Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 15-16.

Today’s passage starts with Paul wrapping up his teaching that those who are strong in faith and in spirit should bear with the failings of the weak.  We should seek to please our neighbors in ways which build them up in faith in Christ.  Just as Christ accepted us and died serving us, so we should accept our fellow believers and be willing to die to bring salvation to our neighbors (and when Paul refers to our neighbors he is using the definition which Jesus gave us in the Parable of the Good Samaritan).

Paul then concludes his letter with a few more points worth remembering.  He writes that he will speak of nothing except what Christ has accomplished through Him.  In the same way, we should seek to give glory and credit to God for everything positive which has happened in our lives.  If you think that I have done something praiseworthy, even in writing this blog, the credit goes to God, Whose Spirit should be given credit for anything of value which might be contained in my writings (or other actions).

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 8-10.

Today’s passage contains a lot of things to which we should give careful thought.  It also contains a thread of thought which I want to follow.  Paul continues his thoughts about what it means to saved by faith in Christ.  He writes that those who have faith in Christ have been set free from the law of sin and death by the Spirit.  Some might interpret this to mean that we can act in anyway which we choose because the Law which specifies how we should act has been nullified.  However, Paul says that those who interpret what he said in that way are still living according to the flesh.  He writes that now that we have been saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ we should no longer live according to the flesh but instead live according to the Spirit.

Which brings us back once more to questioning if we are truly saved when we sin again after having accepted Christ as our Savior.  Once again, Paul addresses this by telling us that we struggle in our weakness, but that the Spirit will help us.  After telling us that we should live according to the Spirit and be dead to the flesh, he reminds us that this is what our faith is about.  Our faith gives us hope that the Spirit will transform us into beings who live according to the Spirit.  Then he reminds us that hope is about what we look forward to, not what we already have.  So, we strive to be brought into the freedom and glory of God, living according to His Spirit.

Paul goes on to quote Joel who said that everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved.  From there Paul goes on to make some points which should influence the way we practice “Church” today.

• People can only call on the Lord if they believe in Him
• People can only believe in the Lord if they have hear about Him
• People will only hear about the Lord if someone tells them about Him
• People will only tell others about the Lord if someone sends them to do so

So, each and every congregation of those who worship Jesus Christ should be sending people out to tell others about Him.  Church is not about getting our spiritual needs met.  It is about preparing ourselves or someone else to preach the good news about Jesus Christ to those who have not yet heard it.

There are many other things which Paul wrote in this passage that each of us should hear, but that is all I am going to write on today.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 4-7.

Today’s passage is perhaps one of the more convoluted passages in Scripture.  This happens because Paul starts out to make what should be a few fairly basic statements about salvation, but then goes on to address the ways in which he knows that people will attempt to distort and misuse these basic principles.  So, the first basic principle which Paul speaks about is that we receive righteousness, not through what we do, but through our faith in Christ.  Paul points out that we all deserve death because of our sin, that none of us have lived lives where we have acted with righteousness.

However, if we cannot be saved, if we cannot obtain righteousness, by observing the law which God gave us, what purpose does that law serve?  Paul points out that the law makes us aware of our sin, and thus brings glory to God by showing the wonder of His grace to us.  Paul then addresses those who say that if our sin brings glory to God, then we should sin more so as to bring even more glory to God.  Paul disagrees with that conclusion, pointing out that we have died to sin through Christ.  Further, he echoes what Jesus said about serving two masters by saying that we must choose if we will be slaves to sin, or slaves to righteousness.  He tells us that Christ died and has been raised to life and now that He has been raised to life, He cannot die again.  In the same way, we have died with Christ, and been raised with Him.  We have died to sin and must not once more make ourselves subject to its mastery.

That last paragraph scares me, because I still sin from time to time.  Fortunately, Paul addresses this as well.  He says that he desires to do what is good, but fails to do so.  Instead of doing the good which he desires to do, he does evil.  Since he does not desire to do the wrong which he does, nor does he do the good which he does desire to do, this demonstrates that it is not he, but the sin living within him which does these things.  Paul tells us that if we desire to do good and to not do evil, doing as we desire is beyond our power.  However, it is not beyond God’s power.  We must seek in our minds to be slaves to righteousness, slaves to God while knowing that in our bodies, in our natural ,sinful selves, we are slaves to sin.  In our desire to do good we must trust, we must have faith, that God is willing and able to transform us, to release us from our slavery to sin.  When we do good, it is not because we are good and righteous people.  Rather, it is because God has exercised His power within us.  Credit for any good we doo does not belong to us.  Rather let us give credit to where it is due, to God’s wonderful power and grace.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 1-3.

