Closing Things Out
Romans 15-16

The beginning of chapter 15 carries on from Paul’s discussion in chapter 14, where we left off last time.  As we learned then, it seems the manner in which we disagree (not the content) on things in the Body of Christ really does make a difference.

Romans 15:1-13 (NIV)

¹We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. ²Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. ³For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” ⁴For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

⁵May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, ⁶so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁷Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. ⁸For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs ⁹so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written:
“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;
I will sing hymns to your name.” ¹⁰Again, it says,
“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” ¹¹And again,
“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
and sing praises to him, all you peoples.” ¹²And again, Isaiah says,
“The Root of Jesse will spring up,
one who will arise to rule over the nations;
the Gentiles will hope in him.”

¹³May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Notice Paul continues by showing on whose side the burden lies in a disagreement.  If two people disagree, and it is primarily a matter of maturity of faith, those who are more mature should bear with those who are less mature.  This is a simple solution – after all, if a child disagrees with us because she doesn’t understand what’s going on, we don’t expect them to just grow up and deal with it.  As Paul points out, this is just what Jesus did.

But again, Paul stresses what he’s been focusing on since chapter 12.  From the beginning of his letter, he laid out the story of redemption – humankind’s sinfulness, our inability to reconcile ourselves to God, God’s steps to be reconciled to human beings.  How then shall we live?  We ought to live in obedience and love for God and for all God’s children.

Keep the Peace

And as the Body of Christ, we ought to maintain love and unity at all times.  Why?  Because it is one of the primary ways God shows his glory to the world!

After all, the natural order of the human world is decay, corruption, division, and death.  Every civilization in history so far has become corrupted and has fallen.  Every government deals with corruption.  Every person comes into some kind of conflict with another person.  And all together, our normal response is to be intolerant, spiteful, to hold grudges, to want revenge.

So when a group of people can live together in harmony and in love – respecting our disagreements but not allowing them to divide us, forgiving when we are hurt, giving to each other so that all may have what they need – when a group of people can live together like this in unity and peace, the world will notice.  And we can tell them – the only way it’s possible is because of God.

In fact, most of Paul’s instructions to the church from chapter 12 onward are directed at keeping peace and unity.  This seems to be his primary concern.  It’s understandable, considering the recent history of the church in Rome.  The fights between the Jews and the Jewish Christians had gotten so bad that Claudius expelled all Jews – both Christian and non-Christian – from the city of Rome in AD 49.

Five years later, Nero allowed all the Jews to come back into Rome, but by that point the Gentile Christians had probably grown distrustful of the Jewish Christians.  It’s obvious from Paul’s letter that there has been a lot of conflict there in the recent past.  This concerns Paul greatly for theological reasons: Jesus had commanded his followers to live in unity (John 17).  But it also concerns him for practical reasons – who would want to become a Christian if it automatically meant fighting and getting kicked out of your home?!

So Paul’s instructions toward peace and unity make perfect sense.  As an apostle and an evangelist, he’s concerned about how Christians present ourselves as a witness to the world.  Our conduct as a Family of God speaks more to people than our words ever will.

If last words are any indication of the main point Paul was trying to get across in this letter, his final instructions in 16:17-19 should tell us what he urges above all else:

¹⁷I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. ¹⁸For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. ¹⁹Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.

Final Plans

Next, Paul moves from theology and exhortation, to more personal details of his travels and his plans.  In 15:14-22, he recounts what he’s been doing and why he hasn’t been able to visit the churches in Rome.  He has felt God’s call to minister to the Gentiles in Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece.

Now he is free at last to tackle what he imagines will be his greatest challenge yet – Spain.  During most of Paul’s tenure in each town and city, he would first look for an established group of believers.  If he found none, he would then connect himself to the Jews in the synagogues.  Often, the Jewish people would resonate with Paul’s message of God’s messiah, and they would gladly receive Paul’s message of the Gospel.  This was a perfect starting point as Paul encountered places where the Gospel hadn’t yet taken root.

But in Paul’s time, Spain was almost completely pagan – there were no Christian believers, no Jewish synagogues.  Paul would be starting “from scratch,” working with people who had never even heard of Jesus of Nazareth.  You can hear his excitement building from verse 17:

¹⁷Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. ¹⁸I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done- ¹⁹by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. ²⁰It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. ²¹Rather, as it is written:
“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.” ²²This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.

²³But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to see you, ²⁴I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to visit you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

Paul considers Spain the ultimate challenge – the starting point of what Jesus meant when he “ends of the earth.”

