ROMANS - PART 2

Romans 2:1-16

Chapter 1 dealt with the unrighteousness of mankind.

Chapter 2 deals with the self-righteousness of mankind.

God will judge self-righteous people and religious people.

Christians "on the mountaintop" tend to think they don’t need anything.

Verses 1-16 deal with the reason we are separated from God: Because of our stubbornness and unwillingness to know The Truth.

Verses 17-28 Deal with the false belief that adherence to the Law makes one right with God. The difference between what’s on the outside and who’s on the inside of a person.

People who don’t see their need, or who are satisfied with their spiritual station in life are deceived and need a good dose of the gospel.

Six Great Principles by which God is going to judge good people.

The rejection of the gospel brings on the judgement of God.

The Verses
1. The Greek for man is Anthropos means both men and women: mankind.

2. "We know" is a reference to living in reality (truth). So many church members live in a world of wishful thinking and unreality. Principle One: Man has an inherent knowledge that he must be judged by a "higher Power."

3. Criminals believe they will not be caught. Sin will be discovered and punished.

4. It is our response to God’s grace that we are brought to repentance.

5. It is our un-forgiven stubbornness that builds up God’s wrath.

6. Principle two: God will reward every man according to what he has done: the unbeliever for the evil in his heart, the believer for Christ’s propitiation for our sin. Absolute justice is God’s principle. God’s justice DEMANDS that EVERY sin be punished completely. Either you will make the eternal payment, or you will accept Christ’s payment. There is no other choice.

7. To them that seek (toiß men--zhtousin). Dative plural of the articular present active participle of zhtew with men on the one hand. Eternal life (zwhn aiwnion). Accusative case object of apodwsei. What all that means is that the phrase "persistence I doing good" belongs to a person: Jesus Christ. It is not our good, but His.

8. New Agers and others seek to find Godliness within themselves. Godliness is only found in Christ.

9. You must be perfect or you will be eternally in trouble.

10. As in verse 7, this is a reference to those who "do good" through knowing Christ.

11. God has no favorites. We are all saints in His eyes.

12. The purpose of the Law is to reveal sin. If you are a Law follower, the Law will only condemn you. Your only hope is in Christ. If you are not a Law follower, you are doomed to perish with no hope.

13. This verse is often used by legalists to show that we must obey the Law to be saved. The word, "obey" ("doers" in the King James) here is the Greek word: poietes which means: "absorber." So a doer of the Word is not about what you do, but who you know THE WORD, who is Christ Jesus.

14. Gentiles (here referencing all non-Hebrews) might do what is right, but that righteousness is counted for nothing in God’s eyes.

15. They make excuses for their behavior that is contrary to God’s Moral Law, but those excuses fall on deaf ears.

16. What "this" is he talking about? In the King James it reads: "In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." He’s talking about Christ knowing your innermost thoughts and attitudes and judging us on what we really believe…not on what we say we believe.
　
　

ROMANS - PART 1

Romans is an incredible book. It contains the finest theology of God ever written.

The path of Romans starts with God's creation, dives into Hell, climbs and falls as indicated in the graph and culminates in a thrilling, magnificent triumph of God's people in Christ.

THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD LOOK FOR IN ROMANS:

Understanding of the basic facts of salvation

Unusual conviction about matters pertaining to the faith

Usefulness in practical Christian service.
　

The Verses:

1. Paul's own claim to apostleship is likewise based on the divine call of Christ (Rom 1:1; 1 Col 1:1; Gal 1:1, 15; cf. 2 Col 1:1; Eph 1:1; Col 1:1; 1 Tim 1:1; 2 Tim 1:1; Titus 1:1). He is an apostle, "not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead" (Gal 1:1). His encounter with the resurrected Jesus served as the basis for his unique claim to be an "apostle to the Gentiles" (Rom 11:13). Paul bases his apostleship on the grace of God, not on ecstatic gifts or the signs of an apostle (2 Cor. 12). His apostolic commission is to serve God primarily through preaching the gospel (Rom 1:9; 15:19; 1 Col 1:17).

Paul uses the term to refer to those who had been commissioned by the risen Lord to the apostolic task. Included in this category are the Twelve (although he never explicitly applies the title of apostle to them as a group), Peter (Gal 1:18), Paul himself (Rom 1:1; 1 Col 1:1; 9:1-2; 15:8-10; Gal 2:7-8), James the brother of Jesus (Gal 1:19; cf. Acts 15:13), Barnabas (1 Col 9:1-6; Gal 2:9; cf. Acts 14:4, 14), and possibly others (Ro 16:7). In addition to understanding apostleship in terms of its basis in a divine call, Paul views the life of an apostle as being one of self-sacrificial service that entails suffering (1 Col 4:9-13; 15:30-32; 2 Col 4:7-12; 11:23-29).

2. We have been studying the gospel as promised in the Old Testament. Now here it is revealed by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul.