Today’s passage contains a lot which I would like to write about, probably more than I can fit into one entry.  So, I will start at the beginning and work through as far as I can get.  I will start with something which Paul says which we should feel the same way.  He was not ashamed of the Gospel, because by it God gives salvation to everyone who believes.  What Paul writes here can easily become just jargon which only communicates anything to those who already know what it means.  That is not Paul’s intention.  So, to understand this I want to go back to what Jesus said the Gospel was, what good news He instructed His disciples to preach.  Jesus told us that the good news is that the Kingdom of God is near, and that the righteous can enter into it.  Paul is expanding on that point by telling us that the Kingdom of God is here and we may enter into it now, if we choose to be righteous.  He then tells us that righteousness only comes from faith (Paul expands on this later).

Paul goes on to tell us why we must urgently speak God’s Gospel to those around us: God’s wrath against those who choose wickedness and evil is about to be revealed.  He then answers the arguments of those who say God’s wrath is not fair.  He makes the point that God created the world in such a way as to make His power and characteristics clear to anyone who chose to understand.  That only by deliberately choosing to misunderstand could people fail to understand God’s nature.  Paul then points out that most people have chosen to reject knowledge of God in order to embrace wickedness.  Further Paul tells us that rejecting the knowledge of God results in having a depraved mind and doing things that ought not to be done.  Those who reject God degrade their bodies and themselves.  However, Paul does not allow for us to look down upon others as wicked while viewing ourselves as righteous because  he points out that all have sinned.  We are all guilty of, at some point, of denying our knowledge of God in order to embrace some sort of wickedness.  So, none of us are better than anyone else.  I cannot boast of being better than anyone else because I am just as guilty before God as anyone else.  In order to enter the Kingdom of God, we must have faith that God can and will make us righteous.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 15-16.

Paul concludes the treatise which was his letter to the Roman Church by  telling us that those who are strong in their faith should bear with the failings of the weak.  If you believe that you are weaker in faith than another person, so that they should bear with your failings rather than you bearing with their failings, you should not attempt to instruct them in faithfulness.  Paul tells us that we should accept each other as Christ accepted us.  Earlier in this letter Paul told us that Christ died for us when we were still sinners, which means that Christ accepted us, loved us, when we were still in opposition to Him.  Let us seek to be accepting of others in the same way.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 8-10.

Paul finishes his exposition on salvation by grace through faith in today’s before moving on to some of the implications it has for us.  First, Paul tells us that if we have the Spirit of God living in us we will live according to the spirit (or possibly the Spirit) not according to the flesh.  So, we need to set our minds on what the Spirit desires and turn our minds from what the flesh desires.  Paul also tells us that if we do not have the Spirit of Christ we do not belong to Christ.  One could easily misinterpret what Paul is writing here to think that since we need to live according to the spirit rather than the flesh that the physical world is irredeemably evil.  But Paul recognizes that and points out that God raised Christ from the dead as an example that He will give life to our mortal bodies.  That is, just as Christ’s physical body was raised from the dead, so too our bodies will be raised from the dead (should we die before the day of transformation arrives).

From there Paul goes on to point out that as we live in these untransformed bodies we suffer in various ways, perhaps just the pain of our bodies getting older, but perhaps pain and suffering inflicted on us because we profess faith in Christ.  However, we have the hope of God transforming our bodies, just as He did Jesus’ body.  In the meantime, God’s Spirit will help us in our weakness.  While we do not all for which we should pray, the Spirit does and it will intercede for us according to the will of God.  Further Paul tells us that God works in all things for the good of those who love Him.  Knowing this, why should we fear anything?  If God is defending us, is working for our good, who can bring harm to us?  Perhaps you fear being separated from God, but Jesus said that no one can snatch us out of His hand and here Paul tells us that nothing can separate us from Him.  In fact, one of my favorite declarations of faith is here:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I too share that conviction.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 4-7.

Paul continues on his exposition about salvation by grace through faith in today’s passage.  He points out that Abraham was credited as righteous because he believed God.  This righteousness was credited to Abraham before he was circumcised, and before Isaac was born.  It came even before Abraham fathered Ishmael.  Abraham did not earn his righteousness by his actions, rather God gave it to him as a free gift.  In the same way God will credit those who believe in Jesus with righteousness.  After further exposition on God’s grace in giving us righteousness, Paul then explains the situation we were in before we received God’s gift: we had sinned and were therefore slaves to sin.  However, when we believed in Christ we died with Him to sin, freeing us from that slavery.  It is God’s grace which allows us to stop sinning.  Doing good does not make us righteous, rather, the fact that God has made us righteous causes us to do good.  Some people think that because God’s grace has made us righteous, because our goodness has no impact on God’s love for us, that we have no reason not to sin.  They fail to understand that God’s gift of righteousness is the only reason we need to not sin.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 1-3.

