Category: 40DaysofFaith

Previously, in Romans: Paul is halfway through an expose of bad religion, particularly a form of law adherence that in his experience, only leads to status comparison, arguments, and death.

Romans 7:13-25

¹³ Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, ²³ but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

Points of Interest:

• ‘sin, working death in me through what is good’ – Destructive sin and at-least-then-beautiful words of God teamed up to steer Paul and us all toward a common but negative human impulse – using religion for status driven self-justification.
• ‘I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin’ – Some traditions have taken the change to the present tense to mean that Paul is talking about his present experience now as a follower of Jesus, that despite all his experience with Jesus, he’s frustrated by how compulsive his misbehavior is. One prominent fourth century theologian (maybe the first to think this way) was Augustine of Hippo, who long before Freud, read the Bible through his shame over his youthful problems with sexual self-control and womanizing. Much later, German reformer Martin Luther would read the text this way as well.To many of us this doesn’t make sense of everything Paul’s just said in Romans, that the follower of Jesus has been rescued from sin and death by Jesus and is now exploring that new experience of union with Jesus’ new life. Instead, increasing numbers of Bible readers see this section as a “speech-in-character”, a common device in ancient rhetoric of dramatizing the experience of other people in the first person. Under these terms, Paul has moved from talking about his own experience, and all Jewish people’s past experience with the law, and is now focused on the legalists who are still trying to use the Hebrew law to justify themselves and rank-order other churchgoers.
• ‘I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.’ – Even if it’s not where Paul was going, this paragraph continues to provide tremendous empathy for those of us who find our willpower too weak to control our impulses. This is part of the experience of sin, to be divided and to continually move in the direction that doesn’t serve us.
• ‘For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self.’ – Perhaps my own first-person experience can illustrate. As a university student around age 20, I was relatively new to enthusiastic faith in Jesus and in an intensely devout season of life. I thought it was important to God’s law for me that I didn’t drink or have sex, two activities that occupied a fair amount of the free time of many of my peers. So I finished college as a tee-totaling virgin. That “law” wasn’t a problem. In itself, this served my studies, my development, and my future self as well. Go young me! But there was “another law at work, making me captive.” This law of mine led to smugness, confidence that I was better than my peers. That judgment, brought about from my sin, separated me from them. It also meant that my religious focus was more trained on what I was not up to than on experiencing life from Jesus. I was becoming a more critical, less flexible, less empathetic person. I was growing cockier and narrower in my thinking about life in general, and my life in particular. And none of that was leading to life. This is my version of sin creating a base camp inside of religious law, and leading to death. It’s possible to think you’re a slave to God, and even have that be partly true, but actually be a slave to what’s off in us, to sin.
• ‘thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord’ – Jesus as Caesar, Jesus as Master, Jesus as Boss – however we want to contextualize Paul’s political phrase for Jesus being in charge – leads somewhere else. In Romans 8, we’ll get to spend five days exploring that beautiful territory.

Taking It Home:

For you – Have you had your own experience of religion that leads you away from God? Or have you seen this in others and been wary of too much God or Jesus as a result? Either way, thank Jesus that his plan for your life is not smugness or hypocrisy. Invite Jesus to consume your whole mind, your whole attitude, and your whole life with devotion, grace, and connection to Jesus that yield life, for you and others.

For your 6 – Perhaps some of your 6 have had their own taste of bad religion, either through personal experience or through witnessing it in others. Pray that these experiences wouldn’t steer them away from the love and kindness and power of Jesus.

 

Previously, in Romans: Since sin kills us, Jesus went and killed it. Or he was killed by it. Or he buried it with him when he died. Actually, all of the above. So now we get to live with Jesus. If we want to. Or as our friend Red from The Shawshank Redemption says, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Romans 7:1-12

7 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during that person’s lifetime? ² Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. ³ Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.

⁴ In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. ⁵ While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. ⁶ But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

⁷ What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived ¹⁰ and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

Points of Interest:

