Tag: Romans

Digging in Deeper: Romans 7:24-25b

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“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Sometimes when you set out to do something, you just don’t get it right the first time. That was the general reaction to the much-hyped Justice League movie when it hit theaters in 2017. DC Comics was desperately trying to achieve with their major characters what Marvel was accomplishing with theirs. By all accounts, they should have been successful. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are names easily as recognizable and arguably more famous than Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. Or at least, they were. But they came late to the party and rushed to get their parity product into the theaters. The result was largely panned even though they hired Joss Whedon, the creator of the original Avengers magic, to helm the ship after the original director, Zack Snyder stepped down following the tragic death of his daughter. And that should have been it. But in a remarkable twist, HBO decided to take a risk and give Snyder the chance to make the film he had planned from the beginning. The final product released yesterday…and is over 4 hours long. I’m most of the way through it, but here are some thoughts I’ve had along the way.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 14:13

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“Therefore, let us no longer judge one another. Instead decide never to put a stumbling block or pitfall in the way of your brother of sister.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I used to wear rubber bands on my wrist. It was a phase in high school. I always had a least one and sometimes wore several. Whenever I found one sitting around somewhere I’d slip it on and wear it. The thing about rubber bands is that over time they begin to lose their elasticity when they are exposed to the rigors of life. It doesn’t happen all at once. But eventually, when you stretch them, you begin to notice that there are cracks in them. Once these start forming as long as you leave the rubber band alone, you can’t see them. If you stretch them, though, they show up. The further you stretch them, the more they show and the bigger they become. Stretch too far – and what counts as “too far” narrows over time – and eventually they snap. Our culture is like a rubber band right now. The church is too. Let’s talk this morning about how to avoid the snap.

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Getting in Line

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What do we do when we are facing leaders we don’t want to follow issuing orders we don’t want to keep? The response by most people throughout history has been either passive acceptance or else violent rebellion. As followers of Jesus, though, there is another option. As we continue our series, Being Good Kingdom Citizens, this week, thinking together about how we need to respond to the current political climate as followers of Jesus, we are going to join the apostle Paul as he lays out what this third way is. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.

Getting in Line

Have you ever been faced with a rule you didn’t want to follow? I suspect so. I remember when I was a sophomore in high school, and we took the standardized science tests for the state at the end of the year. I remember thinking the whole test was a joke in terms of covering ideas and topics we hadn’t touched on at all in the previous nine months, but the question that took the cake for me was this: Draw a picture of the universe and mark the approximate location of the earth. By this time, I was beyond frustrated with the content. We had never even come close to talking about the shape of the universe. I was a science geek and didn’t know the shape of the universe. Modern astrophysicists only have guesses about it (incredibly educated guess, yes, but guesses all the same). The rule was, though, that you had to answer all the questions. So, I sat there and for five continuous minutes put dots all over the page with my pencil, added a random X, and then moved on to the next question. I’ll confess that it was not one of my finer moments in academia.

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Morning Musing: Romans 7:18

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“For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

So, last night our air conditioner broke. We discovered this about bedtime. The night before our oldest had his first day of school. Joy. My lovely bride had observed the house felt warm earlier in the evening, and I, being the loving and considerate husband that I am, ignored her because I was comfortable. Now, in my defense, we couldn’t have done anything about it anyway, but it was definitely not one of my finer moments as a husband. That being said, the real issue was a lack of air. Fortunately, we have two units and so could just move everybody sleeping downstairs upstairs for the night. Do you know what wouldn’t have worked? Pretending everything was fine and sleeping like we normally do.

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Loving One Another

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After four months worshiping together from a distance, this coming Sunday we will finally open our doors once again for in-person worship services. We are as excited as can be to see each other, but this doesn’t mean we’re really ready for it. Last week we started a conversation about how we can hit that mark together. This past Sunday morning we finished that conversation and I shared our guidelines for worshiping together safely in light of the ongoing threat of COVID-19. Here’s what I had to say.

Loving One Another

One of the most effective ways that storytellers keep their audiences coming back for more is with the use of a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger, of course, is a story that ends at a moment that is decidedly unresolved thereby inviting you to come back to find out what happens next. For superhero fans, consider the ending of Avengers: Infinity War. The bad guy accomplished his main goal, wiped out half the life in the universe with the snap of his fingers, and sat peacefully on a distant planet enjoying a beautiful sunset. Three hours of movie-watching and the bad guy wins after 10 years and 22-films worth of build up?!? Of course, I’m coming back for the sequel! What’s that? You want $100 per ticket? I’ll take a dozen just to make sure I don’t miss anything.

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