But he has to take care of one thing first – he has a gift to deliver to the believers in Jerusalem.  The Gentile Christians have heard of their distress, and they have sent monetary gifts to assist the Jewish Christians.  Paul recognizes this generous overture – after all, the Jews had shared their faith.  The Gentiles could certainly share their wealth in return.

Acts tells us that Paul did make it to Jerusalem, and he eventually made it to Rome – but not as he had planned.  Paul acknowledges in 15:30-32 that his visit to Jerusalem could be dangerous.

³⁰I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. ³¹Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, ³²so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed.

But he didn’t realize how dangerous it would be.  Paul had become one of the best known Christians during his time – his name was spoken across the Empire by both believers and non-believers.  But Paul had been a Jew once, and a very zealous Jew.  Remember that Paul was one of the first to persecute the Christians before he was converted.  Once he had been a model Jew.  Now he is a model Christian.  You can imagine how the Jews felt about that…

So when they got their hands on Paul in Jerusalem, they arrested him and accused him of being a trouble-maker.  Paul recognized his opportunity – he invoked his right to appeal to Caesar, and ended up traveling to Rome in chains…

But that’s a story for another time.  If you want to hear where Paul goes after he writes this letter, read Acts 21 and onward.

Greetings and Commendations

Finally, Paul wraps up his letter by sending greetings to the believers he knows in Rome.  Notice how many people he knows in the church, even though he’s never visited it!

Notice also, that Paul mentions 11 women among the almost 30 people he names.  Two of them appear to be leaders, including Phoebe – who was either a deaconess or a minister.  The other is Junias, whom Paul calls an “apostle” before he was!

©2010 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

As some previous entries, this post is more notes and commentary than sermon – I referred to these notes as I preached, but the final format was much different.

This week, we’re going to cover a little more ground than we have been so far.  At this point, Paul gets into a discussion that certainly has theological value, but is aimed more for his audience in the Roman church.

He gets into a discussion about the place of the Jews in God’s plan.  And he talks about it for three chapters.  This was a difficult topic for the Christians of the early church – they KNEW that their religion had sprung from Judaism.  Jesus himself was a faithful Jew!  And because of this, they knew the history of the promise that God had made to the Jewish people almost as long as they had existed – that he would be their God and they would be his people.

And yet the Jews had rejected Jesus, and had been his primary adversaries during Jesus’ ministry.  So what was the relationship of the Jews in this new “Kingdom of God?”

Let me briefly sum up what I think Paul’s saying about the Jewish people and how it relates to us:

• 9:1-13 – God established a holy nation, but with Abraham he took that nation beyond just flesh and blood – so that all those who chose to believe God’s promises became part of God’s people – including you and me. This means that some of the descendants of Abraham can be excluded from the Kingdom, even though they are flesh-and-blood descendants of the promise.
• 9:14-33 – Knowing some of his hearers were Jewish, Paul reminds them that God is sovereign and can do things in any way he pleases – it’s not up to us to question his actions or motives. We cannot say that God is unfair, because we do not know what God is up to.
• 10:1-21 – Still, we should desire (as Paul does) that they can be saved. When God offered salvation through Jesus, he didn’t say it was only to people who weren’t Jews – even the Jews can believe in Jesus and be saved. So WE CAN NOT TREAT THEM ANY DIFFERENTLY.
• 11:1-10 – God has not rejected his people, so we should not reject them.
• 11:11-24 – Far from treating them with disdain, we should treat them with utmost respect because they are the “root” from which our faith springs!
• 11:25-36 – Then, almost as if to undo what he has said before, Paul says that in some mysterious way “all Israel will be saved” because of God’s plan! He ends with a exclamation of the great mystery of God – we do not (and CAN NOT) understand… and for that, we should give thanks.

The long and short?  Paul says, “I know you’re asking about the Jews and what will happen to them.  I can only speak to what God has revealed to me.  But in the end, I don’t know any more than you do!”

Yet, as much as the logic of these chapters seems to contradict itself, there are some very familiar passages that we should make note of this morning.

Stepping Out of Theology

The passages we know so well from these chapters shows us a very different side of Paul.  Paul is authoritative and confident, to be sure.  He has studied, he is very intelligent, and he knows that people are counting on him to explain God’s word.

And yet, his emotions get the best of him here – see how he speaks of his people in these verses:

9:1-5 – I speak the truth in Christ-I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit- 2I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!^[a] Amen.