• ‘brothers and sisters’ – I really wish Paul had written in English, in concise sentences, in the kind of snappy modern prose I like, or even in lush but not too-abstract poetry. I wish that my sacred texts used the metaphors and imagery of my culture and era and corner of the world. Then I’d get everything that Paul had to say without so much work and educated guessing. Except that I don’t entirely wish this. Part of the delight of Bible reading is listening in on someone else’s conversation. It reminds me that I am not the center of the universe. My concerns, my language, my century are just one mark on the big map of human history. By seeing my life as part of God’s big story, I get to find my place in a long game that I only partially understand. So digging around in these scriptures grounds me and teaches me, and it also humbles me – not only because I can’t be 100% sure about exactly what Paul means and how it applies to me, but because even when I’m relatively sure, he’s calling out to me and you as brothers and sisters across language and time and so much else, linking us to a family of God that is deep in history and wide in scope, and includes us and our little lives as well.I had to say this some time, and since today isn’t the most riveting passage for me, well, here it is.
• ‘the law’ – Paul has spoken about the law now and then throughout Romans, and not on the most positive of terms. He criticizes its frequent use as a source of pride or boasting. He says working the law won’t give us acceptance from God. And he calls it a post-Abrahamic addition to the superior law of faith. Before he pushes on, Paul apparently has a few more things to clear up to his mixed Jewish and Gentile audience about the Hebraic law that we’ll hear later has become a source of tension and division in their house churches, or between their house churches.
• ‘you died to the law… so that you may belong to another’ – Paul’s pretty clever here. The whole woman remarrying after her husband dies thing wasn’t just a picture of one law or rule – the marriage to the first husband – expiring. It was a set-up for a marriage metaphor for union with Jesus. Accepting first century marriage patterns of male domination for a minute (I know… not cool, but it was the case then, so bear with me for a minute….) Accepting that, we see that Jesus followers used to be bound to the Law, including its primary effect of exposing people’s shortcomings (4:15), but that hit-man Jesus has effected the death of this marriage to Law. Now we can be married to Jesus and give God the happy children of good and fruitful results in our lives.
• ‘so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit’ – Mixing metaphors quickly from marriage to slavery, we get this take on human dependence. Our lives are always in the service of something or someone, either that which produces captivity and death at its worst, or the Spirit, which leads to new life.
• ‘if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.’ – The big question in this speech that continues through the rest of Chapter 7, is who and when is the “I”? Is this Paul talking in the present? Or Paul back before his connection to Jesus, when he too lived by the law’s guidance? The switch to the past tense here is a good indication that Paul’s taking us back to his law-following days.
• ‘You shall not covet.’ – To illustrate what happens with the law, Paul quotes the tenth commandment, which prohibits the desire of your neighbor’s stuff.
• ‘the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.’ – Those law-following days weren’t all that great, I guess. The law itself might have been a good set-up in every way, but even the most devoted law-follower such as Paul twisted it into something of death. The case study of covetousness doesn’t seem accidental. Zeal for law adherence became its own kind of ladder for status, a way of coveting honor and the approval of God and people. For Paul, twenty years earlier, this zeal had led him to at least indirect involvement in the actual killings of early Jesus followers. This must have been a vivid picture for Paul of how complying with any standards, even those that it seems God has, in order to win the approval of God or others, only yields bad results.We’ll continue with bad religion, Part II tomorrow. But for now Paul says it’s not God’s fault, it’s the thing in us that’s always looking for ways to prove ourselves in comparison to others, so we’ll even use God and religion – maybe especially use God and religion – to divide people and people groups into inferior and superior and keep ourselves on the superior side of our ledgers.

Taking It Home:

For you – Have you experienced religion that is focused on compliance, status, comparison, or honor more than new life in the Spirit? Is that still true in any way for you? Ask Jesus to make any expression of your spiritual life – including reading this Bible guide and your whole 40 Days of Faith – a source of life for you that makes you more generous, not more smug – toward your friends and your world.

For your city/church – Perhaps your city has come to associate Jesus-related religious expression as dead, narrow or enslaving. If so, pray that Jesus will put to death those experiences and associations and give people freedom to taste the Spirit’s life.

Previously, in Romans: Paul is discussing how to live in the new reality of acceptance by God, which he describes as union with Jesus.

Romans 6:12-23

¹² Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. ¹³ No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵ What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, ¹⁸ and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

²⁰ When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. ²² But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Points of Interest:

