Tag Archives: Romans 4

November 24, 2023 Bible Study — We Cannot Serve Two Masters

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.

November 24, 2022 Bible Study — Our Good Works Do Not Make Us Righteous, But The Righteousness Which God Has Given Us Makes Us Do Good Works

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.

November 24, 2021 Bible Study — Be A Slave To Sin, Or A Slave To Righteousness, The Choice Is Yours

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.

November 24, 2020 Bible Study Abraham As An Example of Faith

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.

November 24, 2019 Bible Study — Flawed Human Beings Were Chosen By God To Be Our Examples

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

Paul tells us that Abraham’s faith in God’s promise to him never wavered.  Yet, Paul was aware that Abraham took Hagar as a concubine in order to have a son by her.  This tells us that God does not count our moments of human weakness against us.  Or, perhaps it tells us that Abraham came to believe that he needed to change his life’s course in order for God’s promise to be fulfilled.  In any case, we know that God told Abraham that His promise would be fulfilled through a son which Abraham would have with Sarah, and that is indeed what happened.  My point being that even when we make mistakes in following God’s plan for us, if we maintain our faith, God will honor His promises.  From a human point of view, we would say that Abraham’s faith had wavered, but Paul tells us that from God’s point of view it did not.

Perhaps Paul gives me the greatest hope towards the end of chapter seven in verse nineteen when he says, “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.”  Then he provides the answer by telling us that God, through Jesus Christ, will free us from this situation.  I know that all too often I do what is wrong and do not do what is good, but I have faith that the Holy Spirit will transform me in God’s time.   This passage gives me hope.  If God considered Abraham’s faith to have never wavered, and if Paul found himself doing what was wrong, then I can know that even I can be changed by the Holy Spirit.

November 24, 2018 Bible Study — Faith Does Not Make Us Right With God. It Allows God To Make Us Right With Him

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.

    We do not earn God’s love, we accept it. As I read through today’s passage I realized part of why Paul’s writing here is sometimes hard to follow. There is a paradox of sorts at the heart of Paul’s understanding of how we become saved. Nothing we can do will earn us salvation. Nothing we do makes us better than anyone else. But we need to have faith that God has made us right with Him in order for that to happen. The best way to describe this is by example. At some point, most, if not all, of us have done something to someone which we know hurts them and which we know we cannot make right. Our natural tendency is to avoid interacting with them or talking with them. If we do talk with them, we tend to keep that interaction to the minimum necessary for the circumstances because nothing we can do can make right what we did. However, that person can make our relationship right by forgiving us. However, if we continue to refuse to interact with them, our relationship will never be made right. Further, because we will not connect with that person again, we continue to do things to them which are hurtful. In order to be reconciled with that person we must do two things. We must recognize that nothing we can do can fix the damage we have done. We must accept that they have forgiven us. In the same way our faith does not make us right with God, it just allows God to make us right with Him.

November 24, 2017 Bible Study — Our Faith Is Counted As Righteousness So That We Can Stop Sinning

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.

    Paul tells us that Abraham’s faith never wavered, even when he was 100 years old and still had no son by Sarah. Yet, we know that he accepted Sarah’s suggestion and had a son with Hagar. So, despite the fact that Abraham had doubts, and even occasionally acted on those doubts, God considered that his faith never wavered. What we learn from Paul’s exposition is that it is natural that we some times doubt God’s promises. As we experience suffering, and the doubt that comes from it, we can learn to persevere. As we persevere in our faith through suffering and doubt our character will be built up. The building of our character will inspire us to ever greater hope in what the future holds. That hope is not in coming worldly good, but in doing God’s will and that hope will be fulfilled, and grow ever greater, by the Holy Spirit channeling God’s love through us.

    Paul tells us in this passage, and yesterday’s, that we are saved through faith by God’s grace, that no action or good work on our part contributes to our salvation, and that no sin we have committed impedes that salvation. Many people interpret this to mean that they can go on sinning with impudence. However, Paul addresses that very idea in this passage. Paul tells us that our salvation has freed us from sin and that if we choose to continue sinning we are allowing ourselves to become re-enslaved by sin. We are slaves to that which we do, if we do righteous deeds we will be slaves to righteousness, if we do sinful deeds we will be slaves to sin. Towards the end of this passage Paul explains how this works. We have been saved to desire not to sin. If we sin despite our desire not to do so, it shows us that we need more of God’s grace and we should seek for the Holy Spirit to enter us more fully. As the Holy Spirit fills us it will inspire us to undertake more acts which are righteous. The result will be that, as we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us, our time will be filled with doing things which serve God and we will have no time left to succumb to sin. This is easier said than done. I want to reiterate a point which Paul made earlier and makes again later. The degree to which our time is filled doing good, and thus not sinning, is not to our credit. It is a product of the Holy Spirit filling us and does not make us better than those who find themselves more controlled by sin. I will state that some of my greatest victories over sin have been inspired by those who are just taking the first steps in overcoming sin in their lives.

July 17, 2014 Bible Study — Counted As Righteous Because Of Faith

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

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Proverbs 19:15-16

    God’s commandments teach us how to lead a healthy and happy life. Those who despise His commandments will follow a lifestyle which leads to an early death. There have been multiple studies over the years which show how those who reject God are more likely to smoke, abuse alcohol, and abuse other drugs.

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Psalm 13:1-6

    Until I started working on this blog and reading through the Bible each year I never realized how much those who wrote the psalms dealt with depression. Nor did I realize how much the various psalms offer a suggested antidote for depression. Today, the psalmist asks God how long he will struggle with anguish and sorrow, how long he will struggle with depression. Then he declares that he will trust in God’s unfailing love, he will sing to the Lord.
    Throughout the psalms we are told that the answer to depression is to place our trust in God and to praise Him for His goodness. I have never suffered from depression, but I know that this will work. It is not easy and requires self-discipline. I do not offer this as condemnation of those who struggle with depression. Rather I am suggesting it as an avenue to finding release from that depression. Seek the Lord, trust in Him, praise His name. Depression makes it harder to do those things, but doing those things will hold depression at bay and in time will drive it away. There is hope in the Lord for overcoming depression.

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Romans 4:1-12

    Paul illustrates his point about no one earning righteousness by their actions by referencing Abraham. Abraham was counted as righteous, not because of what he did, but because of his faith. Abraham did not earn his righteousness, it was a gift from God. In the same way, we cannot earn righteousness through our actions. We must accept it as a gift from God. Just as Abraham was circumcised as a sign of his faith and as a result of the righteousness which God gave him, so we follow God’s instructions as a result of the righteousness which God has given us. We do not follow God’s instructions in order to become righteous. We follow God’s instructions because He has made us righteous.

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1 Chronicles 24-26:11

    This passage has a long list of various groups of priests and Levites and the tasks they were assigned in the Temple. Which makes it easy to overlook an important insight contained within it. In order to avoid favoritism, or the appearance of favoritism, the duties of these various groups were assigned by lot. Those who were chosen to serve in each role were chosen irrespective of skill level, experience, or age. They were each chosen by lot (a form of random assignment) as directed by God. This is something we should take a lesson from in our congregations today. There are times when we should choose those given desirable appointments by some form of random assignment so that no one can claim that the person so chosen was chosen because of favoritism on the part of leadership.