Paul, modernly speaking

World's wisdom or God's foolishness - pick one

2008-01-16T08:26:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Corinth, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]

Greetings to all of you at Corinth! I'm here with my friend Sosthenes, and I'm sending you this letter in response to Messiah's call on my life. Jesus the Messiah sent me to you, Messiah's followers who have been cleaned up and set apart for God, you folks who call on God's name everywhere you go. Grace and shalom to you from our Father and our common master, the Messiah!

I'm constantly thanking God for the grace he gave to you folks in Corinth, the grace given in the form of the Messiah, Jesus. From what we hear and know about you, God made your lives deeper and richer. From this, we know Messiah is in you. I see all God's gifts evident in you as you wait for Messiah to be revealed once again. This same Messiah will see you through to the end. I'm entirely convinced that when the Day of the Lord comes, you'll be seen spotless and blameless because of God's faithfulness in Messiah Jesus.

Stop fighting amongst yourselves!

I have a serious matter to bring up, however, and I want to call you to action on one thing, my brothers and friends: unity. I've heard some disturbing reports from my friend Chloe that some of you folks have divided yourself into camps: a group that follows my teachings, another group that follows Peter, one that follows Apollos, and finally another that follows only Messiah's teachings.

Don't do that. Listen, Messiah wasn't split between me, Peter, and Apollos. I wasn't crucified for you. You weren't baptized in my name, were you?

After hearing about this nonsense going on, thank God I didn't baptize you all! As far as I can remember, I only baptized Crispus, Gaius, and Stephanas's family. So at least no one can go around saying, "I was baptized into Paul."

God didn't send me to immerse you in water or make a following for myself. He sent me to speak with plain boldness the Good News of Messiah, so that the death of the sacrifice lamb, the Messiah himself, wouldn't be rendered pointless. This powerful, central act God did for us should be the focus.

God has picked the foolish things of this world

That statement about his sacrificial death is foolishness and silliness to the folks dying of ignorance or unbelief, those folks hellbent on doing it their own way. But to us, that statement makes perfect sense; it's the most powerful work God's ever done on our behalf.

You know the world thinks lowly of us. We're the dumb ones, the unintelligent ones who believe foolish rubbish, they'll tell you. It's ironic that this is exactly what God planned - remember when he spoke hundreds of years ago to Israel,

I'll destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent I will bring to nothing.

God has indeed chosen the foolish things of this world in order to confound and confuse those who think so highly of themselves. It's no wonder it's always the lowly and the broken-hearted folks who turn to God! Rarely do we see those who think themselves intelligent and higher than others turn to God. No, only after God breaks something in the core of their being and brings them to a humble place do we ever see them turn back to God.

In this masterful plan, God's made the wisdom and intelligence of the world into true foolishness, and folded man's supposed foolishness into his plan.

In this so-called enlightened day and age, is there really wisdom? Where is it? Is there really anyone truly intelligent? I considered myself such a man once, having studied under the great Rabbi Gamaliel and learned man's latest doctrines; an intellectual by all means.

Yet God exposed man's intelligence -- even my own! -- as pretentious nonsense. The world in all its wisdom and knowledge remains clueless when it comes to knowing God. God's delighted in choosing what the world considers foolish -- preaching, of all things! -- in order that the high and mighty be laid low, and the low and humble be made righteous and upstanding before God. Thus, the world does not understand God.

As I write this, religious Jews ask for miracles, whereas you gentiles look for understanding and logic. So, when we preach Messiah's sacrificial death, it's a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks! But we preach the power of God through Messiah to both Jews and gentiles anyways, because God's "foolishness" is wiser the world's wisdom and intelligence. God's "weakness" is greater than the world's strength.

I look at you and I don't see many of the "best and brightest", not many influential, not many high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women the culture overlooks and discards, exploits and abuses? God picked such "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies". He picks the ones who are broken, suffering, lowly, humble. In doing this, God shatters the self-importance of the pompous "high and mighty" folks. The first will be last, and the last will be first.

The world will call you weak, unintelligent, and foolish for following God. Don't worry about them. God's picked the foolish things in order to put the world's wisdom to shame. The things the world hates and despises and has contempt for -- these are the things God chooses, as if to laugh in the face of those who think themselves so great.

If there are any who are great, let them be great not for the world, but great for God.

Farewells and warnings

2007-03-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

Be sure to welcome our friend Phoebe in the way of the Master, with all the generous hospitality you're famous for. I heartily endorse both her and her work. She's a key representative of the assembly at Cenchrea. Help her out in whatever she asks. She deserves anything you can do for her. She's helped many a person, including me.

Say hello to Priscilla and Aquila, who have worked hand in hand with me in serving Jesus. They once put their lives on the line for me. And I'm not the only one grateful to them. All the gentile believers also owe them plenty, to say nothing of the assembly that meets in their house.

Hello to my dear friend Epenetus. He was the very first follower of Jesus the Messiah in the province of Asia.

