Redeeming God

Liberating you from bad ideas about God

Learn the MOST ESSENTIAL truths for following Jesus.

Get FREE articles and audio teachings in my discipleship emails!


You are here: Home / Archives

A True Foot Washing Service

14 Comments

mental illnessI deal with men who are mentally ill on a weekly basis at my job. Recently, a young man named Daniel came into my office and said he had a message for me from God. He handed me a note, which said this:

John, as an honor, asked him how might it be that I should wash your feet. He asked, I am. Would you have your brother too, be he, whom would be left to the way? No, say I! Not thy will, but albeit, your will be done, Lord. Amen.

I thanked Daniel for the message from God. He smiled and left.

You might recognize bits of that message as coming from John 13, where Jesus sought to wash the disciples’ feet and Peter objected.

When people say that they are giving me a message from God, very rarely do I think that it is actually a message from God. But with this message from Daniel, I tend to think it was.

“What!?” You might say. “It’s gibberish. It doesn’t make any sense! God wouldn’t do that!”

Wouldn’t He? Have you read the book of Revelation recently? … But this post isn’t about bibliology, so let’s move on…

Thinking about Foot Washing Services

I think it truly was a message from God because that very week I had been thinking about these “foot washing ceremonies” which we sometimes have in church. Can I be frank? I think they’re stupid. I think that foot washing ceremonies completely miss the point of why Jesus washed the disciples’ feet.

Jesus performed that task because it was the most menial task that a household servant could perform at that time. You’ve heard the cultural background, I’m sure. People wore sandals as they walked around in the dusty streets, which were also full of animal droppings. Nobody wanted all this tracked through their house.

Besides, they ate meals at low tables while they reclined on the ground. Which means that everybody was down near foot level. Imagine how feet must have stunk! So they had the lowest of the low household servants wash everybody’s feet as they entered the house.

To show his disciples how much He loved them, He washed their feet. That is, He became the lowest of the low servants in the house.

foot washing ceremonyDoes a modern foot washing ceremony do this? Hardly. More often than not, people who attend these foot washing ceremonies make sure that they washed their feet in advance and scraped all the gunk out of their toenails. Then they wear a clean pair of socks and shoes.

A True Foot Washing Service

If have often thought that if we really wanted to follow the spirit and symbolism of that first foot washing ceremony, we would find the dirtiest and most menial tasks in our churches, our neighborhoods, or our homes, and do those.

I have heard of pastors who pick up cigarette butts from the church parking lot, and go change diapers in the nursery. That’s foot washing! I have heard of youth pastors who led their youth group on a mission’s trip to the local outhouses near where the homeless people live and cleaned them up. That’s foot washing! My friend, Sam Riviera, often walks around where the homeless are and picks up trash along the street. He says it is not uncommon to find used condoms and syringes. That’s foot washing!

But let me get back to Daniel and his note. His note to me from God reminded me that washing someone else’s feet is not just about what you do, but whom you do it for. Yes, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, but remember, Judas was there too. Do you think Jesus skipped Judas as being “unworthy”? I doubt it.

It seemed to me that Daniel’s note was an invitation for me to “wash the feet” of the mentally ill I encounter every week. How? By listening to them with patience, even when I don’t understand a word they are saying. The mentally ill are often mocked, neglected, and abused by those who should love, protect, defend, and care for them. Maybe I can be a kind voice. A helping hand. A listening ear. A pat on the back.

If you don’t know anyone who is mentally ill, that’s okay. There are other people whose feet you can wash. Maybe you could “wash the feet” of Muslim neighbors by being kind to them (without trying to convert or condemn them). Maybe you could “wash the feet” of homeless people by giving them a meal, even when you know they waste all their money on drugs.

There are thousands of ways to wash people’s feet, and billions of people who need their feet washed.

Open your eyes. Look around. There is pain and fear all around, just waiting for someone to wash it away. After all, “Would you have your brother too, be he, whom would be left to the way?”

This post is part of the October 2014 Synchroblog. Below is a list of other contributors. Go read them all!

 

Romans 8:7-8, Enmity with God, and Calvinism

14 Comments

Romans 8:7-8 is often used to defend the Calvinistic doctrines of Total Depravity and total inability. The text says this:

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:7-8).

Regarding this text, Calvinist commentator John Murray says that “Enmity against God” is nothing other than total depravity and “cannot please God” nothing less than total inability (Murray, Epistle to the Romans, 1:287).

Romans 8

“The Flesh” in Romans

But, as with the discussion of Romans 7, it is important to know what Paul means when he writes about “the flesh” in his letters.

The flesh is dead and dying. The flesh is separated from God, is corrupted, and when the soul attempts to operate through the flesh, only sin-tainted behavior results.

The unbeliever, of course, since He does not have the Spirit of God, has no choice but to operate through the flesh. As we have seen in the discussion about the three parts of a person, this says nothing whatsoever about the ability (or inability) of the unregenerate person to believe in Jesus for eternal life. It is not “the flesh” that believes in Jesus, but the soul.