Here, Paul reveals his feelings about his Jewish people – he loves them so much, he would even offer himself that they might be saved!

But he goes on:

10:1-17 –  1Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

5Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: “The man who does these things will live by them.”^[a] 6But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’^[b]” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7″or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’^[c]” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,”^[d] that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”^[e] 12For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile-the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”^[f]

14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”^[g]

16But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?”^[h] 17Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

I’m not so sure that anti-Semitism is much of a problem here in Kenbridge – maybe I’m wrong.  But what’s more striking to me in these passages is Paul’s passion for these Jewish people.

• Among these are people that hated Jesus enough to crucify him.
• Many of these people rejected God outright for centuries
• Who promised to love him, and then stabbed him in the back time and time again. Then they came crawling back asking forgiveness!
• These are the people who saw what God could do with their own eyes – they watched him send plagues, part the sea, feed them in the wilderness, take them into the promised land to defeat enemies greater than themselves. God raised up a nation, rescued them time and time again. They watched Jesus do miracles of all kinds. And STILL they rejected him!

But Paul doesn’t reject them.  He LOVES them.  In fact, he loves them so much he’s willing to sacrifice himself for them in the most awful kind of way.  Paul’s not talking about death – when he says he wishes he could be “cut off,” he’s wishing he could be damned instead of them!

And Paul tells us why:  Because we are all the same.  If we expect God to reject the Jews because of their stubbornness, then we’ll have to expect God to reject US too.  Because we’ve done just the same thing.

• WE are the people just as responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion as the ones who drove the nails.
• WE have rejected God outright for al our lives.
• WE have promised to love him, and then stabbed him in the back time and time again, only to came crawling back asking forgiveness!
• WE are the ones who have watched God do all kinds of miraculous things in our lives, and still we don’t trust him to take care of our basic needs.

Do we have this kind of love for people?  Do we love our neighbors enough to give any price that they might be saved?  And all we’re really asked to do is to TELL them!

People of God, if we believe the hope we talked about last week, we have something to do about it.  We have to tell – everyone.  Not just the people we love… the people we tend to dislike as well.  That means people of other races, drug and alcohol addicts, prisoners, sex offenders… even people who don’t share our political or religious views!

©2010 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

Romans 5:1-8
“Rejoicing in Suffering?”

Last week we talked about the plotline of the story Paul is telling.  The exposition, the narrative hook, the rising action, the climax, and the falling action.  We also talked about how this is not just a novel or some story we’re reading – but that at the climax, each of our stories begin.  We hear the good news, we are confronted with the power and truth of the Gospel.  The rising action asks the question: How will we respond?  Paul assumes we will respond in true faith that changes our lives.

So Paul continues in chapter 5:

Rom 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,  (2)  through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory.

This sounds good so far, right?  But Paul never leaves well-enough alone.

Rom 5:3-8 Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  (4)  and endurance, character, and character, hope.  (5)  And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

And why do we have hope?

(6) For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  (7)  (For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.)  (8)  But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Woah, Paul.  Why’d you have to go there?  Rejoicing in “the hope of God’s glory” from verse 2, that’s good.  Why don’t we skip a few verses?  There’s no need to talk about suffering, is there?

But this is not the only place this is mentioned.  Paul talks like this at least 11 times in his writing; James mentions suffering with Christ;  In Revelation, in the letters to the churches, it seems as if those early Christians must suffer for Jesus’ name.

Even Jesus himself hints at it a couple of times:

Mat 5:11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me.

And when Jesus talked about “taking up your cross,” people didn’t look at that as some symbol like we do.  The cross was a real, ugly and awful thing to them.  It would be like Jesus saying to us, “sit in the electric chair and follow me.”  There’s no mistaking what he meant.  For more on this idea, see 2 Cor. 4:11-12, Philippians 1:29-30, Phil 3:10-11; Colossians 1:24; 1 Peter 4:13-14.

What’s this about?  Why can’t we just stick with hope and not have to work through the whole theology of suffering?

First, it’s important to realize that Paul’s talking about REAL suffering.  He’s not talking about not being able to pray in school.  He’s not talking about being sad that the stores now use the word “holiday” instead of “Christmas.”  He’s not talking about seeing the Ten Commandments removed from a courthouse.

He’s talking about agony.  Betrayal.  Physical and mental suffering, like Jesus experienced.

