Romans

It's been a little while since I've posted any of my reading highlights.  I read through Acts, which I highly recommend if you would like to learn the history of the early Christian church.  I learned a lot!  Now I am reading through Romans.  Here are my beginning highlights:

1:17 - For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed-a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written:  "The righteous will live by faith."

1:25-27 - (speaking of sinful humanity) They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised.  Amen.  Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.  Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.  Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

1:32 - Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

2:1-4 - (one I have had major struggles with in the past, but constantly pray about) You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.  Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.  So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment?  Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

3:19 - This makes it clear, doesn't it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place!  And it's clear enough, isn't it, that we're sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else?

3:22-31 - (this one is great...stick with me here) The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us.  And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him.  For there is no difference between us and them in this.  Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us.  Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself.  A pure gift.  He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be.  And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.  God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin.  Having faith in him sets us in the clear.  God decided on this course of action in full view of the public-to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured.  This is not only clear, but it's now-this is current history!  God sets things right.  He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.  So where does that leave our proud Jewish insider claims and counterclaims?  Canceled?  Yes, canceled.  What we've learned is this:  God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does.  We've finally figured it out.  Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.  And where does that leave our proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God?  Also canceled.  God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews.  How could it be otherwise since there is only one God?  God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion.  But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commmanded?  Not at all.  What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it (the law).

4:2-5 - If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it.  But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story.  What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point.  He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own."  If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift.  But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it-you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked-well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God.

4:14-16 - If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract!  That's not a holy promise; that's a business deal.  A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect.  But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise-and God's promise at that-you can't break it.  This is why the fulfillment of God's promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does.  God's promise arrives as a pure gift.  That's the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them.  For Abraham is father of us all.  He is not our racial father-that's reading the story backwards.  He is our faith father.

4:20-25 - (speaking of Abraham and Sarah's conception) Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but he was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he had promised.  This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness."  The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit his righteousness-for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  He was delivered over death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

5:1-5 - By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us-set us right with him, make us fit for him-we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus.  And that's not all; We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us.  We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand-out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.  There's more to come:  We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.  In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged.  Quite the contrary-we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

I don't know about you, but I've run out of containers a long, long time ago! (and am still getting more every day!)