So while Paul is absolutely right that the flesh cannot please God, we should not understand Paul to be saying that a person cannot believe in Jesus for eternal life. God calls all to believe in Jesus, and since faith is not a work of the soul through the corrupted flesh, the soul is able to believe in Jesus and receive eternal life from Him.

Unbelievers are Not the Focus on Romans 8:7-8

Of course, having said this, it is important to note that the unregenerate person is not the subject of Paul’s statement in Romans 8:7-8.

Instead, Paul is writing about the experience of believers.

In Romans 7, he wrote about the ongoing struggle with sin that every person experiences (both believer and unbeliever alike), and concluded that description by rejoicing that God has provided a way through Jesus Christ for people to be freed from the bondage to decay and corruption that was brought about by the body of death. As a result of Jesus and the indwelling Holy Spirit, our mind can now serve the law of God, even though the flesh still serves the law of sin (Romans 7:25).

Based on this understanding, Paul goes on in Romans 8 to call believers who have received the Spirit of God to live according to the Spirit, and not according to the old man, the corrupted flesh.

Romans 8 is a Call for Believers to Live According to the Spirit

In Romans 8, Paul calls believers to stop walking according to the flesh, and start living according to the Spirit (Romans 8:1). He invites us to no longer set our mind (our soul) on the flesh, but to set our mind (our soul) on the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:4).

Romans 8 flesh vs spirit

He goes on to explain that when believers live according to the flesh, we are carnally (or fleshly) minded, which leads to death. But if we live through the Spirit, we will finally discover the life and peace that we have always desired, but could never accomplish through the flesh (Romans 8:6).

Paul says that since we have the Spirit, we can now live for God (Romans 8:9), but we must make the choice to do so, for even though the Spirit of life is in us, the body of sin is still there as well, seeking to lead us back into death, decay, and destruction (Romans 8:10-15).

What this all means then is that Paul’s statement in Romans 8:7-8 about the carnal mind not being able to please God is that Paul is not primarily referring to unregenerate people, but to those who are regenerate, who have the Spirit of God, but who choose to live according to the flesh.

Such behavior, though carried out by Christians, is not pleasing to God.

He gave us His Spirit so that we might live a new life, a life free from the damaging and destructive consequences of sin. By choosing to live through the flesh, we invite the natural consequences of sin down upon our heads (Paul calls this wrath), which saddens and troubles God.

God wants us to be delivered from sin, not just in our position of being “in Christ,” but also in our daily experience.

Romans

This, in large part, is what the book of Romans is all about. It is not primarily about how people can escape hell and go to heaven when they die. Romans is about how Christians can be delivered from the consequences of sin and experience the life God wants for us, and thus, inviting the world into our experience of the rule and reign of God.

Romans 8:7-8, then, says nothing about Total Depravity or total inability of unregenerate people. Instead, these verses are an invitation from Paul to believers to reject the way of death, and choose the way of life instead.

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

Romans 7: Did Paul Struggle with Sinful Flesh?

52 Comments

Romans 7 Calvinists sometimes quote from Romans 7 as a text which teaches Total Depravity and total inability, for Paul seems to describe a lack of ability to do anything good (Romans 7:15, 19, 24), and refers to being captive and enslaved to sin (Romans 7:14, 23). Paul says that although he wants to do what is right, he ends up doing what is wrong. Romans 7:19 one such verse which sums up the struggle nicely:

For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice (Romans 7:19).

Part of the problem with Romans 7, however, is that people from all streams of Christianity are all over the map about whether Romans 7 describes Paul’s experience as a Christian or as a non-Christian. While everybody agrees that Paul is writing about a struggle with sin, there is little agreement about whether Paul is describing how a Christian struggles with sin or a non-Christian.

1. Paul is Describing His Experience as a Christian

There are many who believe that Paul is describing his own experience as a Christian. It is pointed out that Paul uses the personal pronoun “I” and numerous present tense verbs throughout this passage. Furthermore, Paul references the “inward man” (Romans 7:22) and his “mind” which is at war with his “flesh” (Romans 7:23, 25).

Some argue that only a regenerate person has an inner man or a renewed mind which is able to war against the flesh.  Finally, nearly all Christians struggle with sin on a daily basis, and many note that the experience Paul describes seems to fit our own experience perfectly. It is comforting to know that even Paul struggled in this battle against sin.

2. Paul is Describing His Experience as a Pharisaical Jew

Others argue, however, that there are good exegetical reasons to think that Paul may be referring to his past struggle against sin as an unregenerate religious Jew.

For example, although Paul does use first-person pronouns and the present tense, he did not use this sort of grammar in Romans 6, the first part of Romans 7, or on into Romans 8 where it is perfectly clear that Paul is talking about regenerate people. It is suggested that Paul switches pronouns and verb tense in Romans 7:14-20 because he does not want to describe the experience of regenerate people, but describe rather his own personal experience as a religious Pharisaical Jew. He had the law of God, and tried his hardest to obey it, but completely failed.

