Author Archive for: meiling

Hi GAMErs!

Today’s passage is Romans 2:17-24.  Let’s go!

Romans 2:17-24 (NIV)
17  Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God;
18  if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law;
19  if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark,
20  an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth–
21  you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal?
22  You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
23  You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?
24  As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

On verses 17-24:  To paraphrase Paul’s warning to the Christians in Rome, if you want to be a teacher of God’s laws, you must make sure that you yourself are keeping them.  Otherwise, you’ll be a hypocrite.  Paul’s warning wasn’t just for those who formally preach and teach God’s Word in church, but for all those who saw themselves as mature believers or who had been exposed to the Scriptures for a long time.  What can we learn from this?  The primary measure of spiritual maturity is not how much of God’s Word you know, but how much of God’s Word you live out.

Hi GAMErs!

Today’s passage is Romans 2:12-16.  Let’s go!

Romans 2:12-16 (NIV)
12  All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
13  For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
14  (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law,
15  since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)
16  This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

On verses 12-16:  Here Paul addresses the question, “How can God judge everyone in the world when some people have heard of God’s law through Moses and others have not?”  Paul says that whether people have heard of God’s law through Moses or not, we all have God’s law in our heart and will be judged on how well we obeyed that law. 

Hi GAMErs!

Today’s passage is Romans 2:1-11.  Let’s go!
 
Romans 2:1 (NIV)
1  You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
 
On verse 1:  The fact that the word “therefore” (“dio” in Greek) connects what Paul wrote in Romans 1:18-32 with what he is saying in Romans is important.  For it seems that some members of the church in Rome were judging the unbelievers in Rome for the sinful ways they were living (which are described in Romans 1:18-32) while they themselves were hypocritically engaging in the same or similar sins.  So Paul on one hand affirms that the sins described in Romans 1:18-32 are a problem and on the other hand tells the Christians in Rome not to be hypocrites and to be careful not to pass judgment when they themselves are guilty of at least some of the sins listed in Romans 1:18-32. 
 
This could have been Paul’s gentle and clever way of rebuking the Christians in Rome for certain sinful tendencies of theirs.  Instead of rebuking them directly from the beginning, he stands on their side and agrees that the sins listed in Romans 1:18-32 are things that do not please God but then in Romans 2 Paul turns around and says to the Christians in Rome, “Don’t be so quick to judge others if you yourselves are also guilty of the same or similar things.”
 

Hi GAMErs!

Today’s passage is Romans 1:24-32.  Let’s go!

Romans 1:24-32 (NIV)
24  Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25  They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.
26  Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28  Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30  slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
31  they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32  Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

On verses 24-32:  Have you ever been ripped off?  Have you ever exchanged something incredibly valuable for something that turned out to have little or no value?