This post is home to my study in Romans.
Tags: exegesis, expository, romans
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Archive for the ‘romans’ Category
Present your bodies not someone else’s body. And the whole entire body, not just the grumbling part or the angry part, but all of it to be offered as a sacrifice.
I’m reminded of two examples from the Old Testament. One is from Leviticus 1 where the offering is brought to the Lord and consumed on the altar as a well-pleasing sacrifice: a soothing aroma to the Lord. The entire thing is consumed in the fire and is pleasing to the Lord but that’s easy for a dead animal: after all, the thing is alive till it gets to the tabernacle then someone slits its throat and has its corpse on the altar. Living Sacrifices have a problem with staying on hot altars, or so the saying goes.
But then we have the second example of Numbers chapter 8 where the Levites are chosen by God to do special work. They remember their past: they’ve been rescued from the bondage of Egypt and delivered from the power of Pharaoh. They have crossed the great divide of the Sea and passed from one side through the other and they were being led to an inheritance and here they stood: a people freed by God and now His. They were cleansed, they were reminded of their salvation and they were told to serve Him in the tent of meeting.
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What mercies of God is he holding up as the logical progression that he can hold a “therefore” next to?
Well, chapters 9 through 11 of Romans reflect God’s right to show mercy to whoever He wills—both to the believers and to the unbelievers alike. Paul concerned about the salvation of Israel shows how Israel has been set apart so that God could show them that they are not believers and thus show mercy to the whole lot of them. God’s incomprehensible yet awesome wisdom that he would show mercy to a people—who were not His people (namely us old Gentiles) so that He could show mercy to His actual people who were being stiff necked and disobedient.
And there’s God shouting out to stubborn Israel “All the day long I have stretched out my arms to a disobedient and obstinate people!” Can you see the picture? God like a Father stretching His arms out to His stubborn child waiting to show mercy and forgiveness!
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I beseech you says some Bibles. Others say I urge you. In Greek the word can be used to earnestly appeal, invite or even summon together: but in context it is an action word set in the present pointed at a person and demanding something.
Two things here; firstly you usually don’t ask (or urge) for something that isn’t happening. For example I no one has ever told me “Rey, I urge you; I beseech you. No, I beg you–please have some pizza!” You don’t need to ask; I will eat it.
I’ve spent many a superbowl Sunday with friends with no knowledge of the game but there in thanksgiving of God for enabling men to design. And I would happily cheer for both teams raising my pizza-greasy hands: touchdown!
So Paul is urging for something that isn’t being done.
Secondly, sometimes requests questions (especially the urging ones) sound as if they’re coming from a position of weakness. Like when I kept asking my wife if I could get an iPod–I urged, I beseeched but I had no power over the situation: she wouldn’t yield.
But Paul isn’t some poor Hebrew soul, begging esteemed Roman gentiles citizens who look down their classical noses . This is not the beggarly urgings of a weaker individual—this is the strong, demanded, request of the one set apart as an apostle, the servant of Jesus Christ (Head of Creation ), to carry the Gospel of the Eternal, Omnipotent, Righteous, Merciful and Living God. Snap to attention and listen!
So therefore, by the mercies of God Paul the apostle strongly demands for this thing to be done.
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It is patently unfair when dispensationalists are attacked for making a distinction between the Church and Israel when theologians outside the dispensationalist camp have made a similar distinction. Indeed Paul doesn’t shy away from making the distinction when he points out that the Messiah came from the Jews. Read the rest of this entry »
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