awnurmarc » Reading Romans, Part 02.
I did this last week but forgot to add it here.
I’ll try to get part three out soon.
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awnurmarc » Reading Romans, Part 01
awnurmarc » Reading Romans, Part 01.
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Romans 3.1-8: Part Two of Why I Disagree with John Piper
Responding to this sermon.
John Piper: Why I Disagree With Him On Romans 3.1-8 | Part 2 – YouTube.
Free Associating Scripture: Name As Protection And Gift
Today I read Psalm 54 and the first verse (after the introduction about David) struck me as odd:
O God, save me by your name,
and vindicate me by your might.
I can’t help wonder if this is related to the Aaronic benediction:
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.“So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
Was David intending to remind God that he bore His Name? Was he appealing to that fact as a basis for his protection?
Trinity House » What Advantage the Jew? (My notes for a sermon on Romans 3.1-8)
1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.
A lot of people speculate here about what kind of advantage Paul is talking about, or what kind of value he sees in circumcision. Basically, most people read this passage as saying that the Jews had the opportunity to be saved, if they would believe those oracles or put their faith in God and not their own flesh, as circumcision called them to do.
It would be great if I thought that was Paul’s intention because then I could preach for all of you to do the same with your baptisms. Jews would stand here merely for members of the visible Church before Christ. We could all easily apply this to ourselves.
But it’s not so easy. Paul speaks of these oracles of God earlier and he speaks of circumcision later. Let’s look at what Paul singles out in those other passages and then see whether that helps us here.
When Paul later talks about circumcision as the covenant God made with Abraham, he singles out that it is a covenant that calls and promises Abraham that he will be the father of many nations.
Read the rest: Trinity House » What Advantage the Jew?.
We read “spiritual metaphor” when we should recognize sacrament
Here is one example among many:
As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.
via Psalms 42-43 – ESVBible.org.
What is David thirsting for? Try this from Deuteronomy 14:
You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you
This was one of the festivals at God’s sanctuary. David thirsted for God because he remembered the good taste.
Thumbnail sketch of Romans 1-12
Romans 1.1-15: Introduction
Romans 1.16-5.11
God’s righteousness is revealed in the Gospel because God’s wrath is revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus so that Jew and Gentile alike can enter resurrection life–moving from grace to greater grace.
Romans 5.12-8
Part 1: Romans 5.12-6.23
Thus, grace will far exceed past curse, but Law came to increase sin so that wrath would be built up in Israel and Jesus could conquer all sin and bring resurrection life. This will happen in our own bodies as we go from obedience to more obedience.
Part 2: Romans 7.1-8.39
Thus, Jesus death and resurrection not only frees us from sin but from the Law that was powerless to save us under the power of sin. OT Israel was stuck in covenant unfaithfulness until Jesus came and did what the law was not able to do. Now his resurrection provides us with life even in our sufferings.
Romans 9-11
Thus, Israel’s sin served the purpose of God in showing God’s wrath and making his power known in the death of Jesus, so now all who believe, Jew and Gentile, may be saved. In fact, the Gentiles must not be arrogant but realize that just as Jewish disobedience brought them salvation, not Gentiles must obey to bring the Jews to salvation.
As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now5 receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
How to come to understand the Bible
The way we normally read the Bible is the way we read any book–or at least any book that is translated into our language and comes to us from another time and place. It isn’t that special an activity. I’ve heard a story about a pastor reading an English translation of a “New Testament’ passage of Scripture. A member of the congregation asked what that passage “meant in the Greek.” So the pastor re-read the English translation. It often is that simple.
But from time to time questions arise and Evangelical readers want to “figure out” what the text means. Sometimes these questions aren’t helped by a commentary–maybe that is even often the case. When I say they are “not helped” I am not referring to mistakes and errors in commentaries. Even when the commentary contains truthful information, it doesn’t really help the reader fully understand anything. To do that, he needs be reading many other parts of the Bible and think it all through. The commentary functions as a shorthand hint at the answer but it can’t really enable the reader to grasp the answer.
My advice for you is that you consider your quest for Scriptural understanding somewhat like a jigsaw puzzle.
- Don’t let anyone else assemble your puzzle for you. If the only object was to see the picture at the end of the process, this might be fine. But the actual challenge is that the Bible contains many such puzzles and, taking shortcuts can often lead to more shortcuts. You can get help from people, but they need to work in such a way that they solve the puzzle with you rather than for you. That way you will become better at solving them for yourself and truly understanding Scripture.
- Keep the puzzle around. A jigsaw puzzle typically has a place of its own and people work on it bit by bit. If you are going to only allow the puzzle out of its box for a few hours, then you aren’t going to solve anything.
- Work what you can and when you can but take breaks. Once you have committed to keeping your questions “on the table” for a long period of time, you can afford to alternate between bouts of concentrated effort and relaxed non-attention. You never know when you might get a flash of insight that pulls it all together. Newton supposedly “discovered” gravity when he was sitting under an apple tree and an apple hit his head. I suspect, however, that he had been thinking about the issue before. Many other heads have been hit by apples without the victim revolutionizing physics.
- Never leave pieces in the box. Don’t settle for “the picture” when you know there is data you haven’t accounted for yet. One of the real problems with continuous passage by passage, week by week, preaching through a book of the Bible is that people can assume they now “know” the book when, in fact, they actually have no idea how the book works as a whole. By separating out passages for focused attention, it is easy to miss mistakes.
- Never force pieces together. Don’t be satisfied by shoving a piece into a hole you know it doesn’t fit.
Coming to understand the Bible is really a lot like any kind of productive thinking. In fact I got that Newton analogy from chapter 4 of Henry Hazlitt’s Thinking As A Science.