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

Paul expands on his theme about serving righteousness rather than sin in today’s passage.  He tells us that if we live according to our physical desires, we will remain in sin and be dead to the Spirit.  But, if we live according to the desires of God’s Spirit, we will die to our physical desires and experience true life.  Further, as we teach ourselves to live by the Spirit, we will lose all fear because we will feel God within us.  Paul even addresses those of us who struggle knowing what we should pray.  He tells us that as we work to do what is righteous, the Spirit Himself will intercede for us.  Paul points out that any suffering we experience for doing God’s will binds us closer to Christ and reminds us that He died for us.  If God has given His own Son to die for us, how much more will He give us going forward?  As I think about what Paul writes I realize that there is nothing to fear.  Any suffering which I may experience in serving Christ will be temporary, but the joy which will follow will last forever. So, I will seek to embrace suffering just as Paul did.  Remember how God sent prophets to warn Paul what would happen when he returned to Jerusalem that final time?  Yet Paul still went to Jerusalem.  He did so because he embraced suffering in order to server Christ.  There is joy from following Paul’s example.

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.

I am not exactly sure what I want to write about today’s passage, but something Paul wrote in chapter 7 resonates with me: “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”  This resonates with me because I often find myself in exactly that situation. He goes on to say that if he does what he does not want to do, it is not he who does it.  Instead it is the sin living within him which is doing it.  Yet, earlier in the passage Paul wrote that the sin which lived within us was put to death when we were baptized into Christ. Which leads me to understand where I want to go with today’s blog.

Paul tells us that we have a choice to make.  We can serve either sin, or righteousness, but we will serve one or the other.  If we do not male ourselves slaves to righteousness, sin will make itself our master.  This means that when we find ourselves struggling with sin we should seek out acts of righteousness with which to fill our time.

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.

Paul begins his letter to the Believers in Rome by summarizing his ministry, which he summarizes as being to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles.  He goes on to write of his long held desire to visit and preach in Rome, something he is convinced will finally happen in the near future.  He goes on to express his desire to bring some spiritual gift to the Roman Believers, then realizes this sounds as if he thinks of himself as better than they in some way.  Paul makes it clear that while he thinks that other Believers are enriched by what he can teach them he also believes that he is enriched, and learns more about truly following Jesus, by his interactions with other Believers.  I understand the dilemma  Paul had here.  Paul felt he had to make the case for what he had to offer other Believers, but struggled with coming off as if he felt the benefit all flowed from him to them, when in fact he felt that he gained better insight into his faith by explaining it to others, and by the responses they had to his teaching.

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

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Romans 14-16

So, I did not touch on chapter 14 yesterday, but I really think what Paul said there is important to what he says in the passage for today.  Which means that I am including chapter 14 today.  In chapter 14 Paul refers to those who believe that one must not eat certain foods, and/or that one must hold special services on particular days.  He contrasts them to those who believe that it makes no difference what one eats, or when one holds services.  Paul tells us that either approach is acceptable to God.  Those who think it is a sin to eat certain foods should not do so, and those who think it is not should not press them to eat such foods.  Neither side should condemn the other.  Both sides should give thanks to God for what they eat and praise Him for providing them food to eat.  Instead of condemning others and trying to convince them to live as we interpret Scripture, we should live so as to help them do what is right.  Which is kind of a contradiction because helping them do what is right means convincing them to do that which is right. The key here has to do with condemnation.  If we believe that what someone is doing is a sin, rather than attempt to convince them of the sinfulness of doing it, we should attempt to convince them of the greater joy to be had by not doing it.  Our efforts should be to nurture people’s faith rather than make them feel inadequate.  Rather than argue over what is right and wrong, we should seek to live in harmony.  We will revisit this subject in a little bit as we read some of Paul’s other letters.

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

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

The beginning of today’s passage contains a great explanation of why Christians who hate Jews are not true Believers.  Paul’s basic point is that the Jews are still God’s Chosen people.  God has used the rejection by many of the Jews to call Gentiles to Himself, but in due time He will reclaim the Jewish people as His own.  I think a careful examination of what Paul writes here reveals a lot about God’s plan for Jew and Gentile alike.  He cut those Jews who rejected His salvation through Christ off from Him in order to make room for Gentiles.  Yet, if they turn once more to Him, He will make room for them.  Ultimately, it seems to me that Paul is saying that we need to be careful not to make the same mistake towards the Jews which some of them made towards the Gentiles: the mistake of thinking that they (or we) were better than others on account of God’s mercy towards them (or us).  God wished to use the Jews to show His love to all people, but they (but not all of them) chose to attempt to hoard God’s love for themselves.  They chose to look at others as rejected by God.  Let us not make the same mistake.  The mistake of thinking that God does not still love His prodigal sons and daughters.