• ‘No longer present your members to sin…’ – When I first read this verse in my late teens, with the comment about what to do with one’s member, so close to the word passion, I thought, “Oh, my gosh, the Bible is telling me what do with that particular part of my body!” Paul isn’t talking about any one particular part of your body, though, but every part of one’s body, personality, and mind.
• ‘instruments of wickedness, instruments of righteousness’ – Instruments here invokes martial imagery. All Romans were familiar with weapons in the service of a soldier. Here Paul says every part of us can be in the service of wickedness, or in the service of righteousness. We can use every aspect of our being to reduce our own and other’s humanity, which Paul ties to death. Or we can use all of our being to serve God’s new and right agenda of life.
• ‘not under law but under grace’ – As Paul sticks with the image of slavery, he clarifies just who is in charge for those united with Jesus. Paul has said previously that big efforts toward rule compliance breed hypocrisy, judgment, and exposition of guilt and failure. Grace doesn’t only produce the acceptance and standing (what Paul has been calling “justification”) that the law can’t; this acceptance also provides power and incentive to live differently.
• ‘if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves’ – This statement reflected the reality of the pervasive slavery of the Roman empire. Get into debt and present yourself to someone as a slave, and you will in fact become slave. On moral or spiritual terms, this is also true, we’re told. We become slaves of whoever or whatever we obey. Our first yes toward any obligation or habit may feel freely given, but our 57^th yes is likely to be habitual and compulsory.
  This perspective on human nature undercuts some modern ideas about human autonomy and liberty. But it is affirmed by sources as diverse as behavioral psychology and Bob Dylan. Psychology highlights the power of repetitive thought and behavior, whatever that thought and behavior is. And Dylan sang a generation ago, “You’ve gotta serve somebody.” None of us are free actors, we all live in the service or someone or something we’ve said yes to.
• ‘I am speaking in human terms’ – Maybe Paul’s a little sheepish about such an extended use of the metaphor of slavery, given how brutal and shameful it likely was for many of his Roman readers. It’s a good reminder to take any biblical metaphor or image not overly literally, but to ask what picture it is painting, what point it is making.
• ‘slaves to righteousness for sanctification’ – The end of ‘slavery to righteousness’ is sanctification, becoming the saint that Paul said in his opening greeting all followers of Jesus are. This clearly isn’t only referring to private morality but to an ethic and experience of life that reflects the goodness and vitality of Jesus.
• ‘The end of those things is death.’ – One scholar’s take: “They now know that they had willingly participated in the culture of death, which in many ways had reached its apex in Rome’s glorifying of its violent history, in the brutal duels and executions in the public theaters and arenas…, and in the vicious policies of military expansion, occupation, and economic exploitation. The gospel of Christ crucified exposes the culture of death and leads to a shaming awareness of universal complicity in its enactment.” (Hewett, 95.)The Romans in the house churches were now ashamed of their old ties to a culture of death. I wonder what ties to 21^st century culture of death we are leaving behind, or need to leave behind.
• ‘The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ – Bam, a short conclusion. Everything that is off in us that we’ve been so tied to pays us with death. Everything good God gives us is a gift – it’s not part of any system of good deeds, religious or otherwise. And what the gift gives us is the life of Jesus, in our lives. Master Jesus gives his “slaves” freedom and life.

Taking It Home:

For you – When in your life have you most felt connected to or in the service of a culture of death? If that is 100% in the past, thank God for freedom and life. If some tie remains, invite Jesus to lead you into full disconnection from that and full experience of his leadership and life.

For your 6 – With the line “instruments of wickedness or righteousness”, I think about the experience of feeling like a tool. If any of your 6 find themselves, perhaps at work, stuck in the service of someone or something they don’t want to follow, pray they’d have the freedom to be in the service of something good and true and beautiful instead.

Previously, in Romans: We just wrapped up a comparison between the old story of human sin and death and the new human story Jesus inaugurated – a story of rightness and grace.

Romans 6:1-11

6 What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸ But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Points of Interest:

• ‘Should we continue in sin…?’ – More rhetorical questions from Paul – he really likes these. It’s not clear that any of the Romans would really have thought that they should be the worst people possible, just to cooperate with Jesus in his new spread of grace. But Paul wants to move the discussion to what life looks like when we’re accepted by God. What does it look like for grace to abound (6:1) or, as we read yesterday, for grace to have dominion (5:21)? Let’s see.
• ‘who have been baptized into Christ Jesus’ – Paul appeals to a common experience of his readers, being baptized. By explaining what baptism means, he can explain the reality that it represents.
• ‘united with him’ – In a word, it’s connection to Jesus. This isn’t a loose-tie distant Facebook friend or Linkedin professional connection, though. It’s mystical union. Marriage might be the best metaphor for this close of a tie, and it’s one that Paul uses elsewhere for it.
• ‘our old self was crucified with him’ – One side of this union is dying with Jesus. Crucifixion wasn’t an abstract concept for Romans. It was a brutal and familiar form of state execution. Paul says baptism, union with Jesus, means death – death to an old self that is dominated by sin.But Paul doesn’t just say dominated, he says enslaved. Again, slavery is not a metaphor for the Romans. In the region around Rome, scholars estimate that 1/3 to 2/3 of people were current or former slaves. Paul says that parts of the “old self”, without Jesus, were enslaved to sin. Baptism represents the freedom of walking away from that, as it is envisioned as dying with Jesus.
• ‘we will also live with him’ – The flip side of the death – Jesus and ours – is resurrection. The risen Jesus is done dying for good, literally dying as in heart stopped, no brain waves, etc., and metaphorically dying through sin – anything that is off, and so reduces this new, fully-alive humanity. Paul says that people tied to Jesus get to begin exploring and experiencing this immune-from-death new life.
• ‘consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God’ – Here’s a practical way we’re told to start, through a new perception of our identity. In Chapter 4, we heard that God does some considering when he looks at us. Paul says that for Abraham, and for us, God reckons (or considers) faith to be righteousness. Trusting God, not law compliance, is the key to relating best to God. We are now told to do some considering when we think about ourselves. Whatever the actual evidence, consider that our connection and allegiance to sin is done with. And consider that through connection to Jesus, we are every bit as alive as Jesus as well.
• I remember an old commercial, in which Gatorade told us all to, “Be Like Mike,” as if drinking Gatorade could make us just like the greatest basketball player we had ever seen. Here Paul says with Jesus, it works. We can be like Jesus, without buying anything. In baptism, we die with Jesus, and we live with Jesus. We begin an existence where slavery and compulsion to sin and death end, and union with the life of Jesus begins.