Hello to Mary. What a worker she has turned out to be!

Hello to my cousins Andronicus and Junias. We once shared a jail cell. They were believers in Messiah before I was. Both of them are outstanding leaders.

Hello to Ampliatus, my good friend in the family of God.

Hello to Urbanus, our companion in Messiah's work, and my good friend Stachys.

Hello to Apelles, a tried-and-true veteran in following Messiah.

Hello to the family of Aristobulus.

Hello to my cousin Herodion.

Hello to those who belong to the Lord from the family of Narcissus.

Hello to Tryphena and Tryphosa—such diligent women in serving the Master.

Hello to Persis, a dear friend and hard worker in Messiah.

Hello to Rufus—a good choice by the Master!—and his mother. She has also been a dear mother to me.

Hello to Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and also to all of their families.

Hello to Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas— and all the followers of the Messiah who live with them.

Holy embraces all around! All the assemblies of Messiah send their warmest greetings!

One final word of counsel, friends. Keep a sharp eye out for those who take bits and pieces of the teaching that you learned and then use them to make trouble. Give these people a wide berth. They have no intention of living for our Master Messiah. They're only in this for what they can get out of it, and aren't above using pious sweet talk to dupe unsuspecting innocents.

And so while there has never been any question about your honesty in these matters—I couldn't be more proud of you!—I want you also to be smart, making sure every "good" thing is the real thing. Don't be gullible in regard to smooth-talking evil. Stay alert like this, and before you know it the God of peace will come down on the evil one with both feet, stomping him into the dirt. Enjoy the best of our Messiah, Jesus our Master!

And here are some more greetings from our end. Timothy, my partner in this work, Lucius, and my cousins Jason and Sosipater all said to tell you hello.

I, Tertius, who wrote this letter at Paul's dictation, send you my personal greetings.

Gaius, who is host here to both me and the whole assembly, wants to be remembered to you.

Erastus, the city treasurer, and our good friend Quartus send their greetings.

All of our praise rises to the One who is strong enough to make you strong, exactly as preached in Jesus the Messiah, precisely as revealed in the mystery kept secret for so long but now an open book through the prophetic Scriptures. All the nations of the world can now know the truth and be brought into obedient belief, carrying out the orders of God, who got all this started, down to the very last letter.

All our praise is focused through Jesus our Messiah on this incomparably wise God! Yes!

Jew & gentile, praising God together

2007-02-06T18:54:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

If you've got strong faith, give a helping hand to those struggling. Do it even if it's inconvenient for you. Build each other up. Messiah did this very thing for us. Scripture put it this way:

I took on the troubles of the troubled.

Even though this Scripture was written long ago, it's still applicable to us today; teaching us and encouraging us, helping us endure to the end.

I hope that God -- the same one who gives endurance and encouragement -- will unify you with his Spirit, becoming one in Messiah, so that we can give our Father the glory from our hearts and from our lips.

Messiah of Israel,
Messiah of the whole world

So, accept each other just like Messiah accepted you. Jesus the Messiah held true to the old covenants and promises given to Abraham and Israel, confirming their truths as he became a servant to the Jewish people. And out of this came an amazing reality: you non-Jews spread all over the world came to know the God of Israel through Messiah, glorifying the Father in the process. Amazing! Just think of all the Scriptures that will come true by what you gentiles do:

Then I'll join gentiles in a hymn-sing;
I'll sing to your name!

And this one:

Gentiles, rejoice with God's people!

And again:

Praise the Lord, all you gentiles,
and sing His praises, all peoples, all nations!

And Isaiah's word:

The Root of Jesse will spring up,
one who will arise to rule over the nations;
the gentiles will put their hope in him.

God is awesome! Oh, let the God of hope make you break forth in joy, filling you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of His Spirit, will brim over with hope!

Well done!

It seems to me you Roman believers in Messiah are currently filled with goodness, knowledgeable and competent, able to instruct each other. So, just because I've been bold and blunt with you doesn't mean I'm criticizing. I'm just walking out this assignment God's given me to teach His ways to you gentiles, so that you'll be acceptable as an offering to God through His Spirit.

Such teaching is part of my servant status to the Master. I'm not bragging; I don't boast about anything other than what Messiah has accomplished by my obedience! And what boasting we can do: all the signs and wonders God's done right in front of our eyes, through the power of his Spirit. From Jerusalem to Illyricum, Israel to Greece, I've spoke what God's led me to speak: this good news of Messiah. It's has been my desire to blaze a new trail outside of Israel, outside of Greece, somewhere where Messiah has never been heard of. This is why it's difficult for me to journey to you personally. Take comfort in the Scripture that is being fulfilled,

Those who were never told about him--they'll see him!
Those who've never heard of Him--they'll understand him!