Finally, many believe that a Christian who is truly indwelled with the Spirit of God should have more victory over sin than what Paul describes in Romans 7:15-20.

Calvinists are not United on Romans 7

Like all other brands of Christianity, Calvinists do not speak with a unified voice in this debate.

For example, J. I. Packer says that,

Grammatically, … the natural way to read it would be as a transcript of Paul’s self-knowledge at the time of writing … (Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit, 264-267).

However, a leading Calvinist professor like Anthony Hoekema declares the opposite:

The mood of frustration and defeat that permeates this section does not comport with the mood of victory in terms of which Paul usually describes the Christian life. The person pictured is still a captive of the law of sin (7:23), whereas the believer described in 6:17-18 is no longer a slave to sin (Hoekema, Five Views of Sanctification, 232).

Yet no matter which view a Calvinist takes, this passage creates problems for their system of theology.

If the Calvinist agrees with J. I. Packer that Romans 7 is a description of the ongoing struggle with sin that every Christian faces (including the Apostle Paul), then this passage creates problems for the Calvinistic doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. We will see how in the chapter on that topic.

But if a Calvinist takes the alternate opinion, along with Hoekema, and says that Romans 7 describes the condition and experience of the unbeliever, then this text creates problems for their teachings on total inability.

the war within

As seen in earlier posts through numerous quotes from Calvinists, total inability teaches that mankind does not have a will to do anything other than sin. They do not have the will to comprehend, understand, or choose to do the will of God.

Yet Paul writes that he does will to do the good (Romans 7:15, 19, 21). He even delights in the law of God (Romans 7:22) and does not will to do what is evil (Romans 7:19). None of this sounds at all like the total inability described by Calvinists.

Paul’s Point in Romans 7

To understand Paul’s point in Romans 7, it is important to delve briefly into the realm of biblical anthropology, where we learn that man consists of three parts: body, soul, and spirit. (Click the link to read this brief study).

The traditional question regarding whether Paul is talking about his experience as a Christian or a non-Christian can be answered by remember what we learned about the three parts of a person.

Is Paul talking about his experience as a non-Christian or a Christian? Paul is talking about both!

People who became Christians as adults know from experience that prior to believing in Jesus, they often struggled with sin and fought against the desires of their flesh, usually to no avail. Success in one area often came at the expense of greater failure in another.

wretched man Romans 7Yet although Christians gain the illuminating and empowering influence of the Holy Spirit when we first believe in Jesus for eternal life, we all know that the struggle with sin did not cease. It continues daily. Yes, victory is now possible, for greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world, but this does not mean that the struggle against the flesh is gone. We too, along with Paul, often cry “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Sin is Always a Struggle, but the Spirit Helps Us

This understanding of Romans 7 once again undermines the Calvinistic doctrine of total inability.

Though it is true that the soul of an unregenerate man cannot do anything good through his dead spirit or dying and corrupted body, the ability to believe in Jesus for eternal life does not depend upon the spirit or the body, but is a function of the soul alone.

Faith, remember, is being convinced or persuaded that something is true. Though the soul often receives bad data from the body and the spirit, and poorly reasons as a result, the soul is still able to believe in Jesus when the offer of eternal life is presented to it.

Romans 7, then, does not teach Total Depravity or total inability, but is rather a description of the constant struggle with sin that all people face, whether regenerate or unregenerate. The Spirit, given to us by God at the moment we believe, helps us gain deliverance from the power of sin in our lives.

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

Humans have three parts: Body, Soul, and Spirit

94 Comments

The Bible seems to present humans as consisting of three parts: body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 4:12).

This is called the “tripartite” nature of man. Much like the divine Trinity, the three parts of a human make one being. Though distinct, the three parts of a person work together to live, exist, and interact with God and creation.

three parts, body, soul, spirit

The Three Parts: Body, Soul, and Spirit

The body is the physical side of a person. It touches the material world through the five senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch.

The spirit is the spiritual side of man. It interacts with God and the spiritual realm through its own set of “senses,” things like faith, hope, and prayer.

The soul is the life of a person. It is the animating principle of a person, and is responsible for imagination, memory, reason, and emotions. As such, the soul serves as the command center for the person. Neither the body nor the spirit can function on its own; both look to the soul for direction and action.

What Happened to the Three Parts of Humanity in the Fall?

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they died spiritually and sin corrupted their body, so that it too began to die.

Nevertheless, they remained “alive” because their soul remained. Yet the soul, the animating principle of a person, can only function through the spirit or through the body. The spirit, which was dead, could do nothing for the soul.

The body, however, was only dying, and so the soul could function through the body. Yet because of the corruption of sin, the body produced only sin and death. This is what Paul refers to as “the flesh.”

