Month: August 2025

Digging in Deeper: Romans 10:9

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“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

No, you’re not seeing double. It’s been a few weeks now, but we did indeed talk about Romans 10:9 recently, and we are going to do it again today. But as I thought about a verse that speaks right to the heart of something that happened this past week, there’s really not another that gets as close as this verse does. A public figure this week expressed his hope of salvation. That doesn’t happen very often generally. It especially doesn’t happen very often with a public figure of this nature. And because the media tends to react (some might say, “overreact”) to just about everything this particular public figure says, the whole country was talking about salvation for a couple of days this week. President Trump started it. Let’s add our thoughts on the matter today.

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Morning Musing: Romans 11:13-16

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“Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Insofar as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if I might somehow make my own people jealous and save some of them. For if their rejection brings reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? Now if the firstfruits are holy, so is the whole batch. And if the root is holy, so are the branches.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever benefited from an opportunity that someone else missed? I was waiting for a table at a busy restaurant with limited seating the other day. While I was sitting there the hostess called for two different groups who weren’t there anymore. She scratched both names off the list and ours moved up. We wound up not having to wait nearly as long as we thought. Just before we were seated, though, one of them came back to see if they could still get a table. They could, but it was going to mean starting over at the bottom of the long list. Paul says Israel’s missing out on God’s kingdom because of their rejection of Jesus gave this kind of an opportunity to the rest of the world. Let’s take a look at what he’s saying here.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 11:11-12

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“I ask, then, have they stumbled so as to fall? Absolutely not! On the contrary, by their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous. Now if their transgression brings riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fullness bring!” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever missed out on something? I went to a week long youth camp with my church every year from seventh grade to after my freshman year of college except one. I had conflicting plans that one summer, but all I heard about for months afterward was how awesome that camp had been. I’ll admit: I was a bit jealous of the group that went. Israel (the geopolitical people) missed out on the kingdom of God when they rejected Jesus as Messiah. Starting here and for the next several verses, Paul explores this idea and what it means for everyone else, especially those who were not part of Israel. Let’s take a look at this with him.

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Morning Musing: Romans 11:7-10

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“What then? Israel did not find what it was looking for, but the elect did find it. The rest were hardened, as it is written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear, to this day.’ And David says, ‘Let their table become a snare and a trap, a pitfall and a retribution to them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and their backs be bent continually.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

If you’ve had the pleasure of experiencing the journey that is parenthood, you know that one of the biggest ongoing challenges is figuring out how to effectively and adequately discipline children who misbehave. While there are plenty of books out there on the subject, no two children are the same. Some methods work on some children, other methods work on other children. There is no one-size-fits-all approach you can use that will do the trick every single time. That being said, there are some generally transferable approaches worth knowing. One of these is that sometimes the natural consequences are the most effective punishment. The outcome of a particular decision can be its own most effective consequence. This idea plays into what Paul has to say here. Let’s give it a look.

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The Assumption of Consumption

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When you get some stuff, what is your first thought about it? Do you start planning how you can use it? Save it? Give it? Where does your mind go? How we think about our stuff says a lot about us and where we are in our relationship with Jesus. It can also have a big impact on the size of the world we live in. During His ministry, Jesus was confronted with one particular man’s attitude during a teaching episode and chose to address it directly. Let’s see what Jesus had to say to Him and what it might have to do with us.

The Assumption of Consumption

Kids crack me up. If I think about it, though, kids make me a little sad too. Let me explain. Kids, and especially little kids, offer us the clearest picture we have of what people look like in our rawest form. If you have ever wondered what people are really like, spend some time watching kids. Now, this doesn’t hold universally true because some kids get messed up by their circumstances really early on, but for kids in even relatively healthy situations, they offer a window into the human soul. The reason for this is that kids really don’t have a filter. Whatever they are currently feeling is what comes out. And social conventions don’t mean a thing to them. 

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