Tag: bible

Morning Musing: 1 Timothy 2:1-2

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“First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What do you do when you don’t have any power? Well, one approach is to try to get some power. That would seem to make sense. After all, power is a good thing. We all want to have some power. But what about when that’s not an option? What then? You could gripe and complain. You could punish those who do have power by making their exercise of it as complicated and uncomfortable as possible. Neither of those, though, seem like terribly positive options. Much to the contrary, they will likely make things vastly more difficult for us. There is another way, though. Paul outlines a third way here could make quite a difference indeed. Let’s talk about the best thing to do when you don’t have any power.

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Morning Musing: Romans 10:14-17

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“How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.’ But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things that irks critics of Christianity more than many other things we do is our constantly trying to share our faith. Why are Christians so pushy with their beliefs? Why can’t they just leave other people to believe what they want rather than going around telling them they’re wrong all the time? What arrogance to think they know better than everybody else what’s right. What’s the big deal? What Paul says here has a lot to do with it. Let’s take a look at what he has to say.

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Morning Musing: Romans 10:4

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“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes…” (CSB – Read the chapter)

It’s hard to know what something is unless you know what it’s for. But if you get what it is for wrong, you’ll get what it is wrong too. Perhaps the best illustration of this comes from Scuttle the seagull in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. When Ariel brings him a fork, he identifies it as a “dinglehopper,” used by humans for doing their hair. Among followers of Jesus there is an occasionally robust debate about the purpose of the Law of Moses in light of Christ and His ministry. Paul gives us an important clue here. Let’s talk about it.

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Morning Musing: Romans 10:1-3

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“Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation. I can testify about them that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Since they are ignorant of the righteousness of God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the most entertaining, but also frustrating experiences in life is having an argument with a toddler who is convinced she’s right when she’s really not. That little girl will passionately defend her position to the ground. It’s cute, really. The problem, of course, is that she doesn’t know what she is talking about. She has zeal, but insufficient knowledge. Knowing something with a lot of passion and even confidence doesn’t count for much when you’re still wrong. As Paul continues talking about Israel and the church here, he says one of those groups was in that position. Let’s talk about which one and why.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 9:22-29

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“And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction? And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory—on us, the ones he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As it also says in Hosea, ‘I will call Not My People, My People, and she who is Unloved, Beloved. And it will be in the place where they were told, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.’ But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, ‘Though the number of Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved; since the Lord will execute his sentence completely and decisively on the earth.’ And just as Isaiah predicted: ‘If the Lord of Armies had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

So, yesterday we started a really uncomfortable conversation about God’s sovereignty and our subjection to that sovereignty. We like to think of ourselves as truly and completely free individuals. We are autonomous beings. And then Paul asks something like, “On the contrary, who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?'” That hits hard. And the more you think about it, the harder it hits. In fact, it hits hard enough that whereas I was originally going to treat these verses in the same post as yesterday’s passage, there was enough here when I started writing that I had to break it up into two posts. Without further ado, then, let’s keep working through Paul’s exaltation of God’s sovereignty and what that means for us.

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