What Happens to the Three Parts of a Human in Regeneration?

In the Hebrew Scriptures, God promised to give a new spirit to His people (Ezek 36:26), which we now know was the “Holy Spirit” that came at Pentecost (Acts 2).

The Bible also says that in the future resurrection, we will be given glorified and incorruptible bodies (1 Cor 15:52). When that happens, each person will once again be as God intended and planned, perfect in body, soul, and spirit so that we can live and function as a whole, united person.

But that time is not yet.

In the present age, unbelievers have a soul which often seeks to do good, and wills to do good, but since they do not have the Holy Spirit, they cannot do anything to please God. And since their body is corrupted with sin, the soul cannot obey God through the flesh either.

Once a person believes in Jesus for eternal life (this is a function of the soul), God sends the Holy Spirit to regenerate, indwell, baptize, and seal the new believer. The old, dead spirit of man is replaced by the Holy Spirit of God.

As a result, the soul of believer can choose to walk in the Spirit or walk in the flesh (Gal 5:16-26). Yet due to the force of habit, addiction, bad choices, or just plain ignorance, we often choose instead to life through the flesh, which results in sin.

Though we may desire to do something else, and now have the ability through the Spirit to actually live differently, the body of sin drags us down into death and destruction with it (Rom 7:24).

We will see tomorrow why this study is important (It helps us understand what Paul is talking about in Romans 7).

Here are a few images which I found online which seem to show what I am saying in a graphic representation of our three parts:

Have you read or studied much about the three parts of man? Some believe we have only two parts: the body and a soul/spirit. What are your thoughts on the three parts of man? Do you have anything to add to what I have written above?

Paul Does Not Teach Total Depravity in Romans 3

14 Comments

Romans 3 in contextYesterday we look at the context of Romans 3 to see that Paul is not teaching Total Depravity or total inability in Romans 3:9-20. Today we want to take a closer look at Romans 3:10-12 to see what Paul is really teaching in these verses. We argued briefly that Romans 3 is part of an “epistolary diatribe” against an imaginary objector.

Of course, even if one does not accept the idea that Romans is an “epistolary diatribe,” the point of Romans 3:9-20 is still the same.

In either case, Paul is saying that Jewish people have traditionally thought that as God’s elect, they existed in a privileged position before God. In a sense, Jewish people believed God needed them to carry out His plan and purposes for the world, and so even if they sinned and fell away from Him, He would eventually rescue and redeem them so that His promises to them could be fulfilled. One of Paul’s points in Romans 1–3 and 9–11 is that this is not necessarily so.

Paul Quotes from the Hebrew Bible to Prove His Point

Paul’s collection of quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures in Romans 3:10-18 is intended to show his readers that despite being the chosen people of God and having the Law and the Prophets, the Jewish people are just as guilty as the Gentiles.

Paul’s point in Romans 3:9-20 is that if the Jewish people did have a privileged position by virtue of having the “oracles of God” (Romans 3:2), then these oracles of God condemn them all as sinners, which puts them right back on equal footing with the Gentiles. Paul defends this point by quoting numerous texts from the Hebrew Scriptures which condemns them all as sinners.

Of course, Paul is not at all denying that Gentiles are sinners. To the contrary, he states in Romans 3:9 that “all” Jews and Greeks are under the power of sin. But Paul is not intending to make a statement about the universal Total Depravity of mankind. Instead, his point is that when it comes to being in right standing before God, Jews are on the same footing as Gentiles. Whatever Jews want to say of Gentiles is also true of Jews. To prove his point, Paul quotes numerous texts from the Hebrew Scriptures (Rom 3:10-18). Laurence Vance is absolutely right when he says this about Paul’s point in Romans 3:

Paul, in establishing the universal guilt of both Jews and Gentiles (Romans 3:1, 9), quotes from the Old Testament to give weight to his arguments, not to charge each individual of the human race in particular with every indictment, nor to teach the inability of the unregenerate man to believe on Jesus Christ. There is a difference between establishing the universal depravity of man and charging individual men with sins (Vance, Other Side of Calvinism, 229).

Paul Quotes from Psalm 14 (cf. Psalm 53)

It is important to note that Romans 3:10-12 are quotations from Psalm 14:1-3 (cf. also 53:1-3). Many modern people like to say that Psalm 14 and 53 are condemning atheists when the Psalmist says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

Psalm 14But in the Psalmist’s day, there was no such thing as atheism. Everybody believed in a God or gods. There were, however, many people who chose to live “godless” lives, that is, to live for themselves and not serve God. They believed that God existed, but they chose to not obey Him or follow His commands. It is this sort of person that the Psalmist has in mind in Psalm 14:1 (cf. 53:1).

Therefore, the rest of the statements in Psalm 14 describe this sort of person. Psalm 14 then, is not a chapter describing the Total Depravity of all people everywhere throughout time, but rather, the specific behavior of the people who choose to live with no regard for God in their lives.

