Romans 1-3

hey everybody!  so today's text is Romans 1-3.  i'll share my thoughts, then i'd love to hear from you, either in the comments below or on facebook.

1) i love how this letter starts off.  seriously, verses 1-6 are essentially "hi, my name is paul, Jesus is awesome, and here's the gospel."  i want to be able to introduce myself like that (and by that i mean, point away from me to the One worthy of attention).

2) v. 15 is huge in my understanding of the gospel.  most of us who grew up in church learned that the gospel is all about how Jesus saves the lost, that it's what gets you in from the outside, that it's for non-christians to become christians.  while this is true, what radically changed my thinking is that paul says he was eager to preach the gospel (the greek verb there is our word "evangelize") to the christians.  why in the world would paul preach the gospel to the christians, if its just what gets you in the door?

the thing is, its not just what saves you at the start.  paul later speaks of the gospel as being what saved us at the first, what we are now standing on, and what will carry us through to the end.  the gospel is the basis on which everything else about christianity is built; it is the spring from which all of the Christian life flows.  the way we do marriage is all about Jesus and His church.  the way we do finances is all about Jesus being generous to us and Him being better than money.  the way we eat, play, talk, work... everything we do is an outworking of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

3) from 1:18 all the way through 3:20, we are shown the depravity of humanity, just how evil we really are without God.  paul first shows that all the gentiles (non-jews who didn't have the law of God) are justly condemned by their wickedness, and he points out that the root and greatest offense of this wickedness is that they have set up other things as their great treasure, their 'god' they sacrifice for (see 1:25).  what's really scary to me is not that God is angry against this, but that He leaves them alone, "giving them up to dishonorable passions...to a debased mind."  theologians call this the passive wrath of God; that is, it's not the tornado and fire from heaven to consume them that we think about when we think "wrath of God."  it is God letting them go their way without Him, not turning them from their evil before they run out of life.  that really scares me.

paul then moves on to show that those of us who may read through the end of chapter 1 and say "that's right! go get those evildoers, paul!" - he shows that the self-righteous are no less guilty and under judgment.  this culminates in a series of quotes from the Old Testament about how no one, jew or gentile, are righteous before God.  paul says the point of this 2-chapter-long beating of our pride is so that "every mouth may be stopped and the whole world held accountable to God."  no one gets out scot-free. 

do you think you have an excuse?  do you feel like someone you will escape God's judgment and wrath, other than by Jesus?  think again.  please, for God's sake, think again.

4) the best part is, the turning point comes at 3:21ff (ff means "and following").  this is where the good news starts.  the previous bit is the bad news that shows us that we all need good news.  the good news is that what we lack, God has provided in Jesus.  Jesus paid the price we owed and could not pay; He bore the wrath we had earned so that we gain the right-standing before God that He deserves.  this is good news!  (btw, "gospel" is an old english word meaning "good news").  and this will be the topic of the rest of the book, and the rest of our lives.  i hope you're looking forward to more on this as much as i am.


like i said at the top, i'd love to hear from you, what God points out to you in His Word.
s.D.g.

Matthew 1-3

today's reading was Matthew 1-3. kinda appropriate for the Christmas season. here are my random thoughts:

1) most people skip over the genealogy, but God put it there for a reason. i heard of one tribe that accepted Jesus as Lord because their chief was whoever could trace their lineage back the farthest. for the rest of us, i think this serves as a reminder that we all have a part to play. i mean, most of us have no idea who most of these people are, and many of them aren't mentioned anywhere else in the Bible. but without them, we don't get Jesus, so i'd say they're pretty important people.

all that to say, you never know what God might use you for; just be willing.


2) when mary and joseph take Jesus into hiding, matthew says this was to fulfill a prophesy: "out of egypt I called My Son."  now, in the original context in Hosea, i would never have gotten that this is really about Jesus and not just referring back to the exodus.  but the authors of Scripture were taught and knew that the whole Bible, indeed, all of history is actually about Jesus.  even little bits like this.

when you read the old testament, be on the lookout for Jesus showing up.


3) i was freshly affected by the slaughter of the children of bethlehem. it's so easy to just read over it and pass it by, but these were beloved sons, snatched away by a tyrant before they had really had a chance to live.  today's school shooting brings that even closer to home.

o Lord, hasten the day when you make all evil to cease.


4) john the baptist is a pretty crazy fellow, and deserves a great deal of attention.  i mean, Jesus says no other human is greater than him.  that's pretty crazy!  and he has some pretty pointed words, kinda like what isaiah was talking about yesterday.  this repentance stuff is no joke.  i'm glad my church family is taking this seriously, and i pray that God helps us to continue in seeking Him above all.

let's follow after Jesus with all we've got.


amen?
s.D.g.