Taking It Home:

For you – Becoming more like Jesus is not a way to more accepted by God. Paul says that has been settled. Living with Jesus is a gift we get because we are accepted by God. Is there any renewal you could use today? Ask Jesus to take any barriers to it into this death, and to unite you with his life for you.

For your city/church – Pray that this whole dying and living with Jesus would be more real experience that theory for many in our church, that folks would look at people in our church and think, “That looks like Jesus.” Pray that there would be more leaders in our society that look like Jesus as well.

Previously, in Romans: Paul has turned his focus toward the tremendous benefits all people can experience when they trust the game-changing significance of the death and life of Jesus.

Romans 5:12-21

¹² Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— ¹³ sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. ¹⁴ Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.

¹⁵ But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. ¹⁶ And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. ¹⁷ If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

¹⁸ Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. ¹⁹ For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. ²⁰ But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, ²¹ so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Points of Interest:

• ‘just as sin came into the world through one man’ – Paul’s been reaching further and further back for Bible figures that illuminate the life and work of Jesus. Now Paul goes all the way back to Adam, understanding him to be a kind of anti-Jesus figure, the comically drawn opposite who created conditions that Jesus has begun to reverse.
• ‘death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses’ – The most significant of these conditions is death. In the Adam and Eve origin story, people begin to die when they choose to try to be like God, rather than receiving life from relationship with God. We talked on Tuesday about the way our own sin can dominate us. Paul draws a pretty tight link between this sin and the literal and metaphorical death we taste as a result.
• ‘the free gift is not like the trespass’ – Paul begins an extended comparison of the impact that Adam and Jesus have on humanity. Sin unleashes a hell of death and condemnation, while the gift of Jesus restores standing, connection with God, and life.
• ‘so by the one man’s obedience…’ – It is interesting that the primary contrast Paul draws between Adam and Jesus isn’t humanity and divinity, but disobedience and obedience. By saying yes to God’s way for his life, Jesus becomes a kind of new first human for us all, Humanity 2.0. He also restores humans to our intended position of justification and life.
• ‘law – trespass – sin – grace – eternal life’ – In the causal chain of the final two verses, Paul is polemically shifting a common Jewish understanding of how God will rescue people from Adam’s sin. A contemporary of Paul’s might understand God’s delivery of the Law to Moses as the way out. People developed the habit of rejecting God’s guidance, so God gave people really clear guidance through Moses. And in the keeping of that Law, by this logic, people would find their way back to God.Paul, though, swept by Moses as just part of the history of death and sin, and says that the primary fruit of this law was to highlight all that is wrong with humanity. But in our flourishing of sin – all the many ways we can misfire in our action and thinking and taste death instead of life – we have provided the territory to experience the grace and love of God from Jesus that leads to unending life.

Taking It Home:

For you – Thank Jesus today for living the life that all humans were meant to live but before him, never had. If you are still experiencing any of the death that comes from sin – negative consequences, for instance, of your own or others’ wrong-doing – ask Jesus to give you a taste of life in that very space.

For your 6 – God desires grace to have dominion in the lives of your friends as well. Pray that each time they are aware of any of their mistakes or faults or short-comings, that they would come to know the love and acceptance of God there as well.

Previously, in Romans: Paul has explained to the Romans that all of them who trust God – Jew or Gentile – are full members of the family of faith.

