October 2
Romans
5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. NIV
3-6 The Gospel is centred in God’s Son, a descendant of David by human genealogy and patently marked out as the Son of God by the power of that Spirit of holiness which raised him to life again from the dead. He is our Lord, Jesus Christ, from whom we received grace and our commission in his name to forward obedience to the faith in all nations. And of this great number you at Rome are also called to belong to him. JB Phillips
Through him we received both the generous gift of his life and the urgent task of passing it on to others who receive it by entering into obedient trust in Jesus. You are who you are through this gift and call of Jesus Christ! The Message
Trust exercise… obedience that comes from faith…
MARK has given us an overview of the book of Romans, and through that we’ve been told that this book is to both the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians in Rome, that there is a conflict between the two of them and he is wanting to bring unity to the church in Rome.
In the book “how to read the Bible for all it’s worth” there are certain steps that we must always take when reading the Bible, and our studying it.
Honouring God’s Word
First and foremost, we must honour it as God‘s word, we must believe that he inspired it, preserved it and brought it to us in this present day. It is God who speaks through his word. And once again, MARC has explained to us that there is the logos and the Reme. The whole idea of the Reme word is that you hear God, speaking to you in your heart as he eliminates a message to you, and so a particular scripture passage can take on a special significance in the context of your life. We obviously must be cautious when we talk like this because the Bible does not contradict itself, so also the Holy Spirit, who is teaching and reminding us of God‘s word see John 14 chapter 26 that Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit is not going to contradict God‘s word! I’m saying this because if we read it in one part of God‘s word and we get this bright idea that we know what he’s saying it must agree with the whole rest of the word of God. This is called the whole council of God’s word. We cannot we simply cannot take any one verse or set of verses and build an entire theology on that isolated scripture because that’s not how the way it’s not the way it works.
We’re Not the original audience
The next thing that we must do is realize that we’re listening to a single sided phone call no matter how clear it seems. It is still a single sided phone call. We only get the one side of it the original listeners to this letter of Paul to Rome, the Christians in Rome. They knew what Paul was getting at and what he was talking about. The Gentiles knew about their attitude towards the gospel towards God towards Jesus Christ and towards those those Jewish believers and the Jews knew exactly what Paul was saying to them and two and about those gentle Christians if it’s true, if if what MARC has told us it’s true that there was this unity in the church we know from the whole council of God that that’s not how God works. God does not work in disunity. He works in unity and unity is by loving and understanding one another and so that’s where God dwells and so Paul in his letter is making an effort to unite the body of Christ because the body of Christ is is not scattered is not splintered is not lying in pieces. So is that the sense we get when we read through the book of Romans? Is Paul talking to one and then another and then to both and then to the hole and then summoning up what he’s saying?
Read It All
So the next rule is that we are to read the entire book from beginning to end this is 16 chapters. They are 16 chapters of waiting through deep snow in the wind and cold of not having a foggy clue about the mindset of the Gentiles Christians or the mindset of the Jews,
Read the Whole Bible First?!
especially the Jews the Jews have very complex particular mindset, and this was early on in the Christian Church and they were having a hard time just accepting that the Gentiles were accepted in fact, Paul talks over and over again in his letters about the mystery that the gospel was always meant to be brought to the Gentiles, but it was a mystery because it was hidden within the pages of the Old Testament and it’s only in light of the fact that after after Christ died, rose again and ascended into heaven, and then all of the things that happened in the book of acts the book of axe that pre-pre-curses Roman Romans is the story of how the gospel went from being with the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles and we know that this is exactly the case because there is that to the Jews first and then to the Dental we see that sentence repeated many times throughout the New Testament and Jesus himself said when when a gentle woman wanted to be healed, Jesus said it’s it’s not right to give to the dogs that the children’s food and she said to him well even even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the table and Jesus said told her that she’s been healed because of her faith and she she responded to Jesus rebuffing her thing you know I haven’t come to heal you guys. I’ve come here for the juice and she’s she’s saying there’s there’s enough for everyone and I just want crumb of your power and I know that I’ll be healed and Jesus honoured that he saw that and he healed that woman.
Matthew 15:21-28
The Faith of a Canaanite Woman
21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”26 And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly
So let’s settle down here to chapter 3 is chapter 3 addressed to the Jew or to the Gentiles? Is Paul speaking to both groups one or the other?
Let’s go take a look! Well, I had to backtrack! I wonder if One could say that the whole of chapter 2 is to the Jews! And even going into chapter 1, look at verse 21.
When God called the Jews out of the world and unto himself how many of them were there? So maybe I’ll just tell you and you can argue with me Abraham was the first Jew. He called him out with his wife Sarai his nephew lot, and I don’t know his father from the Earth of the colonies, and eventually God even separated lot and Abraham from one another to get the pure race of the Jews. I’ve often thought of this and the thing is that God originally created Abraham, I mean, Adam and Eve, and then Adam and Eve descendants, drifted away from God and became so vile and so upsetting to God that he regretted even creating them in the first place, but there was this shining light out of all of them that we know as Noah.
Look at Hebrews 11:7
It says that Noah condemned the world when he obeyed God. Am I wrong here?