3. The human side of Christ (who was fully man and fully God)

4. The Holy Spirit had the authority to proclaim Christ the Son of God.

5. All people who come to God come through Christ, and come to Him through faith. There is no other way.

6. Paul reassured the Romans that they, too, belong to Jesus.

7. The letter is written to the church in Rome (not the Roman Catholic Church, which did not exist yet). Paul’s common greeting: Grace and Peace from God and Jesus.
8. The church at Rome is known throughout the known world for their faith. How are we known?
9. Paul thinks of the church at Rome often, God is his witness to that fact.

10. Through 13 Paul indicates his wish to go to Rome to visit them.
　
14 – 17 Repeats Habakkuk 2:4. We’re talking the Good News, here, known and lived by faith.

18 – 32 God’s wrath against mankind is evident: in nature; through conscience; through sin.

Chapter 2

The Verses:

1 – 16 The reason we are separated from God: Because of our stubbornness and unwillingness to know The Truth.

17 – 28 The false belief that adherence to the Law makes one right with God. The difference between what’s on the outside and what’s on the
inside of a person.

Chapter 3

The Verses

1 – 8 Deals with the faithfulness of God and the lack of faith of man. God is not to be compared to mankind. He is far above man.

9 – 20 Not one single person has ever been, is now or ever will be righteous in his own nature.

HOW LONG?

WATCH THIS VIDEO AND BE AWARE AND WARNED.





WHAT DID YOU THINK?

THE DEEP THOUGHTS OF C.S. LEWIS

Certainly one of our great Christian writers, C.S. Lewis was an outstanding apologist, as well as a great writer of narrative.

Here are some of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotations:

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.

Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

GOOD STUFF TO CONSIDER

The following was written by Christian radio personality, Brant Hanson. It deserves your attention.

A friend of mine did something really, really bad a couple years ago. Real bad. Not illegal bad, but...bad enough that even this week, it showed up on page two of a metro newspaper, a thousand miles away from where he did it.

I love this guy. He's fun, smart, and fairly new to Christian belief. He's accepted responsibility for what he did, and he's had to live with it every day. He told me the other day he was sorry even I was having to deal with it now. "I'm amazed how many people this has affected. One stupid, wrong decision I made and it keeps affecting so many people. My wife, my kids...it just keeps going."

And so it does. We marvelled at that, and, just stood there, quietly, just shaking our heads. Amazing? Yes. But not really surprising. The older I get, the more convinced I am there is no private sin. They don't all wind up on page two, but the surface of the pond is never undisturbed by the pebble. The ripples move well beyond ourselves, and, in many cases they radiate through generations.

Or, another recent example: One day, you're a minister getting in a quick ego-stroking flirt, thinking you're in some kind of private soap opera...and soon, there are 300 people in a flourescent-lit room, on metal folding chairs, discussing what you did. And they're cautioning each other not to judge you, and then they talk some more about what you did.

And then, some little kid you dont even know, like my daughter, has to hear some stranger talking in church about how the pastor-guy won't be back, he did something called "sexual misconduct."

Your soap opera? It wasn't private. Sins on the computer aren't private. Larry Ellison, from Oracle, said years ago: If you think he doesn't know what's on your hard drive, you're kidding yourself. By the way, Google knows, too.

But even if they didn't know, the sins in your head aren't private. Mine affect my attitude. They keep me from being concerned about other people. They make me a jerk, in seemingly unrelated ways. ("Why's Brant a jerk?" "Probably something seemingly unrelated.")

There is no "private sin." Turns out few things have done more harm than the "do no harm" ethic. The as-long-as-it-doesn't-hurt-anyone-else construction of morality is built atop the swamp of affluence. We afford this lie, because affluence loves not only privacy, but the fantasy of it. But like the 77's said, "The lust, the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life -- drain the life right out of me."

And then...I'm not the person I'm supposed to be. I'm less creative. I'm less joyful. I have less social energy. My patience is gone. I care less about my neighbors.

Private rebellion. Public consequence. And if it seems unfair that what my friend did was so horrible, but what you or I do in our minds is somehow not so horrible -- well, you agree with Jesus. There IS no difference.

The ripple metaphor works. There's a better one, really, for what our "private" sins do to each other, but I don't want to gross you out with a picture of a fan being hit by organic material. I have higher standards than that.

Plus, I Googled for 20 minutes and couldn't find one.

REMEMBER INDEPENDENCE DAY FOR WHAT IT MEANS TO AMERICA!

HAPPY 4th OF JULY!

GREAT INSPIRATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT

Let me break from my regular posting for a moment. (Like my current break hasn't been long enough).

I work as a part-time Production Director at a Christian radio station in Southwest Florida, Kingdom FM .

Mostly you hear me on announcements and the like nowadays, as I am only working quarter-time.

Kingdom FM is heavy into Praise and Worship music with great lyrical content.

I have a friend who has an Internet radio station that is the essence of peaceful, uplifting, encouraging Christian music and ministry.

If you need a peaceful sound, something you can keep on in the background where you work that is unobtrusive, yet has a great presence, may I recommend that you tune in to Christian Life Radio .

This is inspirational radio in the true sense of the word.

When I am at my radio or in my car, I listen to Kingdom FM.

At my computer, where I have no radio, I often listen to Christian Life Radio.

I recommend both of these stations to you, each for its own format.

Both are available online.