Category: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Romans 4:6-8

1 Comment

“Likewise, David also speaks of the blessing of the person to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: Blessed are those whose lawless acts are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the person the Lord will never charge with sin.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

History builds on itself. You can’t make proper sense out of the present without understanding the past. History is linear like that. It is always going somewhere. Sometimes it winds this way and that and even doubles back a bit, but forward is always, ultimately where it is going. This is because it is being guided along by a God who has a plan. It is a plan He has been slowly revealing for a very long time. And He also leaves clues ahead of time for those with eyes to see. A bit of an excursus today as we pause to ponder an accessory point in Paul’s argument. Let’s talk about God’s plans and how we know them.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Romans 3:25-26

7 Comments

“God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When an offense occurs, someone is responsible and someone is offended. There may be more than one responsible party, and there may be more than one offended party, but there is at least one of each. Indeed, if there is no offended party, then it wasn’t an offense. That is, it wasn’t wrong. And when this offense has occurred, it has to be made right or justice is never achieved. Today, let’s explore why God is always the ultimate offended party, and what He has done about making sure justice—His justice—is ultimately satisfied.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Romans 3:19-20

1 Comment

“Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the best books on preaching I’ve read is Andy Stanley’s, Communicating for a Change. He thinks of his sermons in terms of movements. He aims to have five movements in each sermon. He labels them me, we, God, you, we. If the previous section had Paul in the “you” part of his message, he brings things around here back to “we.” Paul has been dumping truth on his audience. Here, just before the turn, Paul plants himself squarely in the midst of the rest of his readers. He was someone who was covered by the law too. And it was just as incapable of saving him as it was everyone else. In other words, rules can’t save us. Let’s talk about it.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Romans 3:7-8

2 Comments

“But if by my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim we say, “Let us do what is evil so that good may come”? Their condemnation is deserved!” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Incorrect thinking leads to bad ideas. As we have talked about before, bad ideas lead to all sorts of unfortunate consequences. To put that another way: Ideas have consequences; bad ideas have victims. As Paul nears the point where he lands with both feet on the emphatic conclusion of this opening section of his letter to the Roman believers, he addresses one more round of incorrect thinking. Let’s take a look at this with him.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Romans 3:5-6

1 Comment

“But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I am using a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world?” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The picture of God as judge is not a popular one nowadays. This wasn’t always the case. The pre-modern world didn’t have much of a problem with it at all. Our being repulsed by the idea is a consequence of modern and postmodern philosophical movements over the last roughly 200 years changing the way we think about ourselves and right and wrong and God more generally. As we work through Paul’s concluding argument in his grand presentation of the hard news of the Gospel in order to set up the good news (which we’ll finally get to next week), he starts things off by highlighting some potential reactions to the argument he has been making. We dealt with the first of these last week. Let’s take on the second today: Is God right to issue judgment against sin?

Read the rest…