of God at all.

Because neither the liberty to simply follow human conscience nor the constraints of a multitude of religious, civil, and moral laws can undo the damage of sin. It’s just not enough. The original bent that was brought in by Adam can not be straightened out by law or freedom.

It takes the hammer of grace to beat it out. The hammer of grace, that drove the nails into Jesus at the Cross, is the only hope for any of us. Not because it enables us to live, on our own, up to the holiness of God but because Christ died in our place.

The reason that it took such drastic action is that we are not spiritually “snoozing” or even “comatose” without grace. We are dead. Separated from the love of God and the created purpose of our lives. Since we were dead, we could not help ourselves, and so someone had to save us.

That someone is Jesus. His saving work was not just for His people, the Jews, but for all people, which is great news. His saving work was not for righteous or godly people—it was for ungodly people. Which we all are at the outset.

This grace is a glorious thing. The deeper trouble we were in, the longer dead or the more decayed, the more grace there is to counteract that. The more grace there is to rescue us.

It all comes through one person: Jesus. Strangely enough, we see an effort to act like He never really was, either. For many decades we have seen growing denials of Adam and his bringing of sin into the world, and that is joined to the growing denials of Jesus and His bringing of life into the world.

Yet there was a certain reign: death reigned in all humanity.

Until the reign of the King of Kings.

We deny Him at our own peril and to our own great loss.

Today’s Nerd Note: There are some efforts to make a symbolic interpretation or a non-literal-Adam interpretation compatible with Genesis 1-3. However, any such interpretative moves must remain compatible with the theology expressed here in Romans, for God does not contradict Himself. So, if God through Paul says Adam brought sin and death, then God through Moses would not say that Adam was not real. Or vice-versa.

This comes back to the original point: we interpret Scripture together. Genesis needs Romans, Romans needs Genesis. To study one and neglect the other is to neglect it all.

It is as it was: Romans 4

Carrying on through the whole Bible, we come to Romans 4. Go ahead, take the time to read it. You can use this handy-dandy link to pull it up on the screen, and then just close that tab to come back here.

Paul has finished his introductory matter for his letter to the Romans. It has been a longer introduction than his other letters, partly because Paul has not yet been to the church in Rome. He has a general idea what is going on there, as the church is made up of people like the church anywhere—which means certain things are automatically true. We see those in Romans 1-3: the church is made up of redeemed sinners living in the midst of sinners.

Practical point 1: This bears making plain: churches are made up of redeemed sinners living in the midst of sinners. Therefore, there is no perfect church out there. Every gathering will have practical, doctrinal, missional, or other flaws in how they do what they do. Get over yourself and take part.

Now that Paul has established the overall need for grace in the first three chapters, he comes back to illustrate the point. His audience recognizes the Jewish heritage of Christianity which makes his first point logical: Abraham.

Abraham is honored as the patriarch of the Jewish faith as well as the origin point for the Jewish people. (Yes, there’s a difference: one can convert to Judaism, but that does not make one ethnically Jewish. Likewise, one can be a half-Jewish individual because of parentage.) Abraham is also hailed as one of the originators of monotheism in general. This attribution is debated, and those who recognize Genesis as accurate realize that it was God’s idea not Abraham’s, but still, the point holds.

Practical Point 2: If you want to make an argument, start from common ground. For some arguments and people, you may have to start with the idea that water is wet, but try to find a place of agreement and work forward.

Vocabulary Point: ARGUMENT: discourse intended to persuade or a reason given in proof or rebuttal. NOT always an angry moment.

Paul highlights the history of Abraham and draws from Genesis 15 where the text records that “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Economics is the next digression for Paul, as he points out that what one works for is not “credited to him” but is owed to him. In the Roman economic system, something “credited” in this fashion was a favor bestowed undeserved.

The idea, then, is that Abraham acted by believing, but that this itself was not enough to be counted as righteous. Instead, the righteousness of Abraham is shown as a credited favor from the one in whom Abraham placed his faith. The quote from the Psalms (Psalm 32:1-2) bears out that God is the credit-grantor in this case.

Expounding on the heritage of Abraham, Paul highlights that this event is prior to the circumcision of Abraham, and even predates the birth of Isaac his heir. The promise to Abraham is fulfilled not simply by his fathering of Isaac but instead in his faith. Ultimately, the promise is found, according to Paul, in the coming of Jesus who was handed over for trespasses and raised up for our justification.

