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

After greeting the Believers in Rome, Paul begins his letter to them by saying that he would like to see them so that he could impart to them some spiritual gift which would make them strong.  Then, realizing that this implies that he is somehow better than they are, he says that he hopes that they and he would be mutually encouraged.  This reflects an important element of our interaction with other Believers.  We need to recognize that we have much to learn from others, even from those who have only entered into a relationship with God very recently.  Paul actually shows us why that is true as he begins to get into the meat of what he wants to write, even though that is not the point he is making when he writes it.  Paul writes that God has made plain to everyone that which may be known about Him.  So, even those who until recently were far from God, know much about Him, more than they realize.  On the other side, we need to realize that when Paul says about people that they suppress the truth by their wickedness, that applies to us to at least some degree.  To varying degrees we all suppress what God has revealed to us about Himself in order to excuse our wickedness, even if only to ourselves.  Those who persistently seek to do good, will receive glory, and honor, and eternal life, while those who are self-seeking and reject the truth will receive anger and wrath.

If you (and I) rely on your knowledge of God’s law and will, but break His law and fail to follow His will, you(I) dishonor Him.  Each of us must ask themselves, “Is God’s name blasphemed because of me?”  It is not by relying on written code, or even a set of unwritten rules, that we enter into a relationship with God and gain eternal life.  Instead it is by allowing His Spirit to transform us into a better reflection of who He is.  It is not by following a set of rules, it is not by our actions, that we will be declared righteous.  Rather, God grants righteousness to all who put their faith in Jesus.  As a result, none of us can boast that we are better than anyone else.  Also, this does not mean that God’s Law and His will are irrelevant for us.  The fact that God grants us righteousness through our faith does not mean that His Law and will are nullified.  Instead, we are made better able to fulfill and follow His Law and will by our faith.

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

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

After introducing himself and laying out his desire to visit the believers in Rome, Paul lays out his theology.  I find it interesting that he segues into it from talking about the faith of the believers in Rome.  Paul tells us that the gospel, the good news, is the power of God which brings salvation to everyone who believes.  The gospel reveals the righteousness of God, a righteousness which exists solely through faith.  That leads Paul to write that God’s wrath against wickedness is being revealed.  In particular, God’s anger is directed at those who suppress the truth in order to hide their wickedness.  Paul tells us that they suppress the truth because God has made His eternal power and divine nature plain to be seen and understood from what He made.  When it comes to knowing God we have no excuse.  One thing that struck me as I read this is that while Paul says “they” about those who knew God but chose not to glorify Him as God, he really means all of us, a point he makes later when he references where David in Psalms said that everyone has sinned, that all have turned away from God.  Paul writes that we exchanged the truth about God for a lie and instead of serving and worshiping God we worshiped and served created things.  So, since we did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, which He made plain in His creation, He gave us over to our depraved minds, leading us to do that which ought not be done.  If we condemn others, we judge ourselves because we have made the same mistake.  Just like those who we see wallowing in wickedness, we too rejected knowledge of God, but somehow, through His grace, we have been led to repentance.  We are in position to condemn others because we are just as guilty.  Our salvation results from our faith.  That faith will be credited to us as righteousness, and God will work through that to cause us to good works.  We have nothing to boast about because everything we do of value comes because God reached through our depraved minds and redeemed us.  It is through God’s grace that we gain understanding and learn to love, have mercy, and live with fidelity.  Before God’s grace we were full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice, with God’s grace we learn to love and have mercy, and gain understanding.

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 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 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 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 1-3

I am not going to try to hit all of the points of importance in this passage.  In fact the first thing the Spirit reminded me of from this passage was not one of the things Paul was trying to communicate here.  When I read how Paul prayed fro the Believers in Rome I was reminded that I do not pray as I should, nor as much as I should.  It was a reminder for me to once again seek the Holy Spirit’s aid in improving my prayer life.  Paul writes here of praying day and night, I am lucky to pray a few minutes each day.

Paul expounds here on a point which Jesus made.  Anyone who seeks God will find God because the Universe which God created reveals His nature to anyone who truly looks.  As a result of this fact, much of the wickedness in the world comes about from people attempting to convince themselves that God is not what the Universe shows them that He truly is.  Those of us who acknowledge God need to be careful not to think that doing so makes us better than those who refuse to do so.  The fact of the matter is that even we who acknowledge God are guilty of doing wrong, which means we are no better than those who deny His existence.  In fact, no one is able to truly do what is right unless God’s Spirit transforms them.  We can only be justified before God by placing our faith in Christ.  This is where the whole thing gets very complicated.  The fact that we can only be justified, and are justified, through faith does not mean that it is acceptable to continue to do that which we know is wrong.  Our faith should tell us that doing what is wrong is self-destructive.  Even when we do not know how it can work out, our faith tells us that doing what is wrong reduces the amount of joy in our lives while doing what is right increases that joy.  I know this to be true, yet I still struggle with sin.  Which brings me back to my point from the first paragraph: I need to seek for the Holy Spirit to transform me into someone who prays as, and as much as, I know that I ought.