Some argue from Psalm 14:7 that this Psalm was written during Israel’s captivity, and so those who live without regard for God are the foreign captors who worship their own god but do not accept or believe in the God of Israel.

However, if this were the case, Paul would not be able to quote from Psalm 14 as a way to show that the Jews were just as guilty as the Gentiles. It seems better to understand Psalm 14 as a Psalm which calls to account those Jewish people who turned away from worshipping the God of Israel after being taken into captivity. Maybe they started worshipping foreign gods, or maybe they just decided to live without any god whatsoever.

Either way, note what the Psalmist says about these people. He does not say that they were born this way, or that they have always been this way. No, the Psalmist specifically says that they have become this way. He writes that they have “turned aside … become corrupt” (Psalm 14:3). These Jewish people have chosen to abandon the worship of the God of Israel, and have turned aside into corruption and sin.

Poetic Hyperbole in Psalm 14

Furthermore, when the entirety of Psalm 14 is read, it becomes obvious that the Psalmist is using poetic hyperbole to describe the sin into which God’s people have fallen. Just like most poets, those who wrote the Psalms often used exaggerated imagery to make their point. This is true of the author of Psalm 14 as well.

For example, Psalm 14:4 says that the workers of iniquity “eat up my people as they eat bread.” They are not literally eating God’s people; they are not cannibals. No, this is an exaggerated and poetic way of saying that these people who live without regard for God are misusing, abusing, and destroying God’s people. So also with the rest of the Psalm.

The Psalmist is not saying that these people can never do any good whatsoever at all. No, he is using poetic hyperbole to point out the error of their ways. It is likely that Paul understands this, and has the same point in mind. His quotation from Psalm 14 is not a statement about the total depravity of mankind, but a statement about how Jews too have fallen into sin, just like the Gentiles.

Ultimately, as Paul states, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). While Romans 3 does not teach Total Depravity, it does teach universal sinfulness.

People Can (and do) Seek God

Romans 3:11, often thought to be a statement about the total inability of mankind, is also balanced by the fact that it comes from the exaggerated statements of Psalm 14, and is further balanced by the numerous statements in the Bible which says that humans can and do seek God (1 Chr 16:11; 2 Chr 11:16; Lam 3:25; Isa 55:6-7; Jer 29:13; Amos 5:4).

believe in Jesus

Furthermore, it is critical to remember that one does not gain eternal life by seeking God, but by believing in Jesus Christ (John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47), which all people can do, for along with humanity’s ability to seek God, Jesus seeks after people (Matthew 18:11; Luke 19:10), and in doing so, calls on all to believe in Him for eternal life. Many do not seek God, not because they cannot, but because they are proud and refuse to seek him (Psalm 10:4).

So by way of summary, Romans 3:9-20 does not teach Total Depravity or total inability.

While the chapter can be used to teach the universal sinfulness of humanity, the real point of this section of Paul’s letter is to show that the Jewish people are on equal footing before God with the Gentiles.

There is no privileged position before God, not special status as God’s chosen people. Jewish people are sinful just like Gentile people. Both are equally in need of God’s righteous deliverance, which He offers freely to all through Jesus Christ.

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

Is Paul teaching Calvinism in Romans 3:10-12?

4 Comments

Romans 3 and CalvinismOf all the various texts used to defend the Calvinistic teaching on Total Depravity, Romans 3:9-20 is one of the most popular (another being Ephesians 2:1-3). Rather than quote the entire passage, a few select verses from the beginning of this section are representative of the whole.

As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10-12).

It is not difficult to see why these texts are popular among Calvinistic defenders of Total Depravity. The text clearly teaches that nobody is righteous or does any good, which sounds like Total Depravity, and that nobody understands or seeks after God, which seems to infer total inability.

Below are a few quotes from Calvinists on Romans 3:9-20.

The text … moves in a remarkable way from the general to the specific. Not only does it say there is none righteous, but it says there is none who does any good, no, not one. We are not considered unrighteous because the dross of sin is mixed together with our goodness. The indictment against us is more radical: in our corrupt humanity we never do a single good thing (Sproul, Grace Unknown, 120).

According to Romans 3, no one unaided by God 1) has any righteousness by which to lay a claim upon God, 2) has any true understanding of God, or 3) seeks God (Boice and Ryken, Doctrines of Grace, 79).

Romans 3:9-10 does not teach Total Depravity

Despite these sorts of statements from Calvinists, Romans 3:9-20 does not actually teach either Total Depravity or total inability. While Romans 3:9-20 does teach that all are sinners (cf. Romans 3:23), the overall context of this passage must be understood in light of the progression of Paul’s argument if we are to grasp his point.

In other words, though this passage does seem to defend both Total Depravity and total inability when quoted out of context, when studied in its context the passage teaches something else entirely (See Campbell, The Deliverance of God).

To fully grasp the argument, a complete analysis of Paul’s entire letter would be necessary. But since that is impossible to do here, let me try to just point out a few of the highlights.