Practical Point 3: Doing what God commands does not earn us anything. God’s favor credits His people with righteousness, and so we work in response to Him. This is critical to our understanding of Christianity as life and religion: the favor of God is granted by grace alone and our actions follow that. Otherwise, we collapse toward self-serving behavior.

Today’s Nerd Note: One issue we have in Bible Translation is that there is no good English word for the Greek word “pisteuw” which is the verbal cognate of “pistis” that we translate as faith. The best we can do is to put this as “believe” but that leads to missing a few of the connections. Further, we have varying degrees of believing in things in modern America, and there really are not those nuances in Greek. To believe/have faith in/”pisteuw” is to fully trust.

So is there a better way to communicate this?

Wrong People, Right God: Romans 3

One thing that is over-abundant in our society is people who can point out ways in which people fail to live up to what they claim God holds as a standard. Whether you take hate groups masquerading as churches, destructive predators masquerading as pastors, or the cowards who enable the above groups, all around us are people who create a massive public relations problem for God.

We see this in history: there are a good many moments when we as Christians have not upheld the best of what the Bible teaches. There were many centuries of using the power of the state to enforce religious conformity. That should have been, should always be, a matter of individual conscience and not law. I would prefer that everyone worship the same God as I do, in the same way that I do. I think that I am right in how I understand the Bible and why I do what I do.

However, you should only be in danger of a rousing debate over coffee and pie with me for that. I believe eternity hangs in the balance of what one believes, and so it is far too important for the government to get involved with. I would far rather peacefully yet passionately tell you what I believe and trust the Almighty God of Creation to convince you. Let the police slow you down so you do not kill my children on the highway, but keep them out of the religious world.

We see it in events like the overall entrenchment of anti-Semitism as the wrong-headed response to the Crucifixion; the power politics of the Borgia Popes; witch trials and other persecutions of ‘different’ people. We see it looking back at the overall idea of religious warfare, from internecine doctrinal battles that turned to war to the Crusades the to the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries.

It crops up in modern times when people misdirect God’s Word to allow pastors to behave shamefully without accountability. When religious organizations hide illegal actions behind supposed religious exemptions, it’s there. We see it when money drives the church to use people for money, rather than seeing people drive the church to use money for people.

The laundry list of sins across two millennia of the followers of Jesus on earth gets ugly. One can draw the right conclusions from this, or the wrong ones. Here is the reality, as we see it Romans 3:

1. Paul points out that God is true, even if every man is a liar. This includes himself. It includes the Pope, your pastor, Billy Graham, or me. God’s righteousness and truth are what we call independent in theological circles. Nothing about God depends on man, no matter what man does. Can we reflect poorly on God? Without a doubt.

But God is right, even when no person is left being right with God.

2. Paul then refutes the idea that unrighteousness does not matter, since God is always right and just. Be cautious not fall into what theologians call antinomianism which is typically understood as the idea that you can do whatever you want and it’s okay. After all, if you sin, then God shows grace which brings Him glory, and that’s good, right?

God is right, and His people should strive to be right based on His revealed standards in the Word.

3. Finally, we come to this point: is there anything mankind can do to save themselves? Is there any hope?

We find that the answer is no. The Law of God is very clear about what is sinful, and those sins are too easy for us to fall into. After all, sin is typically easy or fun, and often easy fun, else we would never do it. People fall into sins of the heart, the mind, and the body—and because of these sins need saving. Saving from themselves, saving from the wrath of God, saving from the realities of the moral laws of existence.

That saving is not found in any work that we can do. It is not found in law-following nor even in fancy lawyering out from under law-breaking. It is found in one place:

Faith in Christ is the solution to our sin.

There are fancy words in this passage, like propitiation, which reflect the action taken by God to remove the inability of mankind to have a relationship with Him. Do not be taken aback by these, and read them, look them up, google it, Bible Dictionary it, email someone—whatever you need to grasp the concept.

Because the concept is important:

Christ alone is the solution to our sin.

This is one of the glories of the truth of Christianity: while we believe that there will be Christians somewhere living until the end of time when Christ returns, even if the visible church is stamped out, the Church will return because the Truth cannot die out. Even if all professing Christians turn apostate, Truth does not change.