But who came first Noah or Abraham? Well of course Noah Abraham came afterwards so the first call the first wiping out of all of the ones that were completely away from God was the flood and then the next thing we see is is Abraham there was a separation of all of the people of the Earth through the tower of Babel, which is the story of God giving several different languages and then that forced them to disband and to go into all the Earth and not try to just live in one place and they they were building that that tower that would reach into heaven instead of being obedient to God when he said, you know, go forth and multiply and fill the Earth so God forced them to do that by confusing the languages. What what I’m getting at is the impression that I get as I read through the Old Testament is that… remember the seed of Abraham like a like a croft grew out there and then the famine brought them into Egypt and they became captured by in the property of of of Egypt and a pharaoh and God raised up pharaoh it says this in the book of Romans and it says it in in the Old Testament of course God did this to glorify his name throughout the whole world and that’s an important thing to remember because that theme is still going on today. God raises up the enemy in his strength in order to declare his glory. God‘s God brings glory to himself through his chosen people and the Jews, of course are that our God‘s chosen people and we are adopted into Abraham‘s family. We are. We are by adoption ourselves Jews, and so we don’t come in in spite of the Jews or to replace the Jews, but we are a part of the Jews and this is what the book of Ephesians talks about is it’s a it’s a book to the Saints and emphasis letting them know about the wonderful heritage that is theirs through adoption through Jesus Christ they become the adopted sons and daughters of Abraham, so by raising up Egypt, and by the Jews, becoming a nation under and in the clutches of the Egyptians he then rescues them and saves them and brings them out and brings them out to the wilderness in an absolutely unstable undeniable. They are His. They are His and. They’re his redeemed and a big part of the law. Very important part of the law rather is that they are redeemed, and that the whole of the Leite tribe is a replacement for all the firstborn of Israel and that’s something that you’ll find when you read through these Leviticus in the book of numbers is that God said I own you and I own I own your first born because I spared them in in Egypt when I took the lives of the first born of the Egyptians the first born of the Egypt Egyptians are dead, but your firstborn are alive and they belong to me and so he took as like a replacement for or a sub substitute for he took the entire nation or or a tribe of the Levites to serve in his in in the tabernacle transporting the tabernacle and Erin and his sons were the priestly under his. Moses is Erin‘s Erin‘s brother Erin is Moses‘s brother and Aaron in his sons are the priest and then the Levi Levi’s are the ones that served God through looking after that the temple in the in the physical temple itself, whereas the Erin and his sons did the priestly duties that’s what I’m getting out as if we if we had read the whole book of the Bible cover to cover and we were able to follow along with it. We would see that the Jews had good reason to believe that they were that they were something to think a lot of themselves and to believe that they were about God‘s chosen race, and whenever you think of of someone thinking themselves as the chosen one, there’s a superiority there’s a kind of like a royal royal. You know they’re set up there on high and the rest of us are all down here, but the thing is that God‘s God‘s chosen people he chose them he redeemed them they belong to him, and when when Jesus came he, he came to fulfil what God started way back then and that is that through Jesus all all nations would be safe through Abraham seed every nation would be blasting that something as we look back in the Old Testament. We see it all and it and it’s after Jesus like I said, died rose again and ascended into heaven and all of the you know, read through the book of acts we see that that the profound mystery is that that God salvation was always meant for the Gentiles, but he had to do he started to do it through the Jews, separating the Jews to himself just like the Levi’s were separated, the whole the whole nation of the of the Jews themselves every child of Abraham were separated to bring salvation to the world, and this is the heritage that that Jesus was born into so here in enrolments it’s it’s not only just bringing together two groups of people, one who are known as the Gentiles, which is everybody but the Jews and and the Jews themselves, but I think it’s not a big stretch to say that every everybody all of us are seen there in the book in the book of Roman so what do we think of the Jews today? What do we think of the of the of every other believer in? What do we think about this fragmented church of the Roman Catholics and the Lutherans in the United is in the Baptist in the Pentecostals in the the vineyard like all of these all of these different churches when we when we embrace disunity when we embrace that we are God‘s gift and God‘s chosen vessel and River Valley Vancouver is part of River Valley when we regard our ourselves as being God‘s gift to this worth in it and that everybody needs to come to our church there’s something good about that and there’s something not so good about that. There’s something really repulsive about that and there’s something really wonderful about that and it’s it’s about family. It’s about whoever walks through that door is Family and we don’t have to make an effort to speak to them about where they came from and I think of our Iranian friends they left Iran, but there is a precious land of Iran that they want us to remember that is a good and wonderful Iran that is and was and will always be separate and apart from the Sherry is that the Islamic regime and so you know people like Simon and and Vahid have come to tell us that yes they’re there. There are Iranians who are not part of of that stolen land and it’s the same thing here with with the Jews and the gentle is that the whole, the whole of the Earth belongs to the Lord and so Salvation is offered, and the Jews are the example so as we come to, as we come to Romans, three we realize that everybody’s in the same boat everyone is away from God there isn’t one of us that can claim that we’ve that we’ve been doing it right and that is the point I think of Romans three is that we’re all sinners and so that’s why when you’re presenting the gospel to someone Romans 323 absolutely has to be a verse that you bring to them for all have sand and fallen short of the glory of God that’s the whole point and the book of the chapter 3 of Romans explains that explicitly and that it is just as much to the Jews as it is to the Gentiles, but here in in Romans, three we see that Paul is speaking by quoting psalms. I believe he is. He is talking to the Jews directly saying that they have no business thinking that their superior to the Gentile Christians because the Jews have just as much as the Gentiles gone a stray from God‘s original plan and purpose.
Let’s Read The Whole Book
We tried… unadvisedly, but we did it anyways! How’s it going?
Let’s take a step of faith! Read it all! Like private investigators! Picking up clues to be pursued later.
Trying to figure out what the person on the other side of the phone call … who and what etc
The Pieces!
Who is Paul anyways? Who does he think he is? Who is he talking to? Is the letter address to anyone? Can we get a general idea of what’s on his heart in mind? Can we get an idea of the purpose of his letter just from reading it?
Running Down Vimy 