Tag: Understanding the Gospel

Morning Musing: Romans 1:21-23

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“For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things I have enjoyed as a dad over the years is playing with my kids. We’ve played all sorts of different things, but when they were younger, the playing tended to be more make-believe in its nature. Playing make-believe games is fun, but it’s not real. Part of the fun is in knowing there is a real world to enjoy together. When someone gives into a fantasy too long or too thoroughly, that’s a sign of a problem that needs to be addressed, not just harmless fun. The trouble here is that some of the fantasies we indulge in don’t look like fantasies, and so we dive in not realizing how they are warping our thinking. Paul says that’s really a problem. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 1:19-20

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“…since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I love engaging with optical illusions. I especially like the kind where you can’t see something at first, but then, when your brain has wrapped itself fully around what’s really there, you can’t not see it. Sometimes it takes a little work to get to the place where you can really see—and sometimes you need help from someone else who can already see to adjust your mind and eyes accordingly—but that moment when you finally get it is always a pretty sweet one. Thinking about it, the world is kind of like an optical illusion. It looks one way at first glance, but once you see what really is, you just about can’t not see it anymore. This is where Paul goes next. Let’s join him.

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Morning Musing: Romans 1:18

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“For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth…” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Did you ever do anything you knew was wrong when you did it, but then never faced any consequences for it? My guess is that you felt pretty good then, at least initially. You felt like you had gotten away with something. Maybe it started to convince yourself that it wasn’t really all that wrong of a thing as you first thought. Perhaps it led to your doing it again…and again…until you finally did get caught. And when you finally did get caught it was bad. Worse even than what it likely would have been had you gotten caught in the beginning. What you needed that first time you did it was a bit of wrath directed your way. Wrath is not a bad thing. It also happens to be an attribute of God. It is, in fact, the first attribute of God Paul mentions after introducing the Gospel to us. Let’s talk about what it is and why it matters.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 1:16-17

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“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the ironic secrets of good writing is that it takes longer to write shorter pieces than it does longer ones. It’s easy to dump a bunch of words out on a page. Pairing those down to the point that you have just the right words takes longer. The same goes with explaining a large and complicated idea. Boiling things down to few words that are clear and compelling takes work. With that in mind, these two verses from Paul must have taken a lot of work. This is one of the clearest, most direct statements of the Gospel ever written. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 1:1-4

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“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God  —  which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures —  concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh and was appointed to be the powerful Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When I was getting my degree in chemistry, I was the weird kid in the department. This wasn’t because of personality (I was generally right at home in that sense as all chemistry majors are a little weird). It was because I was the one kid in the department who hated lab work. I vastly preferred classwork. I wanted all the theory and didn’t care two cents about the practice. My brain didn’t process information that way. Oh, I faked my way through it just fine, but I never really understood what I was doing. That included when I had to write lab report abstracts. Those were the introduction paragraphs for experiment write-ups. You had to pack a ton of information into a tiny word count. If you’ve been following this blog for long, you know that brevity isn’t really one of my strengths. It wasn’t really the apostle Paul’s strength either, but he could still pack a ton of information into a few words. His introductory statement for his letter to the believers in Rome is a great example. Let’s explore part of it as we begin a whole new journey in this new year.

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