That truth?

Faith in Christ, faith alone, is the solution to sin, the opening of the way to heaven, and obedience follows this as naturally as exhale follows inhale.

No matter what any person living or dead does. No matter the behavior of the enemies of the Cross, even if they wear the uniform of the Savior simply to disgrace Him.

Today’s Nerd Note: While Paul is stressing here the importance of salvation by faith, do not miss the whole of Romans 3 and the idea that behavior follows salvation. Sinful behavior reveals the need for salvation and righteous behavior reveals the presence of salvation, but without faith the latter is pointless.

Do not mistake Paul to be saying that there is no need to live righteously. Do not mistake me to be saying that there is no objective right and wrong and that much behavior that exists is wrong. Do grasp this: Paul lived in a pluralistic, paganized culture that celebrated many things that were sinful; we live in a pluralistic, paganized culture that celebrates many things that are sinful. The focus must be on proclaiming the Gospel that changes hearts more than on changing behavior. Changed hearts change behavior.

Some behaviors should be curtailed by outward power because of their impact on others: we ban child marriages for a reason; we institute driving regulations for a reason: that people live to make their own choices; that people not die at the hand of reckless others. If life is at stake, the law is necessary.

Consider what areas this really divides into that matter in your activism and political/legal wrangling where you are. Here in America, there are certain implications. What are they were you are? What are they here?

Who goes first? Romans 2

Carrying on into Romans, we find both comfort and consternation, peace and problems, doom and delight. The chapter is the transition between Paul explaining in Romans 1 why the Gentiles are in need of a savior and headed to the next chapter where he explains why the Jews need a savior. Romans 2 gives us some helpful ideas to work with as we look at the need for salvation and the way to be saved.

1. Salvation is not about human judgment. This one has probably been an issue since the first apostolic sermon: Christians proclaim that some people are going to Hell. It is not, however, that Christians are deciding who is going and who is not going. The Word of God says plainly that every person violates God’s Law and, on top of that, knows it (or at least ought to know it). Romans 2 points out that no person has the right to judge another, because all are sinners. Someone proclaiming the Gospel is not judging any more than those legal notices in the paper are foreclosing on mortgages: the facts at hand are being stated. Want to avoid the foreclosure in the paper? Don’t call the Daily Planet. You have to call the bank.

Want to avoid eternal judgment? Don’t fuss that you were told it’s coming. Go to the One who can bring salvation.

2. Salvation is not about human judgment. Guess what? No matter how anyone else feels about you, they cannot keep you from God. Likewise, no matter how anyone else feels about you, they cannot force you to God. Nor do you have the power to keep away those you dislike. This is not about how you judge. Your likes and dislikes do not empower eternity. Neither does your approval: you may find someone moral and upright, but you cannot get them into eternity.

3. Salvation is not about human judgment. You may judge one people better or worse than another, but God’s blessing and God’s judgment will pass through all people. Some will be saved from all the earth, others will be judged. Being an American is no guarantor of salvation, being an American is no guarantor of judgment. It falls, as Romans 2:16, through Christ Jesus.

4. Salvation is not about human judgment. You judge one sin worse than another, but all sin separates people from God. Perhaps there are degrees of punishment in eternity, certainly there are degrees of consequence in this life—just as jabbing yourself in the leg with a scalpel is different than jabbing your eye. However, all sin separates us from God. Beyond knowing that reality, why bother sorting it out? As Dr. Einstein points out to Jonathan Brewster in the theological classic Arsenic and Old Lace, one guy ends up just as dead as the other—why stress about how quickly they died? A tad more focus on the big picture, that every individual person needs Christ for salvation, and a tad less on whether it’s because of sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, or financial corruption would benefit the church of the Living God.

5. Salvation is not about human judgment. It is about divine grace and provision. About the kindness of God, intended to bring us to repentance. That’s the point. His kindness. His grace. Our repentance. There is nothing about God that needs to change, but all the ways in which we have turned from Him that we need to turn back.

So let’s turn our eyes from trying to judge. We will still be accused of being “judgmental” but that will likely never change. Herod didn’t care for John the Baptist’s judgmental attitude, either. Truth is what it is—declare it and go forward. And rather than stress about what order judgment or grace comes, because it is clear that Paul states that both came to the Jew first, recognize that Jesus coming first is all that matters.