On Sunday I wrote about how Paul had those to whom he considered himself accountable.  In today’s passage we see another example of Paul not considering himself above others.  Here he writes that he wants to visit the Roman Believers in order to impart some spiritual gift which will build them up.  Then he immediately clarifies that he wants them (he and the Roman Believers) to be mutually encouraged in their faith.  We should take this lesson to heart.  If Paul felt that he was not “above” the Believers in Rome with regards to faith in Christ and following Christ, who today can consider themselves above other Believers, and who may we consider as being above ourselves?  We all have something to teach our fellow Believers, and we all have something to learn from them.

Paul finishes his introduction to this letter by saying that the righteous live by faith.  He then explains in depth what that means.  Paul begins by pointing out that all people of all time have no excuse for not acknowledging God and following His laws because God has made both Himself and His laws clear in the nature of Creation.  Nevertheless most people have foolishly chosen to attempt to appear wise by denying that God and His rules for human behavior exist.  Rejecting the truth about God results in us instead embracing lies that our lust, greed, and other wickedness are good and beneficial.  Paul points out that even those of us who have embraced the knowledge of God and sought to obey His laws have failed to truly live according to them.  We have nothing to hold over those others which would allow us to claim ourselves superior to them.    Paul points out that our only hope of righteousness is to put our faith in Christ.  We will not, cannot, be righteous by our own efforts.  However, if we trust God, if we have faith in Jesus Christ, God will transform us so that we can indeed follow His commands.  This means that we do not do good because we think it will benefit us to do good, but because we are inspired by the example Christ gave us, and by the power of the Holy Spirit within us, to emulate that righteousness which Christ exhibited.  Whatever righteous behavior we have belongs not to us, is not reflective of our goodness, but rather reflects the gift which God has given to us.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 15-16.

Paul continues, and wraps up, his admonition to accept those Believers who have different views on how to faithfully follow Christ.  He tells us that we should accept others as Christ accepted us.  If we look at the context of the rest of Paul’s letter to the Romans we see that he did not mean that we should not accept those who openly sin as fellow Believers.  Instead, Paul tells us to take the attitude of Christ who one more than one occasion said something which can be paraphrased as, “Your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more.” Let us strive to sin no more and encourage our fellow Believers to do the same.

Paul completes his message to the Believers in Rome by returning to a theme he mentioned at the beginning.  That theme is one of humility in that he expresses the confidence that they already knew what he had told them in this missive.  He emphasizes that what he wrote was merely a reminder of things they already knew.  I believe that if you had asked Paul he would have said that he wrote about these things because there were those who were taking some aspects of Christ’s teachings and twisting them to dismiss other aspects of His teaching.  Paul wrote to correct those distortions, but he emphasized here that he was not better than those to whom he wrote and that they should study both his writing and the Scriptures to come to their own conclusions about how to follow God.  We should not hold the teachings of one person, or even a small group of people, as authoritative, nor should we hold our own understanding as authoritative.  We should study Scripture for ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us AND we should listen to what other Believers have concluded from their study of Scripture and guidance from the Holy Spirit.

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

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

In today’s passage, Paul destroys the primary argument used by those who claim to follow Christ to hate Jews.  First, Paul starts by pointing out that God used the rejection of Christ by Jews to open the door for Gentiles to come to Him.  However, Paul points out that if God cut off those Jews who rejected Christ, He can also cut off those Gentiles who fail to remain faithful.  God desires to bring the Jewish people fully back into a relationship with Him.  There is more to what Paul writes on this than I can put into my own words.  Every year I read this passage and try to make the point I see in it and every year it feels like I fail to clearly state it.

That being said, I want to put my main focus on chapter 12 (and perhaps some of what comes after in today’s passage).  Actually as I try to compose my thoughts I realize that in this passage Paul’s wording makes his meaning crystal clear.  There is no real need to  spend much time rewording it to make it more clear.  First, we should offer our bodies up to God as a sacrifice.  If doing His will means pain, suffering, or even death, we should embrace that as an opportunity to return to Him a little bit of what He has given us.  That should lead us to allow the Holy Spirit to transform our minds and thoughts into those which imitate God and refuse to allow the world to mold us into its image.  Part of that transformation means looking for ways to bless those who persecute us, those who desire to see our faith broken.  Another part of that means not viewing ourselves us superior to others.  Let us not look down on others and be willing to do “menial labor”.

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