Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 11-14.

There are several things which struck me as I read today.  I am not sure how many of them I will get to writing about.  First, Paul explains why Christians cannot hate Jews.  It seems clear to me that Paul wrote chapter 11 because there were some, perhaps a growing number, of Gentile Christians who had open hostility towards Jews who had not accepted Christ.  His explanation is simple.  Since we have only received righteousness because of God’s grace, how dare we presume that those to whose ancestors God made promises could not at some point in the future accept that same grace?  Further, since their rejection of that grace has resulted in the blessing of us receiving that grace, think how much greater the blessing when they do accept that grace.  Paul does a much better job of saying it than I do.

Paul transitions to his next point by pointing out that God’s grace should inspire us to offer ourselves up as a living sacrifice.  The word “living” plays an important part in that instruction.  To a large degree the rest of today’s passage merely expands upon that first sentence:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

He begins expanding on that by telling us that we should not conform to this world (with the implication that hating Jews, or anybody else is confirming to this world), rather we should be transformed by the Spirit renewing our minds.  We experience the first step in that transformation by humbly recognizing that we are no better than anyone else, but also that we are no worse than anyone else either.  As we are transformed we will use whatever gifts God has given us to build up and honor others.  In this world, when others do evil to you, you are justified in doing evil back to them (“Do unto others as they do to you”).  Paul tells us that we should be transformed so that when others do evil to us, we respond by doing good for them (“Do unto others as you would have them do to you”).   Paul undermines the world’s argument for responding to wrongs with payback by reminding us that God reserves to Himself the right to avenge wrongs.  I find it interesting that Paul did not mention that God has graciously done good for us by offering us His grace despite the many wrongs we have done Him.

Today’s passage concludes with Paul pointing out that this transformation should result in us not striving to win arguments about the proper way to live faithfully.  If one can hold a different position on an issue while still being faithful to God, we should not try to force others to live according to our interpretation.  Interestingly, Paul’s example is that one should not try to convince those who have a more rigid understanding of acceptable Christian behavior to take a more lenient position: if you genuinely do not believe something is wrong, do not attempt to convince someone who does believe it is wrong to do it.  In matters which are disputable, be the stronger person and allow the other person to live their faith in peace.  This last paragraph could be an entire blog entry of its own, but I do not have the time to flesh it out.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.