There's little left for me to cover in this region; since I've looked forward to visiting you for so many years now, I'm planning to visit. I plan to visit you on my way to Spain, you can help me on my journey as I enjoy your company. Right now, however, I'm headed back to Jerusalem, to help out the poor people there who love Messiah. This is possible thanks to the contributions made by those in believers in Greece, who donated happily. It makes sense though, gentiles owe it to Jews: gentiles have shared in Jews' spiritual blessings, gentiles can at least share in material blessings.

So, after I personally see to it the Jewish poor receive the donations by the gentiles, I'll make my way over to you. I'm hoping this visit with you will be one of Messiah's more extravagant blessings!

I need to ask one more thing of you, my friends: pray for me. There are a lot of people who hate Messiah in Israel, so I ask you to pray God's protection and deliverance for me. Also, pray that the relief offering to the impoverished Messiah-followers in Jerusalem will be accepted in the spirit in which it is given. Then, God willing, I'll be on my way to you with a light and eager heart, looking forward to being refreshed by your company. God's peace be with all of you. Oh, yes!

Don't condemn people because of theological differences

2007-01-31T08:25:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

My friends, I've already told you this, but let me reiterate because it's so critical: there's no need to be judgmental, especially of your brothers and sisters in Messiah. Why attack others for their faults when you've got your hands full with your own struggles?

There are some people who don't eat any meat, for example, while you may be convinced eating meat is entirely acceptable. Either way, don't judge the other guy -- God's accepted both vegetarians and meat-eaters; it's not your place to pass condemning judgment on them over differences like this.

Or maybe some of you celebrate certain holidays, while the rest of you treat all days as equal. Instead of condemning each other for doing and not doing, focus instead on strengthening each other.

Now, it's true that God has set some days as holy, and it's true there are some meats God told us to refrain from. I'm not canceling out those things. Rather, I'm telling you to live in the peace and love of Messiah, differences aside. You can hold strong opinions on those things and have strong theological stances on them, just be sure they take a back seat to love in Messiah. I keep coming back to this theme of love because it's so important: It's the whole purpose of the Law and the prophets, everything in Scripture! Loving each other and loving God fulfills it all. Keep that in mind before you condemn your brothers and sisters in Messiah over your theological differences.

It helps to remember where you're headed: kneeling in front of the Judge, our Master, Jesus the Messiah. Can you picture yourself saying, "But Master, surely you can pardon my wrongdoing, after all, I ate only vegetables!" Or will you proudly proclaim, "Lord, have mercy on me, for I condemned everyone who didn't celebrate the holidays!"? Such things aren't going to help you out when your time comes.

Now that I've put it in that context, I hope you see the trivial nature of these things.

So, if your brother is weakened by what you eat, stop eating it. If he stumbles because you drink wine, stop drinking wine. Love him and help him out -- after all, Messiah's life-giving sacrifice paid for both of you equally. Then you can settle your differences.

Standing up for what's right

Don't be confused, I'm not telling you to roll over and let your convictions fall by the wayside -- if you're convinced what you're doing is right before God, don't let others call it evil. You can and should stand up for what's right.

What I'm saying is this: love first. If you stand up for what you believe is right, do it in love and not out of condemnation.

And when you do make a stand for what's right, do it as if God's standing right next to you, listening to every word. Do it out of faith and love, not out of some selfish desire to be right while boosting your ego. Stand up for what's right using faith and love, and ultimately you'll be fulfilling the Law even if your theology is off.

Applying Love in the Real World

2006-12-29T14:51:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

Obey the rulers who have authority over you. God is the giver of authority, and he puts these rulers in their places of power to maintain order. People who oppose authorities are often opposing what God has done, and they will be punished. Right rulers are a threat to evil people, not to good people. There is no need to be afraid of such authority. Just do right, and they will praise you for it. After all, they are God's servants, and it is their duty to help you.

Do you want to be on good terms with the government? Be a responsible citizen and you'll get on just fine, the government working to your advantage. But if you're breaking the rules right and left, watch out. God also has an interest in keeping order, and he uses them to do it. That's why you must live responsibly—not just to avoid punishment but also because it's the right way to live.

That's also why you pay taxes—so that an orderly way of life can be maintained. Fulfill your obligations as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders.

The Law = Love

Instead of running up debts, keep only the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the Law has been after all along. The Law—you know, those commands telling us not to sleep with another person's spouse, or take someone's life, or take what isn't yours, or be wanting what you don't have, or any other "don't" you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can't go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the Law, the sum total is love.

Shed those old vices and sinful habits

My friends, you should already know this: the time and the hour has come for you to wake up from your sleep. Salvation is closer to us now than when we first believed! The night is almost gone; the day is close at hand. With that in mind, let's walk honestly in His light, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, nor in quarreling and jealousy. It's time to break your old flesh-pleasing vices. Shed off those old ways of the night, and put on new clothes: the armor of light, our Master, Jesus the Messiah!

Love, love, love

2006-12-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

My friends, here's what I want you to do: make yourselves be an offering for God. The best kind of worship you can give Him is by being a set-apart person dedicated to God. Don't copy the culture around you, don't fit in with people who hate God. Don't pick up their customs and their traditions--those things are worthless. Instead, stay focused on God, let Him transform you and change the way you think and live. When you do this, you'll learn God's will for your life.