Romans 5:1-11

5 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³ And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸ But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. ⁹ Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. ¹¹ But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Points of Interest:

• ‘justified by faith’ – This one phrase serves as a summary for the first four chapters. Lots of missteps serve to separate us from God, self, and one another. We are made just – given standing with God and with one another – not through comparative status at another’s expense, but by trusting that through Jesus, God has made it so.
• ‘we have peace with God’ – The result of this new standing is peace with God. Scholars debate whether this phrase should be translated as, “we have peace,” or “let us have peace.” Either way, within reach, to be experienced is access to a free and easy relationship with God. For Romans whose gods demanded much from them and offered little, peace with the divine and access to God’s kindness would have sounded extraordinary.More than personal well-being, this phrase “peace with God through our Lord” had deliberate political overtones. Rome promised the Pax Romana – the peace and order and justice of Rome – through the rule of its emperor, called Lord and Savior. Paul elevates Jesus above Cesar and claims he provides a higher, deeper peace, with broader access as well.

• ‘ we boast in our hope… we boast in our sufferings’ – Of everything Paul had to say in this letter, this might have been the most ludicrous-sounding to the Romans. Romans would boast in the superiority of their state, and all the benefits it provided. Jews would boast in the superiority of their god and the privileged status their identity as God’s chosen conferred. By contrast, anyone suffering would lose opportunity to boast and would face shame, both internalized and reinforced socially by everyone who knew. Paul flips this reality on its head, saying that for the one who trust Jesus, good things are coming. Regardless of present circumstances, we will eventually share in the status and power and joy and goodness of God.The Orthodox say, “God became like us, so we could become like him.” If that is so, then that is a future worth being excited about.
• ‘hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love…’ – Literally, disappoint here is “put us to shame.” Sticking with the honor/shame language of his culture, Paul says God accepts and loves us, and that is our reality to experience by the Holy Spirit. Robert Jewett writes, “Thus the link between trauma and shame is broken by unconditional acceptance…. In Christ, traumatic adversity has lost its power to shame.”
• ‘…has been poured into our hearts’ – This language of “poured out” has pretty rich associations in the Bible. Jesus’ love is “poured out” for us in his death, symbolized by the wine that is poured at communion and the woman who poured out her perfume to anoint Jesus before his death. The Holy Spirit is also poured out on all flesh, Joel prophesies, and Peter in the book of Acts says is fulfilled amongst the followers of Jesus. The result of all this pouring out is God pouring love into us, regardless of our present circumstances.
• ‘while we were still sinners Christ died for us’ – If we need a proof of this love of God, this is it. While we had nothing to offer, when we were in fact missing the mark, not like God, even resistant to Jesus, he died for us. This might have been literally true for Paul’s readers, who had strong ties to either the Roman or Jewish authorities who conspired to kill Jesus. Paul implies it is symbolically true for all people, though, that Jesus died for us in love when we had nothing to offer him.
• ‘justified… reconciled… saved by his life’ – The second paragraph here is full of benefits that Jesus’ death and post-resurrection life ensure for those that trust him. There’s justification, this new standing before God and others. There’s the exalted future with God, called sharing in God’s glory. There’s salvation – rescue from a terrible fate, which Romans understood as being a barbarian outside the empire, but Paul understood as facing the terrible consequences and judgment that our sin provokes. Perhaps most powerful to a 21^st century ear, though, is the final benefit here – reconciliation. Separated from God and alone in the world, Jesus gives his followers the opportunity to be reconnected with God as a child or friend.

Taking It Home:

For you – Consider any disappointments or suffering that have caused you shame. Invite God to pour out his love into your heart in this space. What does it mean to you that you can trust God to share in his glory?

For your church/city – Various groups of people in my city come to mind, when I think of folks struggling with shame and disappointment. I think of the dashing of American dreams experienced by some immigrants, or the struggles I’ve seen in friends in hospitals. Who comes to mind when you think of residents of your city who experience more shame and disappointment than hope and peace? Pray that God would reverse this inner state for them, and that our communities would do better by these people as well.

Previously, in Romans: Paul is half way through a case study on Abraham, discussing why faith – trust in God, and not anything else – makes us part of God’s family and restores our lives.

Romans 4:13-25

¹³ For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴ If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. ¹⁵ For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

¹⁶ For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, ¹⁷ as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ¹⁸ Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” ¹⁹ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰ No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹ being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²² Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” ²³ Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, ²⁴ but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, ²⁵ who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

 Points of Interest:

