Entries For: February 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Free from Law & Will, Romans 7 by Rachel Cooke and Tim Hurst
Next week's entries on Free from Death through the Spirit will be written by Michael Womble and Andy Brown.
Romans 7:1-6 (Rachel Cooke)
This passage focuses on Paul’s continuing discussion on a Christian’s relationship with the law and sin. Here, he uses an analogy, which he knows his audience will understand: the laws of marriage. The basic argument is that marriage is a binding while both people are alive. If one dies, the marriage is no longer binding. However, if both people are alive and one person marries another, that would be adultery.
Throughout this passage, Paul uses the language of being bound and being free. He uses this language when describing marriage to set the framework for the point he intends to make about the law.
“In the same way” that the law applies to marriage, it also applies to Christians regarding the Jewish law. Because we have died to our old lives and the law through Christ, we are now free to be united with Him.
Furthermore, while bound to the law, Paul says, “we were living in the flesh,” which he says equates to working to “bear fruit for death.” But by dying with Christ, “we may bear fruit for God.”
Continuing in the language of bondage and freedom, Paul closes this passage by describing us as slaves, but “not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” This slavery to the “new life” offers freedom.
These verses reinforce what it means to be united with Christ and how that changes our lives. While this passage clearly speaks to the Jewish Christians who may have been struggling to let go of the Torah, we can also glean significance from Paul’s analogy. It is only by the death of the law that we can be “married” to Christ. Life in the Spirit must take the place of life in the law.
I think it may be helpful to imagine what a life-changing idea this might have been to those who built their lives around learning and serving a law that was given to them to follow. How radical would it have been to look at that law in a new light and then, decide to bind them by committing to Christ instead of the law? Especially confusing would have been how this would look in practice. Would they ignore the law, much of which conforms to basic morality and ethics? What does it mean to be “discharged from the law”? Paul addresses this in other areas of Romans, but this question of practicality applies to us as much as it did the Christians at the time. I believe that Paul is trying to convey the idea that the ideal by which we measure our lives is now Christ and no longer the law and that we cannot be bound to both at the same time.
Romans 7:7-25 (Tim Hurst)
Paul’s question and answer session in Romans 7:7-25 has always been one of the most interesting and puzzling pieces of scripture for me. Paul discusses the very nature of man in raw honesty, and this section always seems to leave me with nearly as many questions as it begins with. I think it has a tendency to become dangerous to struggling Christians because of one of the questions it can spawn: Is habitual sin acceptable for followers of Christ?
Paul repeatedly discusses the nature of humans to stray from what the law teaches us is right. From the time of Adam and Eve, it’s obvious that we simply cannot follow rules even when they are designed for our benefit. As soon as Adam learned of the forbidden fruit, he was tempted to eat from it and eventually succumbed to the temptation. Paul’s question is intriguing: would we fall into sin as much as we do, if the law didn’t dangle it in front of our faces? His answer of course is no. God provided the law so we would know what sin is – we need guidance to tell right from wrong. The law itself isn’t what makes us sin, but sin itself, because sin is ingrained into our human nature.
Even as Christians, we must remember that we’re not totally exempt from the laws of sin. The knowledge of Jesus creates a desire in us to follow the Old Testament law and the teachings of Christ, but the sinful nature of mankind also compels us to sin. So the reality both of Christ’s and of sin’s presence in our lives becomes a dangerous balancing act. We must be able to accept that God’s grace is sufficient to cover our missteps, but never take that fact for granted. Thank you God for your infinite grace and forgiveness!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Free from Sin to Serve Righteousness, Romans 6 - Brooke Hall and Cindy Collier
Next week's entries on Free from Law & Will (Chapter 7) will be written by Rachel Cooke and Tim Hurst.
Romans 6:1-14 (Brooke Hall)
After reading this passage, I began to think about how absurd it is that we return to sin time and again so often in our lives. The passage talks of how Jesus died to sin once and for all and how He now lives for God. When one is baptized, we die to sin as well. Why is it that we so often find ourselves living side by side with sin and abandoning, if for only a moment, the God that loves us so much? I am reminded of the Samaritan woman at the well with whom Jesus spoke to. She was hurt by the men in her life, but seems to choose the same route over and over again. The solution to both her choices and our sin is Jesus and the life He offers. When we offer our lives to God through baptism, we become instruments for His righteousness. We use our mouths to praise and uplift instead of gossip and criticize. Our eyes are used to observe His glory and seek opportunities to serve and not for lust and to seek personal gain. Our hands help lead and are not used to hold someone back. What is it about sin that lures us away from our creator? What measures can we take to cling tighter to God?
Romans 6:15-23 (Cindy Collier)
Verse 16 and following says that we will be slaves to someone. There is no freedom. We will be slaves to the one we obey; either to sin which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness. Before we accept Christ, we are slaves to sin. Once we accept Christ, His grace gives us the ability to obey. Grace will not lead us to sin; it will lead us to be with the Lord.