I'm telling you these things because God's given me this authority and privilege as a messenger of the good news of Messiah: be yourselves and nothing more. Don't think too highly of yourself; just be honest and measure yourself by the faith God's given you. Remember this: together we're many, but in the end, we are all one body in Messiah.

How to be an offering to God

God has given each person gifts, spiritual and physical. So let the prophets speak God's Word, let the teachers teach God's ways, let those who encourage strengthen the weak, let the givers give generously to the needy, let the leaders govern as God governs, let the merciful people joyfully show mercy.

The crux of the matter is love

My friends, our Master said that of all the commandments in the Law, the most important are to love God and love others. So with that in mind, love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to what is right. Honor each other over yourselves. Don't grow cold for God; be on fire for Him, continually growing and maturing as God refines you, strengthening you in the Spirit day-by-day.

And be joyful! After all, the Messiah has plucked you out of the darkness of the world and shone light on your otherwise dark and sinful life, so be joyful in praise and giving-of-thanks to God. If you're going through hard times, keep your patience, God will see you through it. If you're praying, trust that God will solve the matter. If there are any needy brothers and sisters, be a giver and share generously. Living in love like this is the ultimate fulfillment of the Law.

If people are cursing you or persecuting you, bless them. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be a big shot. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody.

Don't repay evil with evil. Live as peacefully as you can. Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it." In other words, God will set things straight in the end; for those people who never turn from evil, they'll get what's coming to them.

Remember the old proverb, "If you see your enemy hungry, get him some food. If he's thirsty, get him a drink."? That's what you need to do. See, this isn't some new idea, love has been the key all along. So love each other and love God, and you'll overcome evil with your love.

Gentiles and Jews to become God's Holy People

2006-04-18T21:30:00.000-07:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

Most Jews have missed Messiah, sadly. Does that mean God is done with Israel and the Jews? Of course not. Don't forget that I, Paul, am a Jew myself! I'm a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. It's nothing I'm ashamed of. All those promises to Israel, all the prophecies by the prophets in the Tenakh (Old Testament), even the Torah (Law)--none of that is thrown away! God is by no means done with Israel. So if you think Jesus came to throw away these things, you're badly mistaken!

Remember the old story about how Elijah was crying out to God, praying to God about this same Israel:

God, they murdered your prophets,

They trashed your altars;

Now they're after me, the only one left!

God replied to Elijah,

I still have 7000 who haven't quit,

7000 who are loyal to the finish.

That's how it is today, my friends. There's still a zealous few, a group of unbudging hold-outs for God. They're holding out not because of some doom held over their heads, but because of this unique gift of forgiveness even when you don't deserve it--sheer grace.

It's the same today. There's a fiercely loyal minority still--not many, perhaps, but probably more than you think. They're holding on, not because of what they think they're going to get out of it, but because they're convinced of God's grace and purpose in choosing them. If they were only thinking of their own immediate self-interest, they would have left long ago.

And then what happened? Well, when Israel tried its own ways and went into rebellion. Only the elect remained! Only the remnant kept God close. The rest hardened their hearts, as it's written in Isaiah,

Fed up with their quarrelsome, self-centered ways,

God blinded their eyes and dulled their ears,

Shut them in on themselves, confusing them,

and they're there to this day.

And David was saying the same thing, even back then:

Let the table they eat on trap them,

a retribution the makes them trip up and fall.

Let their eyes be darkened so they can't see,

let their backs be eternally bent.

Gentile believers are not the root

The next question is, "Are Israel and the Jews out of God's plans for good?" And the answer is a clear-cut no. Ironically when they walked out, they left the door open and you outsider gentiles walked in. But the next thing you know, Jews were starting to wonder if perhaps they had walked out on a good thing, this Messiah. Now, if Israel rejecting Messiah triggered this worldwide coming of gentile outsiders to God's kingdom, making non-Israelites serve the God of Israel, just imagine the effect of their coming back! What a homecoming that will be!

But I don't want to go on about Jews, after all, I'm writing this letter to you gentiles in Rome. It's you, the gentiles, that I'm concerned with right now. Because my personal assignment is focused on non-Jews, I make as much of this as I can when I'm among my Jewish kin, hoping they'll realize what they're missing and want to get in on what God is doing. If their falling out initiated this worldwide coming together, their recovery is going to set off something even better: mass homecoming! If this thing Jews did by rejecting Messiah, even though it was wrong for them, turned out for your good, just think what's going to happen when they get it right and see Messiah!

In essence, what happened was that many Jews, being the natural branches as descendants of Jacob, were broken off the tree so that you gentiles could be grafted-in as a wild olive shoot to this Israel-Promises Tree, a sheer gift of God to you. Now that you've seen it in this context, be sure you don't boast over Jews because you have Messiah and they don't. Don't think you're special just because God grafted you in: remember, this grace given by grafting you into the Israel Tree was not done by human hands -- not by your own doing! -- but was and is God-enacted.