• ‘the promise that he would inherit the world’ – That’s a big inheritance, the whole world! In Abraham’s story, God promises that his descendants would be blessed by God and be a blessing to the whole world. It was never about ultimately about a particular plot of land, but about the whole earth be changed through what God did in their story.
• ‘did not come… through the law’ – Like circumcision, the law comes after Abraham trusts God, steps into the good life as a result, and this story of making things right is set in motion.
• ‘For the law brings wrath’ – Paul does think God has expectations for human living that are good for us. He’d said these can be written on our hearts. (2:14) But the law itself has all kinds of other drawbacks. It judges people who don’t follow it (2:12), it can become a source of status boasting (2:17 2:25-27), and it leads to wrath – the consequences God has established for when we don’t live rightly.
• ‘it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace.’ – The answer to this problem isn’t better law-keeping, but faith. Paul insists that Jesus has revealed more clearly that all people can trust God to make them right, giving them the chance to be included in God’s family and experience all of God’s benefits.
• ‘Hoping against hope, he believed’ – Many of you are participating in a 40 Days of Faith season, in which you are trusting God to do something good for you as well as for some other people you care about. If it’s any encouragement to you, you are doing this in a long line of others for whom that has gone well. In Abraham’s case, the odds against his faith were enormous. His faith required a God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” Know that the God you are trusting when you trust the God of Abraham and David and Jesus has done just this, again and again.
• ‘when he considered his own body… or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb’ – For Abraham, faith did not involve denial of his present reality. He noticed and considered the odds against God’s promises coming true. Yet for much longer than 40 days, he kept praying, and his trust grew stronger. Of course, we can misunderstand the details of God’s promises, but Paul admires Abraham’s considered trust, and says that God considered it to be wonderful as well.
• ‘It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead…’ – In the shortest possible way, Paul summarizes what it means to follow Jesus. It is entering into Abraham’s story of a God who does the impossible. It is entering into the story of a God who can give life to the dead, and has specifically done that in Jesus on the first Easter. It is trusting that Jesus’ death cleared out the weight of our trespasses that these first four chapters have talked so much. And it means that in Jesus coming back to life, he set in motion our justification – our inclusion in God’s family, and our lives and all things on earth being made right and new.

Taking It Home:

For you – If you have been asking God for something for this 40 Days of faith, has your trust in God changed? Has your faith grown or decreased? How can Abraham’s example encourage you?

For your 6 – Pray that your friends would experience full inclusion in God’s family. And if any are up against great odds, hoping against hope, pray that God will answer any prayers they have spoken and connect them with a God who gives life to the dead.

Previously, in Romans: Paul has introduced the notion that faith – specifically, trust in the value and relevance of Jesus’ life and death – is the key to a meaningful life and was at the center of all of God’s past involvement with the Jewish people.

Romans 4:1-12

4 What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? ² For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. ³ For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” ⁴ Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. ⁵ But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. ⁶ So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

⁷ “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
⁸ blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.”

⁹ Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” ¹⁰ How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. ¹¹ He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, ¹² and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised.

Points of Interest:

• ‘Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh’ – Paul brings up Abraham, as both a case study in the value of faith and also the relative insignificance of anything else that we might think makes us better than others. It’s interesting to me that Paul assumes the Romans would be interested in this story. After all, while he and some of the Jesus followers in the house churches are Jewish, most were not. Today, Abraham is a founding father-figure to Christians, Jews, and Muslims – roughly half the world’s population – but then he was only a central figure for Jews. Yet Paul insists that his story, his experience, and his example are important for all people.If I’m not Jewish, this is humbling. It tells me that the start of God’s story for me isn’t in my life, or that of my grandparents, or in America, or in the European Enlightenment, or in anything else that was accomplished by or happened to my ancestors. God’s story for me is “to the Jew first.” (1:16) If I were Jewish, it would also be humbling, because it means that Abraham and his legacy are not my special possession, that all along this story was for everyone. It is “also to the Greek.” (1:16)
• ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ – This line is from Genesis 15. Abraham thinks God has promised to do something great for the whole earth through his descendants. Yet his wife Sarai and he are getting older, and they don’t yet have a single child. God tells Abraham he will get that child and a gazillion descendants through which this promise will come true. Abraham says, “OK. I trust you, God.” And God calls that righteousness. That is what it means to be in right relationship with oneself and with God. It’s not to try to accumulate payment, whether through moral goodness or human status, but to trust God’s provision. Paul says this is the pattern for all human dealings with God – it’s what it means to be in the game, to trust what God is doing to make our lives meaningful, to make us part of a bigger story and community, and to set right all the earth.
• ‘who justifies the ungodly’ – Paul slips in this little phrase to talk about what God did for Abraham. Calling Abraham ungodly would be a pretty big surprise for Paul’s fellow Jews, but Paul is sticking to his agenda of equal footing for all humanity. We are all part of that story Paul tells at the end of chapter one, tending toward a lack of trust in God and making life difficult for ourselves and one another. Put differently, we have all “sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (3:23) Abraham, the Jews, the Romans, you, and I were made to be tight with God and experience all of God’s goodness and joy and light and power. Yet for all us, that is consistently not true. Our only way back is to trust God to make it so.
• ‘Blessed are those whose iniquities…’ – Paul brings another Jewish hero into the conversation, this time King David again, from Psalm 32. With David, too, the good life came from trusting God to make things right, not from any way he had to make that so. There’s that word “reckon” again, God counting faith for us, but not counting all our faithlessness against us.
• ‘pronounced only on the circumcised…?’ – Abraham had faith and became an example for relating to God before he was circumcised and long before God gave people any law to follow. Thus circumcision was only a sign of something for a time, not the thing itself. Yet for Paul’s contemporaries, to be circumcised was to be a Jew. To not be circumcised was to be an outsider to the experience, ineligible, inferior.Paul is really going after that value of human achievements and identity markers here. He has the humility here to go after that of his own culture first. Presumably this would apply, though, to anything else we think is the key to the good life. For Romans, it might have been status as Roman citizens. Interestingly enough, Paul had that status (unusual for a first century Palestinian Jew), but doesn’t bring it up in this letter. It’s just that big a deal. I think Paul would say the same thing about graduate degrees, social media followers, high incomes, fit bodies, getting married or having children, and more. If these things make sense as part of the life God’s leading you to, go for it, but they are not prerequisites. They are not keys to the good life; faith is.