Context of Romans 3

Romans Is Not about How to Go to Heaven When you Die

First of all, it is critical to note that the overall message of Romans is not about justification or how to receive eternal life. In other words, Romans is not primarily directed toward unbelievers. Instead, the message of Romans is primarily directed toward believers, and specifically, how they can live and function as followers of Jesus who live according to the gospel of Christ (Romans 1:16-17).

In Romans, “Salvation” is about Deliverance from the Temporal Consequences of Sin NOW

Related to this, it is important to note that “salvation” in Romans is not about how to go to heaven when you die, but about the salvation (or deliverance) that God provides to believers.

Lots of people think that Romans is just about how “unsaved” people can get “justification” so they can go to heaven when they die. But this approach to Romans doesn’t really know what to do with Romans 9–11 when Paul seems to suddenly switch gears and start talking about God’s covenant with Israel.

However, if we understand that Paul is primarily writing to believers and instructing them about the deliverance available to them in this life, then Romans 9–11 becomes immediately applicable, for Paul uses the example of Israel to show what happens when God’s people do not live by faith, and as a result, are not delivered.

And don’t think that Paul is threatening believers with hell. Hell is nowhere in Paul’s discussion in Romans (not even in the phrase “the wrath of God”).

So when Paul writes what he does in Romans 3:9-20, he is writing a warning to believers in Rome about becoming proud of their privileged position before God. In this section of Romans, Paul is pointing out that all people are on equal footing before God. There is no privileged position.

In Romans, Paul uses “Epistolary Diatribe” to Make His Point… (What?)

Third, and related to this, it is critical to understand exactly how Paul goes about making his argument. He is using specific rhetorical rules from the first century called epistolary diatribe argumentation.

What does that mean?

Paul didn’t just sit down and write Romans based on whatever he wanted to say. No, in writing Romans, Paul followed a set pattern and structure which was quite common in the first century for when scholars, philosophers, and teachers wanted to refute the ideas of an opponent.

A large part of this diatribe structure involved quoting the ideas and words of your opponent so that you might then turn around and refute them. This means that some of the statements in Romans which have traditionally been attributed to Paul are actually the ideas and statements from an opponent of Paul, whom Paul quotes so that he can then refute those ideas (See Campbell, The Deliverance of God).

So Romans 3 is not exactly a continuation of Paul’s own argument and logic, but rather, a continuation of the argument Paul is having with an imaginary objector.

In other words, Romans 3:9-20 is part of Paul’s rebuttal of an opponent, not a continuation of his own argument. In this way, Paul’s collection of quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures in Romans 3:10-18 is intended to show his objector that despite being the chosen people of God and having the Law and the Prophets, the Jewish people are just as guilty as the Gentiles.

Romans context of Romans 3Up to this point, Paul’s objector was trying to argue that only the Gentiles were guilty, and that the Jewish people had a privileged status before God. Paul’s point in Romans 3:9-20 is that if the Jewish people did have a privileged position by virtue of having the “oracles of God” (Romans 3:2), then these oracles of God condemn them all as sinners, which puts them right back on equal footing with the Gentiles.

In Romans 3:9-20, Paul defends this point by quoting numerous texts from the Hebrew Scriptures which condemns them all as sinners.

So far, we have only really looked at the context of Romans 3. Tomorrow, we will discuss what Paul is saying in Romans 3. Until then, what do you think about the context of Romans 3 as laid out above? Has anybody read that book by Campbell? What do you think of it?

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

The more I study the Bible…

52 Comments

The more I study the Bible, the more I realize how little I know about it.

The more I study the Bible, the more I realize how dangerous this book really is.

The more I study the Bible, the more I begin to see why the medieval Catholic church did not allow the average person to read and interpret it.

The more I study the Bible, the more I begin to wonder how much the Bible has truly influenced my theology, versus how much my theology has influenced my reading of the Bible.

The more I study the Bible, the less confident I am in saying that my theology is based on scriptural exegesis.

The more I study the Bible, the more confused I get by it.

Anybody out there know what I am talking about? Please tell me I am not the only one who is beginning to feel this way…

study the Bible

Some History of My Bible Study

Maybe some history is in order…

When I first began this website about 15 years ago, I wanted it to be a place where I posted my sermons and Bible studies. You can still see some of those here: Old Sermons by Jeremy Myers.

Somewhere along the way, my life fell apart, and I began to question a lot of things. To help me sort things out, I decided to question all the theology I had ever been taught. Things were going well, until I started to question everything I had been taught about the Bible…. then everything fell apart.

So I put aside that project, and decided that I needed to just study Scripture and let it re-teach me all my theology…

A few years later, I thought I had finally settled somewhere new, and decided to return to my life goal of writing a commentary on every book of the Bible.

I got half-way through the book of Jonah, when I asked myself the dangerous question, “Did God really send the storm which nearly killed everybody on board the ship?”