In verse 18, Paul once again says that we have been set free from sin; and we are now slaves of righteousness. He says that over and over. I think that is a point he really wants us to “get”.
In verse 19 and following, Paul explains how lawlessness leads to lawlessness. Sin leads to sin and it is a downward spiral. The question is asked, “What fruit did you get from sin?” What did you do under sin that you are now ashamed? Sin will lead to shame and death – eternal death.
But now the good news is that we are free from sin, and we are slaves to God. Now our fruit is holiness and will lead to eternal life.
Paul ends this section by contrasting wages (or payment) to a free gift. The wages (or payment) for sin is death. However, God’s gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ is a free gift. You can work (wages) for sin. But God does not pay wages. He gives us a gift. We cannot earn this gift. If we could earn it, it would not be a gift. It is free to all who accept His Son.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Free from the Wrath of God: United with Adam & Christ, Romans 5:1-21
This week's entries are written by Brant Bryan and Casey Cooke. Next week's entries on Free from Sin to Serve Righteousness will be written by Brooke Hall and Cindy Collier.
Romans 5:1-11 (Brant Bryan)
“Since we have been justified through faith” sounds great, but how certain can we, your readers, be Paul? How solid is my salvation? And, what happens when I sin after God makes me righteous? Does that mess up the whole thing?
Paul starts and ends this section using legal terms like “justified” and “reconciled” to make clear that we are in a state of justification. The tenses he uses even show that these weren’t one time events, but have a continuing action. Paul wants to make clear that we didn’t just have a moment of salvation or an event of salvation, but rather we have moved to a whole new realm. And, in this realm we have a new set of rules. We might understand it by imagining that all of a sudden we moved to one of those places we read about in fantasy books – a place like Middle Earth, or Hogwarts, or Dunder-Mifflin. A place where the rules of life are different, different actions and actors exist, and our actions may have different consequences than they normally do.
Paul is telling us that everything has changed. We have been saved from the realm of Wrath and are now under the power of God’s love.
Love is such a powerful word. God’s love is the centerpiece of these verses. Paul tells us that God loves us so much, Christ died for us, even though we were full of problems, sinning and downright ugly (v8). Why God loves such an unlovely person is beyond my understanding, but he does. Even better, now God has put his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (v5). How powerful is that! Now I have the capacity to love like God does – a love for the unlovely, a love that is sacrificial, a love that is truly unselfish. It makes me wonder why I don’t use that power more than I do.
Looking through this section, it is amazing how many positive things that now come to us that Paul mentions here. We have peace (v1). We have access to grace (v2). We have hope (v2). We can rejoice in our troubles (v3) because we know that our troubles can work to make us better and eventually give us even more hope (v4). And, God has even put his loving nature inside us (v5). Again, Paul is saying everything has changed for us. It’s almost like hearing a Joel Osteen sermon.
Paul ends this section by pointing out that if God loved us enough to reach out to us and reconcile us to him while we were his enemies, he has already done the hardest part. Now he brings us life and joy (vs10-11). That’s good news.
Romans 5:12-21 (Casey Cooke)
In this passage Paul is trying to make a comparison between Adam and Jesus. He explains how Adam, one man, brought sin into the World and consequently death; Jesus, one man, brought salvation into the World and with it life.
The Jewish people looked at sin and death as one in the same. To sin is to die, and death is to be totally separated from God. The Jews tried to be free from sin by clinging to the law and following all the rules. The law became an impossible standard that no one could live up to.
The Jews thought that the law was the only way to escape sin, but Paul was trying to explain to them that before the law, sin was still prevalent and punishable by God. The law was put in place to explain what sin is, but it also held the Jews accountable for their sin. There was no way for the Jews to outrun their inevitable sinfulness.
Paul then brought up that if death can have dominion as a result of one man’s sins (Adam), then surely Christ, one man, can conquer sin as well. Paul explains that through Christ the law has been removed, and man is not held accountable for his sins because the sins have been atoned for by the death of Jesus and been forgiven.
I think the point Paul is trying to make to the Jews is that if you do as Adam did (sin), even with the law, it will lead to death (separation from God), but if you follow Jesus, where the law has been removed, then sin is also removed because of the grace of God.
Monday, February 04, 2008
The Righteousness of God Comes Through Faith, Romans 3:21 - 4:25, by Landon Horton, Krystal Hurst, and Kelly Litton.
Written by Landon Horton. Next week's thoughts will by Brant Bryan and Casey Cooke.
Romans 3:21-31
The subtitle in my bible for this section says "Righteousness Through Faith," but I think it could just as easily be titled "Romans in a Nutshell." Many of the major themes in Romans are mentioned in these 11 verses: justification by faith rather than by observance of the Law, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and redemption through Christ.
This section causes people to have many questions. Is faith all that's necessary? If the Law doesn't justify me, do I need to keep it? Where do works come into play? When Paul says "faith," does this imply other things (baptism, repentance, etc)?