Taking It Home:

For you – Is there an equivalent identity marker to circumcision in your life? Something you have considered essential to the good life, whether you have it yet or don’t? Try telling God you’d like to hold that thing more lightly and trust God to give you a relationship to God and to your own life that makes things right.

For your church/city – Pray that our church would provide another witness, like Abraham and David, to the reality that trusting God brings joy and love and the good life.

Previously, in Romans: Paul has wrapped up his initial attack on human boasting and exceptionalism, insisting that all people are broken and all people are accountable to God.

Romans 3:21-31

²¹ But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, ²² the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, ²³ since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; ²⁴ they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; ²⁶ it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.

²⁷ Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸ For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. ²⁹ Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, ³⁰ since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. ³¹ Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Points of Interest:

• ‘the righteousness of God has been disclosed’ – Reading the first three chapters of Romans in the 21^st century, most of us would conclude that God’s big problem would be how in the world to help us. We’re broken, we lose our way in life, we live under the power of sin, and we’re busy covering this up and justifying ourselves in comparison to other people? How will God help us?As a first century Jew, Paul had a different concern he led with. What in the world does this say about God? How can God be good and just and fulfill his promises to set the whole world right, when this is what we are like? Paul says that Jesus answers this question. Four times in this one paragraph, Paul says that Jesus reveals the righteousness of God. Jesus is the center of God’s story, the hinge of God’s history, revealing how God is good and just and will fulfill his promise to set all things right. How this is so will get considerable attention over the next few chapters.
• ‘there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ – Paul won’t let go of his theme of status-free, privilege-free, comparison-free common humanity. None of us are better than one another in our common problems, and none of us are worse than one another in our common opportunity to receive kindness from God.
• ‘they are now justified’ – If you didn’t grow up in a Christian, church-going setting, some of Paul’s language – steeped in Jewish culture and religion and scripture, on the one hand, and first century Greco-Roman people on the other – will feel kind of technical and foreign sometimes. But if you grew up in a Christian, church going setting, it might seem over-familiar, since so many Christian thinkers have spun theories about Paul’s language over the centuries. Either way, we’ll do our best to follow Paul’s line of thinking and ask how it might remain relevant good news for us in our times.So far Paul hasn’t seemed particularly interested in some of the questions later Christians talked so much about. He hasn’t been asking about an individual’s fate after death, for instance, as important as that question may be. He’s been wondering how God can fulfill his promises to set the world right, and how people can find grounds for our existence and meaning that don’t depend on comparing ourselves to others. He starts to address that second question here, saying human justification isn’t about our qualifications at all. Education, health, morality, ethnicity, status, privilege, popularity – none of those things makes life right and meaningful. The gift of Jesus, and particularly Jesus buying us out of being under the power of sin (3:9), makes our lives right.
• ‘whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood’ – “How?” would be a reasonable question. Paul will have more to say about this, but he starts by saying that on Jesus’ end, it has to do with his death, and on our end, it has to do with trust that this works, that Jesus’ death has something to do with God setting things right in the world and freeing us from problems of our own making. Paul (and we) will explore this idea more in chapters to come. For now, it’s fair to note that everything about this is surprising – that the long-dismantled Jewish sacrificial system would be at all relevant to Roman Gentiles (or us), that a shameful death would be at the center of God’s plans to make things right, or that the key to a meaningful life would be trusting something God does rather than doing anything unique ourselves. All of this is unexpected, to Paul and to the Romans, as well as to us.
• ‘Then what becomes of boasting?’ – For now, Paul brings this thought to climax by saying that it dismantles our battles of achievement and power and comparison. The law of faith, that people are made right by trusting in the efficacy of a gift and not by status or accomplishments, makes elevating ourselves over other people or groups seem ridiculous.
• ‘God is one’ – The Hebrew line, “Hear, O Israel, that God is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) has been at the heart of Jewish daily prayers for thousands of years. In its original context, it was tied to a bold claim of monotheism – that this God is the one true God, over and against the pantheons of Israel’s surrounding nations. It was also tied to the giving of the 10 commandments, and the rest of the law of God; over the centuries, Jews came to believe that possession of and obedience to that law made them special. Paul now ties this line to God’s universal goodness to all humanity – one God for all people.
• ‘On the contrary, we uphold the law.’ – You could understand if people called Paul a revisionist, making up new purposes for the Bible in light of his faith in Jesus. Paul says that the opposite is true, that in Jesus, God has revealed his original purpose for the whole of the Jewish faith and law and heritage.