This led me off on a wild rabbit trail of trying to make sense of all the violence of God in the Bible in light of the death of Jesus on the cross. However, I eventually gave up (several times) on this as well. Scripture said what it said, and I could find no way around it.

bible study

So now I am writing on something “safe”: The debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. Ha!

The truth is that I think I need to go all the way back to the beginning and start over with the Bible.

What is the Bible?

The problem appears to be that the Bible may not be what I think it is.

Or maybe I can put it this way: The Bible doesn’t do what I want it to do. The Bible does not provide what I want it to provide. The Bible I want does not seem to be the Bible I have.

This is why I have been reading a lot of books recently about Scripture. I know other scholars and theologians are asking similar questions, and I want to know what they are thinking on these issues.

Peter Enns  and HarperOne recently sent me a review copy of his newest book called The Bible Tells Me So. I reviewed this book yesterday.

For now, I found the book incredibly encouraging and hopeful, but at the same time, not too helpful. Or maybe, I just didn’t like the answers that Peter Enns offered, and it will just take some time to come to terms with it.

How Do you Study the Bible?

Do you struggle with Scripture? Where are you at on the whole discussion of inerrancy, inspiration, and the authority of the Bible? Have you read any good books on the topic recently which really helped sort things out for you? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Because the Bible Tells Me So… or does it?

28 Comments

Do you struggle with the Bible? Do you wrestle with what it says, what it means, and how to apply it to your life?

Confession time…

I do.

Here’s another confession….

When it comes to helping me understand what to do with Scripture, Bible college and seminary didn’t help me much. In fact, some days, I wonder if Bible College and Seminary hindered more than they helped.

We have probably all had run-ins with Christians who like to condemn others (or condemn you) by saying, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it.”

Okay, here’s another confession…

god said it I believe it that settles itI used to be one of those Christians. I used to preach that very thing.

Anyway, the only thing that Bible College and Seminary really did for me was giving a more “scholarly” way of saying, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it.”

We were trained to talk about the Greek and Hebrew, and to reference the cultural, historical, and grammatical contexts of whatever passage were were studying, thereby giving us more and better ammunition against those with whom we disagreed.

In the end though, it all boiled down to the same thing…

Though the uneducated masses say, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it!” I could now say, “The Hebrew says this, the cultural background study backs it up, therefore, I believe it, and you better not disagree with me, you ignorant and uneducated worm!”

Anyway, I have begun to try to back away from that sort of approach to Scripture, mostly because it looks nothing like Jesus, and have begun to try to figure out what the Bible is, how it should be used, and how it should be read, taught, and applied to our lives.

The Bible Tells Me So

So it was with great interest that I recently picked up The Bible Tells Me So, by Peter Enns. I had previously read his book, Inspiration and Incarnation, and found it extremely helpful, and so decided to read this newest book of his as well.

The Bible Tells me So

As with everything Dr. Enns writes, this book was full of deep insights and helpful ideas about the nature and authority of Scripture. What surprised me most about this most recent book, however, was the keen sense of humor that was displayed on every page. There were numerous places where I laughed out loud at what I was reading. Dr. Enns has a very good sense of humor!

Humor is important for a book like this, where so much of what is foundational to many forms of modern Christianity is being challenged.

In The Bible Tells Me So, Peter Enns attempts to present an approach to Scripture which allows for us to accept that it has historical and scientific errors and that it contradicts itself at various places, and yet still retain the Bible as an important witness to the theological and spiritual struggles which were faced by our forefathers in the faith, and more importantly, as a historical document about the life of Jesus and how the death and resurrection of Jesus resulted in the transformation of the first century mediterranean world.

Reading over that paragraph again, I am pretty sure that Peter Enns would not agree with how I phrased everything in there…

…Maybe it is best to say this: Peter Enns wants us to stop agreeing with the Bible in everything it says, and instead, begin arguing with God about what is in the Bible. That, he says, is the purpose of Scripture. He says that if the Bible teaches us anything about God, it is that we learn about God and develop a relationship with Him, not by simply accepting everything the Bible says, but by actually engaging with God in a spirited (both senses of the word are intended there) discussion about the Bible.

In other words … don’t be this guy…

wrong approach to Scripture

Frankly, I really, really like this approach, because (as you may know if you have been reading my blog for the past six years or so), this is all I have been able to do with Scripture for the past decade or so. Despite all my training and education, I still cannot make heads or tails of the Bible. If Peter Enns is right, this is exactly how God wants it!

Though not directly stated anywhere, Peter Enns appears to be a proponent of the idea that the Bible is a library of books written by various authors from various theological perspectives, who are in dialogue with each other over the nature of God and what the human response to Him should be. Others who hold this view say that rather than the Bible being “uni-vocal,” it is “multi-vocal.” That is, rather than speaking with one voice on various topics and subjects, there are numerous voices, and sometimes they disagree with and even contradict one another.