And we don’t just ENDURE the suffering.  We aren’t just CONTENT with it… we REJOICE in the suffering.  How on earth could this be?  Why would anyone but a sadist want people to “rejoice” in their suffering and pain?

Other Reactions to Suffering

We don’t like to think this way – actually, we don’t like to think about suffering and pain much at all.  And it’s mostly because of who we are and where we live.  We’re so blessed to live in a place that’s relatively free of suffering and persecution.  It’s difficult for most of us to imagine actual “suffering” like Paul describes, because many of us have no idea what it’s really like.

Some Christians here in America have developed a different kind of theology that says we SHOULDN’T suffer.  It’s called “Prosperity Theology.”  They take passages from the scripture that talk about God’s blessings, and they translate that into everyday life.

“Are you suffering?  Are you poor or hungry?  It’s probably because you don’t have enough faith,” they would tell you.  God is placed as the middle-man in a greater system, whereby we receive blessings as long as we do things in just the right way.  We have to pray specific prayers, and we have to ask in faith.  We have to sacrifice in order for these blessings to come – especially if it means giving money to a certain person’s ministry.

To be fair, this is a caricature of these popular speakers and preachers.  Not all who teach the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” are this way.  But the root of their theology says that God doesn’t want you to be unhappy or to have to suffer.

To talk like this ignores all the teachings of the scripture about suffering.  And ironically, in the same way that it was necessary for Jesus to suffer and die in order for us to be saved, it seems that in some way we must also suffer and die in order to accept that salvation.

Another extreme is called “asceticism.”  If you read the book or saw the movie “The Da Vinci Code,” you probably remember the character of Silas – the albino assassin monk.  Whenever Silas committed a sin, he would whip himself, and would wear a collar with spikes that drove into his thigh.  One of the ideas behind practices like this is that if we are to “rejoice” in our sufferings, then we ought to spend our lives seeking out suffering.

The truth lies somewhere in between these two opposites.  I don’t think God ever promises us that life will be rosy if we act just the right way.  In fact, the amount of persecution and confusion we stir up seems to be the best judge of how well we’re living out the message of Jesus.  And if the Prosperity Gospel is true, there are a lot of wonderful Christian people out there who obviously have it all wrong – people who live in poor countries, or who have terrible diseases they cannot get rid of.

Neither do I think we’re called to inflict pain and suffering on ourselves.  We’ll get plenty of that if we truly act in Christ’s name.

Both of these extremes take God’s tools and put them in our hands.  We’re using these things as an end in themselves, when God sees them as a MEANS to an end.  When God gives material blessing in the scriptures, it’s usually for one of HIS OWN purposes.  When suffering occurs in the scriptures, it’s not just to make people feel bad.  God’s using it for something.

But WE are never called to use these things.  These are God’s tools, not ours.

Putting it Together

So how in the world can we make sense of this passage?  Psychologically, it actually makes sense, and Paul has given us the clues to understand it.

Rom 5:3-8 Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  (4)  and endurance, character, and character, hope.  (5)  And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Paul shows us a progression:  Suffering   ->   Endurance   ->   Character   ->   HOPE

I learned a lot about my body when we were trained for our first marathon last year – a lot about what my body needed for different tasks.  For a marathon, my body didn’t need extra strength.  I also didn’t really need extra speed – It wouldn’t matter if I could win a 400-yard sprint.  I could have the strongest and fastest body in the world, but I wouldn’t have been able to run 26 miles.  What I needed was ENDURANCE.

And you don’t buy endurance in a sports drink.  You don’t get it by sitting at home and thinking about it.  In order to get the endurance, you have to practice those LONG runs.  You have to do longer sprints and get your body used to the hard work.  And while I’m not calling it suffering, it certainly was not pleasant at times…

This is what Paul’s talking about with endurance.  Life is not a sprint.  We don’t just sit back and run our little bit and then hang it up.  We’re in it for the long haul.  And in order to develop the endurance to deal with the difficulties of life, we have to EXPERIENCE those difficulties and learn how to deal with them.

And this endurance is what produces CHARACTER.  We are the sum of our life’s experiences, and true character is not something that’s taught or gained by reading a lot of good books.  Character is developed as we deal with life’s difficulties and learn to overcome them.

And finally, character is what produces HOPE.  And HOPE is one of the most important things we have.

Paul’s saying, “You want to have the mind of Christ?  You want to be transformed into the image of Christ, just as God wants you to be?”  You want to live with the hope of God burning so brightly inside you that others can see it?  You want to be able to weather the storms of life, to bend but not be broken?