Taking It Home:

For you – What does it mean to find worth in someone else’s gift, to say that your life matters because of the value that Jesus places on it? Is this freeing or troubling to you? Does it resolve tensions for you, or raise questions?

For your 6 – If any of your six consider themselves outsiders to faith, pray that they will come to understand that God is for them and relevant to them as well.

Previously, in Romans: While arguing for the universal brokenness and need of humankind, Paul took us on a quick tangent to deal with a few questions that might have been coming up, particularly for his Jewish readers.

Romans 3:9-20

⁹ What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, ¹⁰ as it is written:

“There is no one who is righteous, not even one;
¹¹     there is no one who has understanding,
there is no one who seeks God.
¹² All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;
there is no one who shows kindness,
there is not even one.”
¹³ “Their throats are opened graves;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of vipers is under their lips.”
¹⁴     “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
¹⁶     ruin and misery are in their paths,
¹⁷ and the way of peace they have not known.”
¹⁸     “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. ²⁰ For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Points of Interest:

• ‘What then? Are we any better off?’ – Perhaps it seemed clear to all of us already that no one is better off before God, despite any status or advantages people appear to have. Perhaps, though, after claiming that it is a good thing to be Jewish, Paul feels the need to return to his main point, that nothing – not religious heritage, not education, not high-status privilege – makes you better off as a person. We’re all in the same boat.
• ‘are under the power of sin’ – That same boat we’re in, without God’s help, is a sinking one. Paul says that sin – all the ways we miss the mark – isn’t a series of mistakes but a malevolent, almost personal force within us, determined to ruin our lives. Those of us who have battled addiction or bad tempers or any other number of personal demons have found this to be true as well.
• ‘There is no one who is righteous’ – Again, Paul’s writing is soaked in the Hebrew scriptures, whether he’s directly quoting them in the moment or not. Here there’s a whole mash-up of quotations. For those checking at home, here are the references: Ecclesiastes 7:20, Psalm 14:1, Psalm 14:53, Psalm 5:9, Psalm 140:3, Psalm 10:7, Isaiah 59:7-8, and Psalm 36:2.
• The primary meaning of all this Bible quoting is clear. He appeals to a source his Jewish readers would trust – their Bible – to make the point that his own argument of universal human sin is not original. That said, N.T. Wright’s commentary points out that in their context, every single one of these references is near to a prayer or promise that God would prove himself righteous – good and just and in right relationship – by rescuing people from ourselves.
• ‘so that every mouth may be silenced’ – This is an interesting goal God has in mind. Some people have seen God’s law as a tool for self-advancement, a way to justify themselves as better than their fellow humans. Paul says that doesn’t work out so well, because God’s expectations tend to show us what’s wrong with us, more than what is right in us. Perhaps silence is better than all that self-justification. Like a kid busy making excuses when caught in the act, it would be more helpful to just stop talking and ask for forgiveness and help.Paul has the humility to apply this extended argument to his own culture and religion, but the extension to the Roman elite in these house churches, or to ourselves for that matter, isn’t that hard to make. Whatever it is that we use to justify ourselves or make us look more favorable than others, or gain privilege over others, we are still broken and flawed human beings, exposed as needy before God.

Taking It Home:

For you – Consider a different mode of prayer for a minute. Tell God that you know you are no better than anyone else, and that you too are a broken sinner. Then simply be silent for a while.

For your church/city – Not unlike Roman society, ours appears to be status and privilege-obsessed as well. Whether through the quality of our resume or the numbers of our Instagram followers, we find meaning in comparison to others. Pray that God would break through our city’s obsession with education and achievement and popularity to give people the freedom to embrace their common humanity, and their common need for God.