In The Bible Tells Me So, Peter Enns begins by showing that most of the traditional approaches to the Bible don’t match up with what the Bible actually appears to be. Following this, he goes through several sections of the Bible, forcing us to read it and see it in a way that you probably won’t hear in most seminaries, churches, or home Bible studies. Then, the book concludes with some explanation of how Jesus, Paul, and the apostles used Scripture, and what we should do with the Bible as it is. 

Frankly, this book is going to require a second read for me, and I plan on reading it out loud to my wife. She is a better theologian than I am, and I trust that she will have discernment to see the right (and wrong) with what Peter Enns has written. I figure that if he invites us to argue with God about the Bible, he will not mind too much if my wife and I argue with him…

For now, though, here is my one main reservation about what Peter Enns has written (I have many reservations about the book …. please don’t read my review as a glowing endorsement)…

The problem with the approach of Peter Enns in The Bible Tells Me So is not so much in what he says, but in the logical ramifications of what he says.

For example, he says that the Bible teaches us about Jesus (p. 237). But does it? If large chunks of Scripture are stories that have been fabricated to answer the pressing social and theological questions of the author’s day (pp. 75, 94, 105, 107-130, etc.), why could this not also have been true about the stories of Jesus? This is especially true if the Gospel authors were not actually eyewitnesses to Jesus (as Enns believes – p. 78).

Ultimately, if Enns is right, the Bible is little more than the best-selling piece of historical literature of all time. Is it inspiring? Yes! Interesting? Sure! Can it guide us in our own life and with our own questions? You bet! Is it life changing? It can be. But is it really from God? Not so much.

the bible tells me soLook, this approach to Scripture is way better than the fundamentalist approach where we carry out all manner of atrocities in Jesus’ name. But I just struggle with having a Bible like this. If Enns is right, what sets the Bible apart from other religious books? How can it be authoritative at all? How can it be reliable or trustworthy in what it says about anything?

In the end, I highly recommend you buy and read The Bible Tells Me So. I recommend it, not because I agree with everything that is written (though in time, maybe I will!), but because the book made me think. This is the best kind of book! I like books that make me think, even when I disagree.

Hmmm…. maybe that is what the Bible is after all….

Until then,  what sort of issues do you have with Scripture? Do you think that the approach of Peter Enns (according to my woefully inadequate summary above) could provide a way of escape from your problems with the Bible? Or do you think his approach simply creates more (and greater) difficulties? Let me know in the comment section!

You can help others with their Bible Questions in the Forum!

7 Comments

bible and theology forum

Help others with their Bible and Theology questions!

Over the past several months, I have received dozens of Bible and theology questions using the contact form on the right sidebar, and due to time constraints, I have not been able to answer most of them.

So I am going to post them in the forum and let you provide answers to these Bible and theology questions if you want…. go check them out!

Here are a few examples:

Why is God so violent in Numbers 15:32-36? (Go suggest an answer)

Why did Paul re-baptize twelve men in Acts 19? (Go suggest an answer)

Do all Christians speak in tongues? (Go suggest an answer)

Why are there so many different beliefs among churches? (Go suggest an answer)

Is masturbation a sin? (Go suggest an answer … if you dare!)

Notes from Others

There have also been a couple interesting posts from others. Here is something Justin Wiles wrote:

Ever since I have … been able to share my story and struggles with the community the Holy Spirit’s power to fight sin in my life has abounded. It’s still a rough battle but I hold faith that I’m growing more and more.

So feel free to share a daily victory or a struggle so that we can come together in the spirit of truth and love and encourage everyone to keep fighting the good fight!

Have you found this to be true in your own life? Has community (online and in person) been helpful as you learn to follow Jesus and defeat temptation? I have! If you want to weigh in on Justin’s thread, you can do so here.

There have also been several new introductions from new members on the forum. Go and read them here, and introduce yourself as well!

James Johnson III wrote this:

I have no Seminary experience, but I consider myself autodidactic and my thirst for knowledge has lead me all over the gamut of belief systems in Christianity (I ended up a staunch Calvinist until recently). I consider myself in a state of cognitive dissonance, so I’m hoping to learn a lot and I have a plethora of questions.

Frank wrote this:

My profession is evaluating community development programs facilitated by Christian agencies. In more than 25 years of doing evaluations in Africa and Asia I have discovered that strong Christians often do not see the conflicts that there are between science worldview and Christian worldview.

I always find it fascinating to learn more about the people who read this blog, and I love it when you interact with each other as you so often do in the comment sections on the forums. Thank you for making this blog a place where people can gather online and discuss life, Scripture, and theology.

Join the Forum!

If you want to introduce yourself, or ask a Bible or theology question for others to answer, head on over to the forum and get started! See you there!

Advertise or Donate

Search (and you Shall Find)

Get Books by Jeremy Myers

Books by Jeremy Myers

Schedule Jeremy for an interview

Click here to Contact Me!