Read this carefully and understand: it is not you gentile believers in Messiah who are the root of the tree, after all, you're in-grafted olive shoots; branches do not support a tree. It is the root -- which is God, and the promises given to Abraham and passed down to Israel -- which supports the branches, Jew and gentile alike.

So don't be arrogant and self-righteous! Some natural branches fell for that, and look what happened: they were so focused on their own interests, they lost faith and missed Messiah right in front of them! If God didn't hesitate to prune those faithless natural branches, he certainly wouldn't hesitate to do the same to you grafted-in branches. If there's only one thing in this letter you understand, make sure it is this: that you remain humble with your grafted-in status, mindful of the root, which is God and the promises to Abraham, passed down to Israel.

A Complete Israel

I want to lay all this out on the table as clearly as I can, friends. This is complicated. It would be easy to misinterpret what's going on and arrogantly assume that you gentile believers in Messiah are royalty and the Jews are just rabble, out of God's plans for good. But that's not it at all. This hardness on the part of insider Israel toward God is only temporary. Its effect is to open things up to all the gentiles so that we end up with a full house. Before it's all over, there will be a complete Israel, Jews and gentiles together making up a holy people for God. As it is written,

A champion will stride down from Mt. Zion;

he'll clean up the unrighteousness in Israel.

Here's my commitment to my people Israel:

removal of their sins.

From your point of view as you hear and embrace the good news of the Messiah and suffer through persecution, it almost looks like Jews are God's enemies. But looked at from the long-range perspective of God's overall purpose, they remain God's oldest friends. God's gifts and God's call are under full warranty--never canceled, never rescinded.

There was a time not so long ago when you were on the outs with God: living rebelliously, doing whatever felt good, living for yourself. But then Jews slammed the door on Messiah and things opened up for you. Now Jews are on the outs. But with the door held wide open for you, they have a way back in. In one way or another, God makes sure that we all experience what it means to be outside so that he can personally open the door and welcome us back in. That's what's going to happen with Israel -- they are temporarily in rebellion to God by rejection of the Messiah, but God will use this as an opportunity to show kindness and welcome them back in.

What amazing wisdom! Giving discipline to those who rebel and generous grace to those who are lost, making us all come back to Him, one way or another.

Is there anyone around who can explain God?

Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do?

Anyone who has done him such a huge favor

that God has to ask his advice?

Everything comes from him;

Everything happens through him;

Everything ends up in him.

Always glory! Always praise!

Yes!

Living the right way

2006-03-28T15:45:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

My friends, all I want for Israel is salvation through Messiah, nothing less. Yes, they already love God. But they miss what makes people acceptable to God--it isn't the Law alone! There's nothing we can do to make ourselves acceptable to God; only God can set us right with him. This setting-things-right is already in place! He's done it through the one who makes the Law complete, Jesus the Messiah! We get in the acceptable state before God not solely by following the Law and doing good works; no, there's only so much we can do. At some point, God has to take over. And he has! This faith, this trust in Messiah, is what sets us right before God.

The Law gets us only so far in this right way of living!

The Law got us ready for the Messiah, who then gave life to those who trust him to set us right before God. Moses writes that the Law gives life too; anyone following the Law lives. By the same standard, anyone who breaks the Law, then, dies. The Law gives life, it's true. Ah, but there is a catch: we know that no person can keep the Law perfectly! That means the Law can only get us so far. On the other hand, trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story--no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into the grave to rescue the Messiah. This right way of living was predicted:

The word that saves is right here,

as near as the tongue in your mouth,

as close as the heart in your chest.

It's this trusting God to set a right way of living we are telling everyone about. This is the core of what we're saying!

How can someone get this right way of living?

Our part in getting this right way of living is simple: we just initiate it with a willing heart. If you just believe in your heart that this Messiah I speak of is the Master, you are saved from what's coming to you under the Law. That's it; you're saved from the end result of sin; you're saved from death! Just like it had been predicted all along.

It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a non-Jew, or if you've got an extensive religious background or you've never said a single prayer before: we know that anyone who trusts God with his heart will not regret it. God's the same incredibly generous and forgiving God--no matter your background--helping anyone who calls out for help.

Tell people about it!

That is why we need to get the message out; without it, how can people call out for help when they don't know who will help them? Who can they trust if they don't know the trustworthy Messiah? How can they hear if no one shouts it aloud? How can it be shouted without someone there to shout it?! That's why Scripture says,

A sight to take your breath away!

Grand processions of people

telling all the good things of God!

It's true, many people aren't ready for this. They aren't ready to see it, hear it, or act on it. Some people have hard hearts; their narrow minds are already made up, they are like Pharaoh in Egypt, where no matter what God did, he kept shutting out the truth even to his own downfall. When we encounter people like this, it's easy to ask that inevitable question that Isaiah had to ask,

Does anyone care, God?

Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?

Before there can ever be a trusting in God and a right way of living, there has to be an ear to hear and an open heart. But unless we're the ones telling of Messiah, those ears will have nothing to listen to.

How can it be that Israel missed Messiah?

You might be wondering, "What about Israel? Weren't they listening? Didn't they have ears to hear the truth? Why didn't they see this Messiah you're talking about?" Yes, it's true, they were listening:

Preachers' voices have gone around the world,

Their message to earth's seven seas.

We also know Israel's punishment was coming. Moses himself said it:

I'll make you envious by those who aren't a nation

I'll make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.

God gave the same word to Isaiah, hinting at what was coming:

People found and welcomed me

who never so much as looked for me.

And I found and welcomed people

who had never even asked about me.

So why did Israel, who were looking and listening for the Messiah, miss him? God gives us the answer:

All day long I have spread out My hands to a rebellious people

Doing whatever they please, never listening to My heart.

What a sad and terrible thing to miss out on the Messiah! If that weren't tragic enough, they were looking for him all along! It's sad, but what choice did they leave to God, except correction by punishment? Fortunately, this punishment is only temporary.

Where do we Jews fit?

2006-03-22T15:20:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

You need to know that I carry with me at all times a huge sorrow. It's an enormous pain deep within me, and I'm never free of it. I'm not exaggerating--Messiah and his Spirit are my witnesses. It's the Jewish people... If there were any way I could be cursed by the Messiah so they could be blessed by him, I'd do it in a minute. They're my family. I grew up with them. They had everything going for them--family, glory, covenants, revelation, worship, promises, to say nothing of being the race that produced the Messiah, the Christ, who is God over everything, always. Oh, yes!

There's a plan behind all this

Don't suppose for a moment, though, that God's Word has malfunctioned in some way or other. The problem goes back a long way. From the outset, not all Israelites of the flesh were Israelites of the spirit. It wasn't Abraham's sperm that gave identity here, but God's promise. Remember how it was put: "Your family will be defined by Isaac"? That means that Israelite identity was never racially determined by sexual transmission, but it was God-determined by promise. Remember that promise, "When I come back next year at this time, Sarah will have a son"?

And that's not the only time. To Rebecca, also, a promise was made that took priority over genetics. When she became pregnant by our one-of-a-kind ancestor, Isaac, and her babies were still innocent in the womb--incapable of good or bad--she received a special assurance from God. What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don't do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative. God told Rebecca, "The firstborn of your twins will take second place." Later that was turned into a stark epigram: "I loved Jacob; I hated Esau."

Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. God told Moses, "I'm in charge of mercy. I'm in charge of compassion." Compassion doesn't originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God's mercy. The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, "I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power." All we're saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for good or ill.

Are you going to object, "So how can God blame us for anything since he's in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?"

God's just molding the clay

Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?" Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well:

I'll call nobodies and make them somebodies;

I'll call the unloved and make them beloved.

In the place where they yelled out, "You're nobody!"

they're calling you "God's living children."

Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:

If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered

and the sum labeled "chosen of God,"

They'd be numbers still, not names;

salvation comes by personal selection.

God doesn't count us; he calls us by name.

Arithmetic is not his focus.

Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:

If our powerful God

had not provided us a legacy of living children,

We would have ended up like ghost towns,

like Sodom and Gomorrah.

So where does Israel fit in all this?

How can we sum this up? All those people who didn't seem interested in what God was doing (that is, the non-Jewish people of the world, the gentiles) actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their "God projects" that they didn't notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:

Careful! I've put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,

a stone you can't get around.

But the stone is me! If you're looking for me,

you'll find me on the way, not in the way.

"Live on My terms" -God

2006-03-09T15:02:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma of doing good versus the always-tempting-sin is resolved. Those who enter into Messiah's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Messiah, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The Law of Moses, weakened as it always was by our fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The Law always ended up being used as a bandage on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the Law asked for but we couldn't deliver --being set right for God--is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Do-it-yourself godliness doesn't work

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.

But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Messiah, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells--even though you still experience all the limitations of sin--you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Messiah's!

So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it--yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

Times are hard for us now, but just you wait!

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us--an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

Part of the ultimate plan for humanity

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our human condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us--who was raised to life for us!-is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you, God.

We're easy targets; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing--nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable--absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

The legitimate Torah

2006-03-08T08:07:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

You shouldn't have any trouble understanding this, my friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the Law of Moses [Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy]--how it works and how its power touches the living. For instance, a wife is legally tied to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she's free. If she lives with another man while her husband is living, she's obviously an adulteress. But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with no one's disapproval.

So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When the Messiah died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. As long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under the rule-dominated life, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God.

Then what's the point of the Law?

But I can hear you say, "If the Law was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The Law has a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.

Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The Law started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert commands into temptations, making pieces of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The Law, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the Law, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the Law and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the Law itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.