Isaiah 1-3

here we go again!

today's reading from the shirkers and slackers plan is Isaiah 1-3.  there are a ton of different things i could talk about here.  there's the wicked state of israel that God condemns with rightly harsh language (because it's good to use bad words for bad things).  there's the glorious hope of mercy for the repentant and God's faithful despite the actions of his faithless people.  there are certain refrains here, about the foolishness of idols; about God being the only God and only one worthy of exaltation; about taking care of orphans and widows.  two things i want to focus on:

1) God speaks of sacred and holy things that He has commanded His people to do as disdainful and repugnant to Him.  but He told them to do these things, so how can that be?  the Lord says,

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
        says the LORD;
    I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
        and the fat of well-fed beasts;
    I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
        or of lambs, or of goats.
    When you come to appear before me,
        who has required of you
        this trampling of my courts?
    Bring no more vain offerings;
        incense is an abomination to me.
    New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—
        I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
    Your new moons and your appointed feasts
        my soul hates;
    they have become a burden to me;
        I am weary of bearing them.
    When you spread out your hands,
        I will hide my eyes from you;
    even though you make many prayers,
        I will not listen;
        your hands are full of blood.” (1:11-15)

the sabbath is, as my dad would say, "number 4 on the hit parade".  the whole book of Leviticus lays out in detail the sacrifices to be made to God, the "appointed feasts", and so on.  how now does God say "my soul hates [them]"?!

it is because these things are done all for show, with hearts that are far from God.  the pharisees and scribes of Jesus day were the same (cf. Mark 7).  and so are many of us today.  i know there have been weeks were i've been far from God and have gone through the motions at church because that's "what i'm supposed to do".

and that's not ok!  it's easy to excuse things when we get together and say "oh, i've done that; everybody's done that."  and we act like that somehow makes it better!  God uses horrific language in these chapters to speak of the evil of these things and His righteous wrath against them.  so if this makes you uneasy, don't sweep it under the rug.  and if old patterns and language of this gets in the way, i'd encourage you to check out this song by switchfoot lead singer john foreman that's a paraphrase of this passage of Isaiah. (alternate version here).  if you are moved to action by this, do not finish reading this!  go do it!  no really, if God is showing you how to act in repentance, to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling", you should go do it now, lest your heart be made hard, because delayed obedience is disobedience.  seriously, this post will be here, get going!


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welcome back.  now for some of you, God may not be putting anything directly on you right now.  continue to pray for His direction.  and pray a lot!  prayer is one of the biggest ways God gets things done!  so if you haven't done anything else yet, stop and pray for whatever needs God lays on your heart right now.


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we now return you to your regularly scheduled post:

if this hasn't gotten too long for you, here's the short version of point 2)
there's a little part where God says, as part of His judgment "My people - infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them."

at first church, we just overhauled our constitution, so we've been talking about leadership a lot, and how it's not about power and control but service and responsibility.  we've also talked some about why we believe only men are called to be pastors/elders, and i know there are some out there who don't like the sound of that.

but here, God uses the fact that "women rule over them" as a derogatory thing.  He says this to rebuke His people.  why is that?  what's so wrong with this?

there's a lot that could be said on this, and if you want to go a little deeper, i'd recommend a recent sermon by john piper, or if you really want to dig in, this book (free pdf of the whole thing).  but i think the thing with this text is, how cowardly and irresponsible the men must be, that the women have to add to their duties the weight of leadership.  how wimpy and childish must the men of israel be, that their mothers and their wives have to lead them, instead of the men taking the responsibility for the direction of their families, their church and their nation?  i don't think God is calling the women out here for doing something wrong, but chewing the men out for being immature boys.

men, let's not have God lay this charge against us.  'nuff said.




lt,dr: 1) God hates people who just go through the motions, so don't do that!  when God calls you to be on mission, get going!  and 2) men, have the balls to be men and own up to the weight of leadership.  our ladies have enough on their plates.

God bless you all!
s.D.g.

Job 1-3

welcome back!

so it's been the better part of a year since i've written here. time to breath some new life into this old blog (or at least blow the dust off before my allergies go crazy). i just started a new Bible reading plan, and after talking with a dear brother i'm going to be blogging on my daily readings, whatever God particularly points out that day in His Word.

so today was Job 1-3. i won't go through all the details, but the man job goes from living the high-life to being destitute in a matter of a single day. kids, livestock, everything of his is destroyed in a moment. after four messengers finish telling him all the bad news, the Bible says "then job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and..."

can you guess what comes next? while in our culture, we generally don't destroy clothing nor get a new hairdo out of grief, these acts are normal for the ancients to express agonizing sorrow. i think we can at least relate to falling on the ground, that our emotions have taken all our energy and we feel like there's nothing left to hold us up. so then what does job do? does he wail in despair? does he wallow in pity? does he seek vengeance and retribution? does he go find his insurance agent?

 "... and fell on the ground and worshiped. and he said, 'naked i came from my mother's womb, and naked shall i return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.'"

 he praises God! not what you would have expected, right? and later on, when he gets sick on top of all this and his nagging wife questions him, job says, "shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?"

this is amazing! but why? it is amazingly foolish? if not, why not? why doesn't he press God for his rights? why does he still trust the God who allowed such evil to befall him, indeed, Whom he says gave it to him?

in truth, God owes us nothing, and everything we have is a gift. it is not unjust of God to take something that we hold dear; rather, it amazing that we ever held it at all. not only so, but all who receive Him as He has revealed Himself in Jesus, have the right to be called adopted sons of God, for whom God works all things, even suffering, for good.  the God who can take the cruelest execution ever devised by man and have us sing of the wonderful cross, Who has the anniversary of His death called good friday: He is still at work in this world, and still cares for those He has made His own.

for those of you who know and feel this more acutely right now, let me encourage you that Jesus is still with you and means your good, even if that's hard to see right now. may you be able to say with job, in all things, "blessed be the name of the Lord." i leave you with a great song from sovereign grace music, which paraphrases part of this passage. God be with you all.