ROMANS 9-16: With the mysterious and controversial chapters 9-11, we get into the heart and purpose of this world-changing letter. It all comes to its climax, in purpose and spirit with the doxology in 11: 33-36: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Read more …
Week 85: Acts 28; Romans 1-8; Psalm 113-115
ROMANS 1-8 is world-changing literature. When Martin Luther fully appropriated for himself Rom. 1: 17, “The just shall live by faith,” he effectively launched the Protestant Reformation, the spillover effects of which continue in many more areas than religion alone. But this letter does not answer only the question that Luther was asking, “How might I be saved?” It does, but on the way to answering another question that makes the most sense of the tough chapters 9-11, which many have taken to speak of divine double predestination (that God sovereignly chooses who will be saved and who will be damned, without their having any say in the matter). Though those chapters are for next week, they are worth mentioning at the beginning of the letter, Read more …
Week 84: Acts 19-27; Psalm 110-112
The final section of Acts contains a tale of many temples: in Athens, in Ephesus and Jerusalem, which posed challenges and threats to Paul and his gospel. Then there is the portable temple of the church in mission, a tabernacle which even takes to sea. Paul’s sea voyages in some ways reprise but also reverse the mission of a previous prophet, Jonah. So well-detailed and recounted are the sea voyages that we can easily retrace the route and, in the right seasons, experience the same weather. The recurrent use of “we” shows that the author was eye-witness to many of these events.
Week 83: Acts 10-18; Psalm 107-109
THE CONVERSION OF CORNELIUS and his household is so important a step in history that it is recorded twice (chs. 10 and 11, in Peter’s recounting) and mentioned again in Acts 15. Not only were these converts fully Gentile (though also “God-fearers,” or Gentile sympathizers with Jews and Judaism, who figure greatly in the Acts story), they are connected to the Roman military and occupation. That alone does not justify war nor Christian participation in it. It shows how powerful are the Spirit and the grace of God, reaching even into the idolatrous, unjust and violent imperial system. Though Cornelius is now delivered safely into the kingdom of God, he is also delivered into a dilemma similar to those of the tax collectors and prostitutes who flocked to Jesus: Read more …
Week 82: Acts 1-9; Psalm 104-106
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES is volume two of an opus that includes The Gospel of Luke as volume 1 (Acts 1: 1-2), to the same audience (“Theophilus”). Whereas volume 1 covered “what Jesus began to do”, by implication, Acts relates what Jesus continued to do, and continues still to do, by his Holy Spirit (“The Spirit of Jesus” in ch. 16) through his church. That work is to testify to himself, the King, and to grow his Kingdom, through preaching, teaching and works of love, service and healing, especially as they cross borders of race and culture, making peace through common faith, hope and love, where once there was conflict. The game plan for this is stated in 1:8, “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost ends of the world.” That is how Acts unfolds chronologically and geographically, and how the mission of Jesus, through his church, continues to unfold. Read more …