In order to avoid that mistake, we must allow God’s Spirit to transform us into a new person by changing the way we think.  We need to avoid letting ourselves copy the thoughts and behaviors of our society.  Part of that transformations is to not think of ourselves as more than we are.  I am no better than anyone else, and they are no better than I.  As Believers, each of us are part of the Body of Christ.  Each of us has been given different gifts by God in order to fulfill His purpose.  Whatever gift God has given us, let us use to the fullest of our ability.  One gift that we each have is the ability to love others.  So let us truly love others, even those who persecute us. Let us pray for them and ask God to bless them.  When people do wrong to us, we should not attempt to repay them in kind.  Instead, we should remember that Jesus’ rule was, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.”  Not, “Do unto others as they have done to you.”

There are two more things in this passage I would like to cover, but I think I am only going to get to one of them.  Paul tells us that we should submit to the governing authorities.  Those who have positions of authority have been placed there by God, even those who may have broken laws to get there.  So, we should accept their authority.  Of course, we must temper that submission to those authorities with what Peter and the other Apostles told the Sanhedrin, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”  So, while we should obey the governing authorities, we must remember the limits to their authority.  And Paul gives us guidance in determining how to identify those limits.  Let us act with true love towards everyone, any command from the governing authorities which would lead us to act outside of love for others is outside of the bonds to which we are bound to submit.

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

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

I often quote from verse 31 in chapter 8 to give hope and confidence to my fellow believers: “If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” Recently, someone responded, “Yes, but that is a big if.”  So, in order to address that “If” I am going to start at the end of today’s passage and work back, because there are many promises in today’s passage which rely on us knowing that God is for us.

In chapter 10, Paul tells us, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ”  This really sums up the two things which we must do, we must accept that Jesus is our Lord and we must openly declare that this is the case.  Which answers the question raised by the “If”.  How can we know that God is on our side? By openly declaring that Jesus is Lord and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead.  If we do that then we are on God’s side which means that God is for us.

From there we can go back to the beginning of this passage and see what more is needed with confidence that such is attainable.  Back at the beginning Paul told us that we must not allow our sinful natures to control our minds because doing so leads to death.  That is easier said than done, but Paul provides us with the answer to that as well.  We must instead allow the Spirit of God which lives within us to control our minds instead of our sinful nature.  In fact, if we have the Spirit of God living within us, we will be controlled by the Spirit.  And the Spirit of God lives within us if we do what I referenced in the previous paragraph.  Actually, Paul addresses one of the arguments made by our society to justify sin, “I have these inborn desires that I have to carry out.”  Paul tells us that, no, we do not have to carry out those sinful inborn desires.  We have no obligation  to carry out the urges which our sinful nature pushes us towards.  Paul further tells us that, while we can willingly walk away from the benefits of serving God, nothing can force us away from God’s love.  Even our walking away from God will not separate us from God’s love, even though He will not force us to experience the joy which serving Him will provide us.

So, we can have confidence that God stands with us.  Part of that confidence is the knowledge that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him.  This does not mean that we can choose how things will work out.  Perhaps we have been chosen by God to experience suffering similar to that which Christ experienced.  We will find that if we allow the Spirit to control our minds that the joy we experience will overcome, and outweigh, any suffering which might come our way from following God’s will.  More importantly, who are we to demand an explanation from God as to why He made us the way that we are.  This applies not just to the issue of suffering, but to many of the social issues which we see around us today.  My heart breaks for those who have become convinced that God got it wrong when He made them as they are; those who seek to change the way which God has made them.

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

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

There is some really good, really deep stuff in what Paul writes about Abraham and how he received God’s promise before he was circumcised.  Perhaps I will go into that at some point.  I certainly encourage you to read what Paul writes here and think about what it means.  However, I want to look at Paul telling us that Abraham’s faith did not waver, because it should give us hope in our own faith.  Paul tells us that Abraham’s faith did not waver.  Yet, it was after God counted Abraham as righteous for his faith that Abraham took Hagar to bed and got her pregnant with Ishmael.  It was after that that he asked God to fulfill His promise through Ishmael.  So, we can see that our doubts, the times when our faith is less than sure, do not count as wavering before God.  That does not mean that we can surrender to our doubts, it just means that having doubts does not mean that we have lost our faith.  Let us believe God’s promises, even when we have doubts about the future, or don’t understand how the things which are happening fit into God’s plan.

