Tag: Faith

Digging in Deeper: Romans 8:14-17

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“For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, ‘Abba,  Father!’ The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In his magnum opus, Knowing God, author and theologian, J.I. Packer, argues that adoption is the single most important lens through which we should understand the New Testament. It is the theme that lies at the heart of everything else we find there. Without that idea, none of the rest of it makes the kind of sense it should. And in making this argument, he points most emphatically to this passage. God loves us so much that He wants us to be a part of His family. Let’s explore what Paul introduces to us here and why it is so critically important to understand.

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 16:19

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“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Over the last few Fridays (last Friday, of course, being an exception), we have been taking a long look at Jesus’ response to Peter’s confession of Him as Messiah in Matthew 16. Jesus’ response to Peter is the first mention of the church we encounter in the Scriptures, and the two verses here are perhaps the most important foundation statement on the church in the Scriptures. In our Wednesday night Bible study group, we’ve spent a total of nearly eight weeks talking about these two verses and exploring their implications for the church today as thoroughly as we can. Needless to say, there’s a lot here. This past week, we finally finished the section. Since we’ve touched on all the rest of it here as well over the last few weeks, I thought we would take a look at the last part of it too. Let’s reflect for a few minutes today on what Jesus meant by binding and loosing things on earth and in heaven.

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Morning Musing: Romans 8:3-4

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“For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The Old Testament seems complicated. More specifically, the Old Testament Law of Moses seems complicated. There are just so many rules to keep (613 to be exact). How is someone supposed to get (and stay) right with God when it seems like you are always going to be breaking some law or another. It feels like the whole thing was just set up to condemn us. Well, as Paul has already talked about, that isn’t the case, but it became the case because of sin. Thankfully, God fixed that through Jesus. Let’s look here with Paul at how.

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Morning Musing: Romans 7:12-13

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“So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. Therefore, did what is good become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, in order to be recognized as sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment, sin might become sinful beyond measure.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I love a good mystery story. I tend to let myself get taken into the story such that I’m fully along for the ride. I rarely figure the best ones out until right at the end, which, in a really good mystery, should always be the case. One of the best I’ve ever seen is the movie, The Usual Suspects, starring Kevin Spacey. Spacey plays a criminal who, after being arrested, convinces the police with an elaborate—and entirely false—story that he is innocent even though he was the mastermind behind the whole thing. One of the best lines from the movie is a quote attributed to a 19th century French poet and essayist, Charles Baudelaire. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” When we become convinced that evil isn’t really evil, that sin isn’t really a thing, we find ourselves able to justify all sorts of things. Law serves as the only effective restraint when we walk that path. Sin, though, is bad enough stuff it can corrupt even that. Let’s talk a bit more today about the relationship of sin and the law.

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 6:18

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“And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The church has a bit of a bad rap. Some of that we’ve earned over years of hard work. Much of it is unfair thanks to the equally hard work of critics who range from ignorant to bigoted to hurt and vengeful. Whatever the precise reason, though, the church in America and in the cultural West more generally isn’t what it once was. This trend started in earnest a couple of generations ago, but over the last generation it has accelerated to a sociologically rapid pace. Yet while there have been folks variously cheering and mourning this decline depending on which side of the line they fall on, some recent cultural trends backed by a growing body of research is pointing to a potential need for the ones celebrating and the ones mourning to change sides. Let’s talk for a few minutes this morning about the cultural comeback of Christianity.

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