Today’s Nerd Note: I am not going to take a firm eschatological viewpoint here, but the end of Romans 2 has a phrase or two that bears on the end-times. Or at least are thought to do so. Some hold that Paul’s references being a Jew is inward in Romans 2:28-29 mean that the end-times bear no distinction, that followers of Jesus are now who any end-times prophecies about “Jews” refer to.

I do not think that case can be made simply from this passage. Paul’s reference is clearly about the current issues of Law-following and salvation, not about end-times situations. If one wants to argue that the Church now fulfills all that Israel once did, then I think that has to come elsewhere. I think that Scripture holds up that the Church has a role and that Israel has a role, but that only through Jesus does salvation come.

That said, I don’t find a clear system I like for the end-of-the-world. Other than calmly knowing that no matter how bad it gets, eventually Jesus puts a stop to it all and His kingdom is forever. Do we need anything else?

Obligatory Foolishness: Romans 1

We finished Acts in our Through the Whole Bible Series. Obviously, much more could be said about every inch of that book, but the goal is not to exhaustively plumb the depths of each nuance of Scripture. The goal is to take a look through and find high points or overlooked subtleties along the way. At some point, hopefully soon, I’ll do a separate post with some recommended resources to dig deeper on the passages that have been covered in this series.

I will admit, though, that I reminded you of that background for a reason. Starting with today, I am going to cover Romans in the same manner. Romans is a beautiful book. In all honesty, just about every theological concept necessary to the Christian faith is expressed in Romans—we need the whole Bible for the whole picture, but Romans makes for a really nice framework to fill in for that puzzle.

And Romans 1 is dense. There is enough to wrestle with in the opening word of the letter to keep us busy for a week: Paul. His story and personality alone could fill a blog series for months. Then there is how he identifies himself: Slave Paul, belonging to Christ Jesus. He counts his apostle status as something he is “called” but his servanthood to Jesus is who he is. Wrap that around your head for a day or two.

That’s just the first phrase. The first chapter of Romans has been involved in the conversion of Martin Luther and the faith of John Wesley. The answers to several questions regarding theology and the nature of judgment are found in Romans 1. Modern history could be expressed in this chapter. There is much here, and you should read and re-read it. Study and understand what it is that “the just shall live by faith.”

Yet I want to shine a little light onto Romans 1:14 & Romans 1:22. Taking the latter first, Paul is summarizing the response of the heathen nations to the general revelation of God. In theological terms, general revelation is the manner in which the created universe reveals God. It is visible to all. Romans 1:22 states that, though the general revelation of Creation was there for all to see, most people turned their back on God and instead worshiped idols.

Why would we do such a thing? Simply put, we became too smart for our own good. Our own wisdom leads us, at times, to think we are capable of figuring out and understanding everything all on our own. Then, as we claim this depth of knowledge, we actually become fools. Fools who do not recognize their own foolishness.

Where do we turn? Romans 1:14 gives us that guideline: Paul tells the Romans that he is under obligation to fools and to the wise, to proclaim the Gospel. What does that mean?

1. No matter how smart we are, we need the ever-stabilizing truth that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Whatever level of wisdom we have, that is standard.

2. No matter how foolish we become, we are not foolish beyond being saved by the righteousness of God, revealed by faith as it is written. No amount of blindness due to our cultures, our sins, or our own intelligence is so strong that God cannot overcome it to bring salvation.

3. Whatever claim we make in churches that we are trying to reach “group A” or “group B,” the reality is that we are under obligation to all groups to proclaim the Gospel. If your church does not welcome all who have sinned and fall short of the glory of God to hear the Gospel, that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, then you are failing in the obligation. Yes, hip church, this means your anti-necktie stance that alienates suit wearers is sinful. Yes, stuffy high church, this means your anti-open-collar stance that alienates normal people is sinful. All the more, if your church is only worship-friendly to people that check the same “ethnic” box as you, that must change. And you, hyper-techie church that does all your meeting digitally? All those folks who just use their phones to make calls need the Gospel, too, you know…

And yes, this includes the church I pastor and how we must adapt. Our obligation is not just to the people we like. It is not just to the people we approve of.

It is for wise people and foolish people.