Which brings us to the joy we experience from being made right with God by Jesus through the faith which we have in God’s promise.  Not only should we have joy because we have been made right with God, we should also rejoice when  we suffer because of that faith.  Paul tells us that the suffering which we experience produces perseverance (as the NIV translates it).  That perseverance builds character and character gives us hope.  I prefer the NIV use of perseverance to the NLT usage of endurance because perseverance is more active.  To a degree I think we need both endurance and perseverance.  We endure suffering when the suffering comes with no connection to anything we do.  We persevere through suffering when the suffering is directed at us because of the actions which we take.  If we remain faithful we are going to suffer for that faith, therefore let us continue to actively do as God directs us.

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

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

After his introduction, Paul lays out his basic understanding of the world.  Wicked people suppress the truth because God has made His nature obvious, through His creation, to anyone willing to know it.  Therefore, anyone who wishes to not believe in God must suppress the truth which they themselves know in order to justify such unbelief.  As a result of their denial of God, people do vile and degrading things with each other. A corollary to this is that the more people deny that which nature shows them about God, the more vile and degrading their actions will become. I could easily apply some of what Paul says about those vile and disgusting things to what we see in our society today, and how the fact that Paul was talking about those very same things 2,000 years ago shows us that mankind has not changed, but that is not where I want to go today.

Having established that those who reject God have no excuse for their unbelief, Paul turns to those who know God’s commands and warns them that they have no basis to judge.  Those of us who know God are no better than those who deny His existence.  We know, and acknowledge, what God commands, but we still violate His commands.  If we try to claim that we are better than those others, we will cause them to blaspheme the name of God.  There are those who do not acknowledge Christ who follow His teachings more closely than we sometimes do.  We need to recognize that we are not better than anyone else.  We too are sinners who have fallen short of what God commands.

There is nothing we, or anyone else, can do to make ourselves right with God.  We must accept that we can only be made right with God by the action of God.  No matter how hard we try, we will fail to live up to the standard to which God calls us.  We must rely on God to make us right with Him and not think that we can do so ourselves.  We cannot be good enough to get into Heaven because of our actions.  However, just because we must rely on God’s grace does not mean that we should not continue to strive to do as God commands.  In fact, we should strive to do as God commands because of His grace.

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

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

I never realized before reading through Romans this year that there is really just one theme running through the entire letter.  While Paul touches on other things as he expounds on this idea, he keeps coming back to it.  Paul says again and again, in different ways, we should love others as God loves us.  That means accepting people as they are, not as we wish they would be because God accepted us as we were when we first came to Him.  However, that does not mean that we should not encourage people to change.  Indeed, Paul tells us tat we should help others to do what is right and build them up in the Lord.  Just as Christ accepted us as we were, as we are, and gave us the Holy Spirit to transform us into who God made us to be, so we should accept people as they are and encourage them to accept the Holy Spirit’s transformation of themselves.

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

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

Paul continues his discussion of the paradox between our free will and God’s providence.  Our salvation is not the result of any action we have taken and therefore not something which we deserve.  Rather we were saved by God’s grace and mercy because He chose us.  Yet, we must be careful because if we stop having faith, and acting accordingly, God will reject us as He has rejected those who refused His free gift.  Even the fact that God has chosen us does not make us better than others.  Paul’s entire point here is to address a very human tendency: the desire to elevate ourselves above others, to find some way to claim that we are better than other people.  Sometimes, we do that by claiming to be worse than they, to be a better sinner than those others.  This even forms the basis for the problem Paul addresses when he tells us not to condemn others.  If our purpose in telling others that what they do is to tell them, “I am better than you because I do not do THAT,” (whatever THAT is) then we are failing to truly love our neighbor.

In chapter 12 Paul brings all of this together.  I have already touched on his instructions that we should not think more of ourselves than we really are.  We should love each other with genuine affection, not just going through the motions of how we think we should treat others, but actually caring about them.  As an aside I want to note that you cannot truly care about those whom you have never encountered.  In order to follow Paul’s instruction to truly care for others we need to allow the Holy Spirit to transform us.  Otherwise we will find ourselves conforming to behaviors and norms which our society claims are correct.  Those behaviors and norms are those of people who choose to think of themselves as better than others, who choose to think that only some people are deserving of love.  When we should know full well that none of us are deserving of love, but God loved us anyway.  Which is why we should love others, especially those we are tempted to believe are not deserving of love.