You can’t skip the first step – suffering.  There are no shortcuts.

This is why we rejoice in our sufferings, Paul tells us:  Not because we enjoy the pain, but because of what that pain will eventually produce – endurance, character, and hope.

©2010 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

Romans, Part 3:
“Exhibit A”
2:12-24

Following Paul’s argument thus far:

• No one has an excuse: everyone, no matter who or where we are, has some idea of a greater power, and some idea of what is right and wrong.
• Even though we have known God, we still turn away from him.
• Our sinfulness is a result of our turning from God – he allows us the freedom to choose obedience or disobedience.
• Because we have all turned from God in some way, the quantity or quality of the sin is not for us to compare or judge – only God can give judgment. We can give only grace.

Now Paul turns his argument toward the Law – a difficult topic, especially for us as Christians.  This has always been a sticky subject for us – in what ways are we still under the Law?  Paul could go off on tangents here about the meaning of the Law for us in the aftermath of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.  He certainly takes time to look at these ideas elsewhere…

But here, Paul will not be distracted.  He is bent on making his argument plain.  And it is specifically to Jews and Christians now that he is speaking.  Because no matter how we may want to point the finger at the “heathens,” we are the very worst because we KNOW the law, and yet we STILL disobey!

Paul uses imagery of the courtroom, and uses many terms from the courts of his day.  And as in any courtroom, the ultimate standard is the LAW.  Remember that Christianity came from Judaism, and these Jews had spent their entire lives trying to understand and to live by the Law.

Often, I think we have a negative view of the Law.  That’s unfortunate, because the Law – in its time and place – was really a wonderful thing.  God made a covenant with Israel – he would be their God, and they would be his people.  And he gave the people his Law to show them just how they could be his people.

While it seems difficult from our point of view, the Mosaic Law was actually easier and more humane than many other religions of the day.  God didn’t require child sacrifice and other awful practices that characterized the religions in the ancient Near East.

And because of this, the Jewish religion made them DIFFERENT – showed the people around them that they worshiped a God who was different: a God who cared about the children; a God who cared about the poor, the widows and orphans; a God who cared about inward holiness as much as outward holiness.  In this way, the world would know by the way they were living that God was real and leading his people.

But even knowing this, the people broke the Law again and again – sometimes subtly, and sometimes blatantly defying the God who had kept his promise all along.  God sent reminders, punishment – like a parent trying to teach his child the right way.

Finally, Jerusalem was destroyed and the people were sent into exile in Babylon.  It was one of the darkest moments in their history… and because prophets had foretold exactly what would happen, the people knew exactly why they had been punished.

When they returned from Babylon, many leaders arose who were determined never to let that kind of thing happen again.  Thus arose groups such as the Pharisees, the Scribes and teachers of the Law.  Their job was to live lives according to the Law, and to remind others to do the same.  Problem was, they became so obsessed that they forgot that God desired inward holiness more than outward holiness.

It’s not just what you say that defines your relationship to God – it’s who you are on the INSIDE.  They were practicing outside-in religion – what happens on the outside defines who you are inside.  Paul’s saying, “people are smarter than that.  You can’t fool them.”  You have to be turned INSIDE-OUT – let your inside change, and let your outside follow suit.  Then people will know something is different.

Paul’s saying that we are still obligated to do the Law (in a way) because it shows the world that we live differently.

That’s where this awful indictment comes into play.  In verse 24, Paul levels the charge against us all: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”  Blasphemy was one of the most serious charges one Jew could make against another, and here Paul says that WE are the cause of the blasphemy.  Why?

Because we’re not living what we preach.

When we talk about a mighty God, who is powerful to change lives… and then we don’t live changed lives, will others believe that God is real?

When we talk about a loving God, who wants us to care for others and love each person as a child of God… and then hurt others with our actions and words, will others believe that God is real?

When we talk about a God who cares for the poor and oppressed… and then we ignore the needs of the poor and oppressed right on our doorstep, will others believe that God is real?

Even worse, when we act this way, do we not turn people AWAY from a God, whose people don’t care enough for him to even act the way he tells us to?  As Mahatma Gandhi was famously reported as saying, when asked why he was not a Christian: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

If we go back to Paul’s illustration of the courtroom, a question is before us.  As the common question goes: “If you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”  What proof is there that we are Christians?  What are my actions saying about the God I serve?  And if I were someone’s only link to God, their only living witness to Jesus Christ… would they want to love and serve him, too?

©2010 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.