Should we distrust the Law?

I can already hear your next question: "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good, the Law? Is good just as dangerous as evil?" No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandments, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.

Like all humanity, I am torn between good and evil

I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands in the Law are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself--after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing the very things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command, the Law, is necessary.

But I need something more! For if I know the Law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in the Law, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

The Messiah: a completion of the Law

I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus the Messiah can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

"Free in Jesus": don't abuse it!

2006-03-07T08:49:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

I previously mentioned when sin is pitted against the forgiveness of God, forgiveness wins hands down. So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace--a new life in a new land!

That's what baptism into life with Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like being revived back to life as Jesus was. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country.

If we get included in Messiah's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.

That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time--remember, you've been raised from the dead!-into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.

This "freedom" is being free from sin, not free to sin!

So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!

Life need fixing? Come get some healing.

I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing--not caring about others, not caring about God--the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?

As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.

But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by the Messiah, our Master.

Dayenu!

2006-03-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us--set us right with him, make us fit for him--we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand--out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary--we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through His Spirit!

Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

No longer at odds with God

Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we're at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!

The death-dealing sin, the life-giving gift

You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we're in--first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin damaged relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the damage was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn't sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.

God's gift overwhelming conquers death-dealing sin

Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one man, Jesus the Messiah, will do! There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?

Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. Getting us out of trouble would have been enough, but no, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.

All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life--a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

God setting things right: a sheer gift!

2006-03-05T02:09:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things? If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own."

If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it--you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked--well, that trusting-him--to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.

David confirms this way of looking at it, saying that the one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man:

Fortunate those whose crimes are carted off,

whose sins are wiped clean from the slate.

Fortunate the person against

whom the Lord does not keep score.

This gift is to Jew and non-Jew alike

Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God? We all agree, don't we, that it was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God?

Now think: Was that declaration made before or after he was marked by the covenant rite of circumcision? That's right, before he was marked. That means that he underwent circumcision as evidence and confirmation of what God had done long before to bring him into this acceptable standing with himself, an act of God he had embraced with his whole life.

And it means further that Abraham is father of all people who embrace what God does for them while they are still on the "outs" with God, as yet unidentified as God's, in an "uncircumcised" condition. It is precisely these people in this condition who are called "set right by God and with God"! Abraham is also, of course, father of those who have undergone the religious rite of circumcision not just because of the ritual but because they were willing to live in the risky faith-embrace of God's action for them, the way Abraham lived long before he was marked by circumcision.

Trusting God accepts the gift

That famous promise God gave Abraham--that he and his children would possess the earth--was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God's decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed. If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That's not a holy promise; that's a business deal. A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise--and God's promise at that--you can't break it.

This is why the fulfillment of God's promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God's promise arrives as pure gift. That's the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father--that's reading the story backwards. He is our faith father.

Abraham's secret -- being a good saint? No! It was trust!

We call Abraham "father" not because he got God's attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn't that what we've always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, "I set you up as father of many peoples"? Abraham was first named "father" and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, "You're going to have a big family, Abraham!"

Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right." But it's not just Abraham; it's also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.

I, Paul, a proud Jewish insider...

2006-03-05T01:29:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

So what difference does it make who's a Jew and who isn't, who has been trained in God's ways and who hasn't? As it turns out, it makes a lot of difference--but not the difference so many have assumed.

First, there's the matter of being put in charge of writing down and caring for God's revelation, these Holy Scriptures. So, what if, in the course of doing that, some of those Jews abandoned their post? God didn't abandon them. Do you think because some of us have been faithless that God's faithfulness is cancelled out? Not on your life! Depend on it: God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth. Scripture says the same:

Your words stand fast and true;

Rejection doesn't faze you.

God is good, but that doesn't mean we've got a free pass to sin

But if our wrongdoing only underlines and confirms God's rightdoing, shouldn't we be commended for helping out? Since our bad words don't even make a dent in his good words, isn't it wrong of God to back us to the wall and hold us to our word? These questions come up. The answer to such questions is no, a most emphatic No! How else would things ever get straightened out if God didn't do the straightening?

It's simply perverse to say, "If my lies serve to show off God's truth all the more gloriously, why blame me? I'm doing God a favor." Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, "The more evil we do, the more good God does, so let's just do it!" That's pure slander, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Jew or not, we're all in the same sinking boat

So where does that put us? Do Jews like myself get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:

There's nobody living right, not even one,

nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.

They've all taken the wrong turn;

they've all wandered down blind alleys.

No one's living right;

I can't find a single one.

Their throats are gaping graves,

their tongues slick as mud slides.

Every word they speak is tinged with poison.

They open their mouths and pollute the air.

They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,

litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,

Don't know the first thing about living with others.

They never give God the time of day.

This makes it clear, doesn't it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it's clear enough, isn't it, that we're sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God's revelation doesn't put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else's sin.

God is setting things right!