If that means we are counted fools by the world for rejecting its wisdom, then we are obligated to foolishness. Proclaim the Gospel, and let God do his work.

Today’s Nerd Note: I would commend, again, to you the history of how God has used Romans 1, especially vv. 16-17. Look it up in a good commentary or Study Bible.

Further, consider the lists of sinful behaviors in Romans 1:29-31. These all come back to the same root issue. What is that issue?

Notice also that these run the gamut, from murder to being disobedient children. There are heart-sins and action-sins. It all matters.

Monday May 17 & Romans 16:20

Ok, well, yesterday was a good day at church, with just a few minor blips.  However, you can click back to the previous post and listen to the whole AM service and the sermon from Sunday night and judge for yourself.  (Alternately, you can take the podcast.  It's worth every penny!*)

I found Kara Sawyer's testimony particularly challenging to me.  I'm on a slow roll towards finishing a degree, and her testimony of dealing with life and finishing hers pushed me to make sure I'm striving as I should toward my own.

This morning, I was finishing up the book of Romans in my study time.  I've only been pouring through this book for about a year now, and finally, I've come to the end.  Romans 16:20 struck me:

"The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." (NASB)

What struck?

1.  God crushes.  Not me.  Leave it to Him.

2.  Satan is the promised crushed one.  He's the enemy, not anyone else.  Including politicians.

3.  God remains the God of peace even though He crushes.  Why?  Because peace requires evil be crushed.  Peace-making requires disposing of evil.

 

Paul ends with this statement:

"To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen." Romans 16:27 (NASB)

Is that my focus today?  Yours?  Our church focus?  That to Him be the glory, forever?  And do we grasp how serious an "amen" is?  It's born of a vow, the solemn word of a person of honor.  I had a professor in college state that an "amen" was placing your life in agreement, even if it costs your life, with the statement.  Is my life committed to the glory of the Only?  Um.  Perhaps I need to work on that.

 

Doug

 

*For those of you who don't know it: Podcasts are free. To upload and download.

Romans 16:16

16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.

Romans 16:16 (ESV)

I thought I'd take a look at this verse, and ponder a few things that come from what it says. 

I.  This verse gives us a good look into how we don't take the Word at face value these days.  How many of us greet our fellow church members with a kiss?  (International readers, we know some of you do.)  Why do we not do what the Word says?

II.  Ah, we don't do it because we're not convinced that, while it seems to be a plain command, we shouldn't just automatically do it.  Why not?  Typically, we don't do the plain commands of Scripture because we think we shouldn't have to do them.  Now, some of you are wondering how to get around this, aren't you?

III.  This verse shows the need to extract the meaning through the cultural context.  The greeting with a holy kiss would be culturally the action of greeting between people that know, trust, and honor each other.  So what is Paul's command worth to us?  Is it just that we should greet one another in the appropriate manner to shows fellowship, trust, honor, and love?  Many churches in America say this is why we greet with a handshake or a hug, if you're a hugging church.

IV.  I don't think this is right.  I think Paul is reminding the church at Rome that is appropriate in church to greet one another in accordance with our relationships.  In other words, he's not commanding that the Romans greet each other with a holy kiss to check off the holy kiss on their activity in church card.  He's pointing out that, since they do have true fellowship with one another, let it be shown.

V.  The point is this: we have developed a habit of reading Scripture searching for actions to take.  Now, that's a good thing, as far as it goes, but the same God who said "Rend your hearts and not your garments" (Joel 2:13) is the one we follow.  The actions we are seeking should be reflective of where our hearts stand, not our surface level of actions.  Rather than figuring out whether we should kiss or handshake, we should be focused on building the attitude that results in the right actions.

VI.  A final warning: we cannot go disregarding the actions mandated by Scripture.  While we do need to discern whether the actions are cultural or timeless, and how they apply to us, we cannot just toss them out.  Whether we are looking for a loophole because we don't like them, or because we're not really up to it.  Our hearts ought to lead to action, else our hearts aren't really where we claim they are.  This is, however, not perfectly evident here.  It's the whole message of the book of James, though.  The "intentions" are useless if they do not lead to action.

 

Doug

A follow up on Romans 12:9-13

One more brief word about this passage, which I commented on yesterday. 