There is a lot of meat in this section, and it's really a springboard into later sections where Paul goes into more detail about each subject. So rather than try to disect everything Paul is trying to say, I reread the section and tried to hear it the way his original recipients would have heard it.
To us today, these verses are a foundation of our faith. But to the Romans, this was brand new information. We read the verses and say, "Yep, that's the way it works." The Romans heard these words and it was fresh. I think more than establishing doctrine, Paul is trying to convey his excitement about this new righteousness that comes not from the Law, but from faith. He's excited about letting Gentiles know that they aren't excluded. He's excited to tell people about the justification that we can now have through Christ's death. I think this excitement gets lost after you read or hear these words all your life.
That's the thing I think we can all take away from this. These words that Paul writes are truly inspirational. We are justified by faith! We have been redeemed! It's available for ALL who believe! We need to be careful that when we do closely examine his words, we don't overlook the joy and the good news of his message.
The Righteousness of God Comes Through Faith
Written by Krystal Hurst.
Romans 4:1-12
In Romans 4, Paul has set out to explain why “works” alone will not give you justification of righteousness in God’s eyes. Instead, believing in Him is our chance at salvation. This was first pointed out in Genesis 15:6; 22; “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Paul begins this section of Romans by using Abraham as an example of justification. Abraham is a Biblical character that the Jews, Arabs, and Christians all admire. To the Jews, he is their highly esteemed patriarch; the father of the Jewish nation. To the Muslims, Abraham was the father of Ishmael who was the father of the Arabs. Did Paul intend for us to use this as a witnessing tool for both Jews and Muslims?
I found it very interesting that Paul uses our jobs to describe our relationship with God. Romans 4:4 states “Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.” Although this statement was written thousands of years ago, we can still understand this metaphor today. When we are paid at our job, we’re obligated to complete our work. The company does not see our paycheck as a gift for the work we’ve done.
Paul sees our relationship with God as being the opposite. Romans 4:5 continues “However, to the man who does not work but insists God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.” If our payment is salvation, God does not grant us this gift because of the work we do in his name. He grants us salvation because of the faith we have in him. When we serve at church or in our community, it’s important to remember that we don’t do this so God will show favoritism towards us, but as a way of sharing our faith in God. If we were only able to earn salvation through our deeds, we wouldn’t be saved. Man is naturally sinful. Our acts would give us what we deserve, and we would be condemned. Unlike our careers, God does not want us to be obligated to him. He has given us a gift; forgiveness of our sinful acts through Jesus.
Paul sums up his statements with a clarification on a common misconception of the time. Those who have faith are not justified by God as righteous because they’ve been circumcised. The act of circumcision is not what God is asking for, but the act of faith that was shown by Abraham through circumcision. Abraham’s faith was credited as righteous BEFORE he was circumcised, not after (Romans 4:9-11). The circumcision was a sign and a seal of his faith.
After reading this section of Romans, I have a better understanding of what it means to serve. I want to try and remember what Paul is teaching when working on my “6 Commitments” to Richardson East in 2008. The 6 commitments all have ways of serving people, sharing God, and giving to God by how I live my life. It’s important to remember that I’m not committing to these tasks to earn favoritism, but to show my faith.
The Righteousness of God Comes Through Faith
Written by Kelly Litton.
Romans 4:13-25
As I studied the end of the fourth chapter, I was so struck by the fact that this passage had such a direct correlation to many questions of faith that I have been having lately. So many times, I think I try to put God in a box. I feel like He must make sense, He must answer prayers, He must work the way I want Him to work in order to be the God that I have always believed in. But maybe, just maybe, God doesn’t work that way. He is just too great for that.
There are several passages in this section that struck me. I love chapter 4, verse 18: “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…” I feel like there are lots of times like that in people’s lives. And I guess the question is whether we choose to step out in faith and hope, and believe. I have struggled with this a lot lately, as I have had several sets of friends go through difficult times. If you pray to God, then you must choose to pray in hope. You just must. But it doesn’t always mean that God will answer as you would like for him to. But as I read again through parts of Romans, I was so thankful for the fact that we have righteousness through our faith. God can bless us through seemingly hopeless situations, if we just put our faith, trust, and hope in Him. Several months ago, I had three friends lose babies within months of each other. One of these friends began pouring out her emotions in a blog, and her honest thoughts have blessed me many times. It is an amazing blog to read, and truly makes you think about your faith: www.conorbootheandgirls.blogspot.com.
A few weeks ago, we had “family church” at my house with some of my family, since they were in town for Christmas. It was a really special time to me. We began a discussion about why God chooses to answer some prayers and not others, why we pray, etc. My dad, who is one of the wisest men I know spoke to these questions. I guess I was expecting him to have a long, drawn-out answer for me that would make sense. Instead he offered one word: Hope. He said that although this world does not make sense, we still choose to believe. And through that belief and faith, we have hope. I think Abraham experienced this. Oh how I would love to have the faith and righteousness credited to Abraham.
