Tag: Christianity

Morning Musing: Romans 11:33-36

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“Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? And who has ever given to God, that he should be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Sometimes the right response is praise. The right response to what? Well, all sorts of different things. A really good experience. A really hard experience. A particularly incredible gift. An especially profound idea. That last one is what drives Paul to praise here at the end of Romans 11. Expressions of praise in the Scriptures are always worth pausing to reflect on because the author is saying things about God that are true and worth not only knowing, but celebrating. So, what does Paul have to say about God here? Let’s take a look.

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Calling Out the Called

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This past Sunday we had the delight of baptizing new followers of Jesus and members, celebrating the Lord’s Supper, and setting aside some excellent servant leaders for the deacon ministry. Just before going through the official ordination process, I offered some observations on deacon ministry and servant leadership more generally to the congregation. Here’s what I had to say.

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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 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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