In the Greek, the verse begins with "the love" (I can't get the Greek font to work.  It's the definite article followed by agape.)

The word is used for a couple of things in the New Testament.  The first is the most commonly understood: agape as reflected in divine love.  It's the type of love God shows and that we as Christians are called to give.

There's another usage, though, that might be applicable here.  Some records show that the early Christian church held meals together (see, they were Baptists!).  These were times where the rich brought what they could, the poor what they could, and they ate and fellowshipped.  These times were generally held at the same times that the majority religion would have been doing the same type of activity (think: having a group of Christians get together during American Idol because all the pagans are busy ;-o ).

The Christian meal likely featured teaching, fellowship (the real kind, where you actually strive to encourage and strengthen each other), and observing the Lord's Supper.  This was, at times, undertaken at mortal risk during times of persecution. 

And it was called "The Love" or, perhaps, "The Love Feast."  Now, we have certain opinions of anything termed a "Love Feast" so we don't use that term much in American churches.

I see here, though, an additional facet to Paul's instruction to the Roman church.  First, there's the basic idea of love without ulterior motive, love that is shown in actions that strive to be in concert with the best of intentions.  Then there's the idea that when the churches gathers there is to be no deception or false pretense for the meeting.

This is not to shoot down official church drama groups, but rather to address the unofficial church drama groups.  The prayer meetings that are gossip sessions.  The Bible Studies that are about everything but the Word.  The fellowships that are about eating and talking but not about breaking past the cliques that form in our churches.  The worship that's about the music style or our schedule and not about recognizing God's presence with us.

It's a call for the actions of the church together to be about what we say they are: real fellowship, true study, honest worship, effective service.

Can we get there?

Doug

Romans 12:9-13

This passage struck me this morning. 

9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Romans 12:9-13 (ESV)

The NASB renders Romans 12:9 as "Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good."  (by the way: literal Greek here:" "The love not hypocrisy."  Based on my depth and breadth of Greek knowledge, I'd translate this as "Love without hypocrisy" for a Greek class.  I'd then read it from NASB when preaching and the first point would be: Love should be genuine.)

Now, I wanted to address this.  Love without hypocrisy.  What is hypocrisy?  We hear the word a lot, and the meaning has faded.  A brief venture into the Greek language shows that the word originated as a compound of "ὑπό" and "κρισις."  Now, that "κρισις" also come down to us as "crisis."  Initial meaning on the separate words are "under or beneath" and "decision," but remember that words evolve on their own.  Consider "butterfly" in English.  Whilst it does fly, it isn't made of butter, so knowing the meaning of "butter" doesn't help one understand.

A hypocrite was initially a term applied to actors in Greek dramas, that they had to hold their own selves under the character.  Then, however, an actor or two went into politics and other serious work.  They were mocked as being so good as an actor that they were even well pretending to be qualified for real work.  Thus, the word began a path to a negative connotation.  It then hits its Biblical-era meaning range: basically of a person who does one thing while meaning, saying, or believing in an opposite idea.  Hypocrisy is the action of a hypocrite.  Since those times, we see an expansion of the meaning beyond this, into any action that differs from a person's expressed words and opinions is called hypocrisy.  I don't think it's appropriate to read this meaning back to Biblical times.  This is likely why the ESV uses "genuine" to address this.

Love should be without hypocrisy.  This should be taken to mean that we do not profess or act out love when we, in our hearts, don't have any love.  This isn't to say we should only love when we feel like it, rather that we should choose to act out the love we claim to have.

Another thing to note is that we shouldn't equate hypocrisy with failure.  In other words, just because I fail to live up to what I define as important, that doesn't make me a hypocrite.  That makes me a sinner, but not a hypocrite.  If I never have any intention to live up to my expressed standards, that's hypocrisy.

Why does this matter?  Because we are often too quick to judge others and ourselves as hypocrites when our actions are inadequate.  And this judgmental habit feeds inaction, because no one wants to be a hypocrite!  Yet the death of our churches (not of The Church, but of many of our local branches) is so often found in that inaction.  Are there churches that fail for hypocrisy?  Yes, but many more I believe falter for inaction.

We've got to began to go ahead and act!  Even at the risk of acting but falling short.  Even at the risk of realizing we're not as amazing as we thought we were.  Let's get off the fence and act!

 

Doug