Romans 7

I found the discussion on Romans 7 verses 14-24 typical of most of the 24 commentaries I read.  Two did use the approach that Paul was speaking of his previous life as a non Christian and gave some (what I call) soft evidence to support the idea.  Mostly just saying, how it would be inconsistent to with the rest of Romans especially chp. 8 to say that was the pitiful state Paul was in at the time.  I was interested in what hard evidence you came up with that explains why Paul would switch from the past tense to the present tense in these 10 verses?

I Googled “Bible new testament present tense issues Romans” and got 350,000 hits, went through the first 700 or so and got nothing on Romans.  I did get a lot of articles and papers on Mark’s gospel being in the present tense, which I did not realize.  For the most part all was soft evidence, except for Miller’s work.  Miller suggested in the Gospel of Mark, that Mark was mimicking the messages that were sent out by the Roman generals after winning a great battle.  These messages went with messengers to dramatically present the battle with the victory at the end, to the cheers of the crowd.  They were always in the present tense and we have some copies that were written in stone under the battle monuments that were spread throughout Rome.    Do you think, Paul in keep with the Roman culture of the day, would have written His victorious battle over sin in the present tense to the Romans in Rome?       Jeff

Developing Logical and Philosophic Responses to Theological Questions

This class is the result of my interest in discussing theology on internet discussion boards.  Invariably the question of the logic behind believes is questioned, so I have been stepping back from my doctrine to develop a logical philosophical explanation.  These questions do not have a nice book, chapter and verse answer.  To avoid being asked, “If you have something better let’s here it, if not do not question?” I have to have an alternative to what I consider a poor alternative.  More then the alternative of: “I do not know.” Other people are presenting poor answers, so we need to look for logical alternatives to at least question these conclusions.  If your own kids are doing the questioning and getting answers from their friends, you need to keep the dialog going by at least showing an alternative.  In trying to develop logical answer; I have noticed God’s Love seeming to address most these questions.  So this class will look at how godly type Love might provide an alternative to these unanswerable questions.  We will also spend a lot of time in the Garden of Eden, where we are introduced to: humans, God’s Love, paradise, life, death, rules, obedience, satan, sin, temptation and Christ.   We are going to try and bring together what we know to come up with logical alternatives to what we do not know.  It is meant to be a challenging class and provide topics for discussions with others.