But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus--setting-things-right for us. And not only for Jews like me, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both Jews and non-Jews) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

God sacrificed the Passover lamb --Jesus-- on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public--to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it's now--this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.

I, Paul, the proud Jewish insider...

So where does that leave our proud Jewish insider claims and counterclaims? Canceled? Yes, canceled. What we've learned is this: God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does. We've finally figured it out. Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.

And where does that leave my proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God? Also canceled. God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews like myself. How could it be otherwise since there is only one God? God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow Judaism and those who have never heard of it.

But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.

Religious people: stop judging and condemning!

2006-03-05T01:09:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

Those humanistic people I talked about are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn't so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you've done.

You didn't think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard? Or did you think that because he's such a nice God, he'd let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he's not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.

You're not getting by with anything. Every refusal and avoidance of God adds fuel to the fire. The day is coming when it's going to blaze hot and high, God's fiery and righteous judgment. Make no mistake: In the end you get what's coming to you-- Real Life for those who work on God's side, but to those who insist on getting their own way and take the path of least resistance, Fire!

God's way goes against the world's way

If you go against the grain, you get splinters, regardless of which neighborhood you're from, what your parents taught you, what schools you attended. But if you embrace the way God does things, there are wonderful payoffs, again without regard to where you are from or how you were brought up. Being a Jew won't give you an automatic stamp of approval. God pays no attention to what others say (or what you think) about you. He makes up his own mind.

God's rights and wrongs are ingrained into us

If you sin without knowing what you're doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you're doing, that's a different story entirely. Merely hearing God's law is a waste of your time if you don't do what he commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God.

When outsiders who have never heard of God's law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God's law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God's yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God's yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences.

Being religious doesn't mean you're following God!

If you're brought up Jewish, don't assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy, feeling smug because you're an insider to God's revelation, a connoisseur of the best things of God, informed on the latest doctrines! I have a special word of caution for you who are sure that you have it all together yourselves and, because you know God's revealed Word inside and out, feel qualified to guide others through their blind alleys and dark nights and confused emotions to God. While you are guiding others, who is going to guide you? I'm quite serious. While preaching "Don't steal!" are you going to rob people blind? Who would suspect you? The same with adultery. The same with idolatry. You can get by with almost anything if you front it with eloquent talk about God and his law. The line from Scripture, "It's because of you Jews that the outsiders are down on God," shows it's an old problem that isn't going to go away.

Circumcision, the surgical ritual that marks you as a Jew, is great if you live in accord with the Law. But if you don't, it's worse than not being circumcised. The reverse is also true: The uncircumcised who keep God's ways are as good as the circumcised-- in fact, better. Better to keep God's law uncircumcised than break it circumcised. Don't you see: It's not the cut of a knife that makes a Jew. You become a Jew by who you are. It's the mark of God on your heart, not of a knife on your skin, that makes a Jew. And recognition comes from God, not legalistic critics.

Greetings, thanks, and a heads-up on humanism

2006-02-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

I, Paul, am a devoted slave of Jesus Christ on assignment, authorized as an follower of God to proclaim God's words and acts. I write this letter to all the believers in Rome, God's friends.

Jesus is the Son of God!

Scripture contains preliminary reports by the prophets on God's Son. His descent from David roots him in history; his unique identity as Son of God was shown by the Spirit when Jesus was raised from the dead, setting him apart as the Messiah, our Master. Through him we received both the generous gift of his life and the urgent task of passing it on to others who receive it by entering into obedient trust in Jesus. You are who you are through this gift and call of Jesus Christ! And I greet you now with all the generosity of God our Father and our Master Jesus, the Messiah.

Thanks for your service!

I thank God through Jesus for every one of you. That's first. People everywhere keep telling me about your lives of faith, and every time I hear them, I thank him. And God, whom I so love to worship and serve by spreading the good news of his Son--the Message!-knows that every time I think of you in my prayers, which is practically all the time, I ask him to clear the way for me to come and see you. The longer this waiting goes on, the deeper the ache. I so want to be there to deliver God's gift in person and watch you grow stronger right before my eyes! But don't think I'm not expecting to get something out of this, too! You have as much to give me as I do to you.

Please don't misinterpret my failure to visit you, friends. You have no idea how many times I've made plans for Rome. I've been determined to get some personal enjoyment out of God's work among you, as I have in so many other non-Jewish towns and communities. But something has always come up and prevented it. Everyone I meet--it matters little whether they're mannered or rude, smart or simple--deepens my sense of interdependence and obligation. And that's why I can't wait to get to you in Rome, preaching this wonderful good news of God.

It's news I'm most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God's powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews like myself and then right on to everyone else! God's way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: "The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives."

Watch out for humanism

But God's angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.

So God said, in effect, "If that's what you want, that's what you get." It wasn't long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them--the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!

Humanism's end result

Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn't know how to be human either--women didn't know how to be women, men didn't know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men--all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it--emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.

Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it's not as if they don't know better. They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care--worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!