Precious and I are reading Romans through together this summer and I am understanding Paul’s discussion about the Gospel in the first three chapters in what is, to me, a fresh way. Please indulge me as I ramble about my thoughts.
In Romans 1 Paul passionately declared his wish to come to preach at the city of Rome. At the same time, God did not permit him to do that, but Paul declared that God’s prevention was not because of any limitations of the Gospel because the Gospel is God’s powerful way of breaking through to a world that flew from him long ago. God turns people to himself by means of his kindness (or “bounty”). All that is fairly elementary, but here is the part that I saw in a new way: God brought this good news to us, all of us, because every one of us is on a continuum from the most base and wretched to the most successful and elite. No matter where you or I fall on that continuum, we need the Gospel to bring us into the sphere of life, of relationship with God. The issue that affects the way I live is that I tend to see others on the continuum, but never myself.
It seems to me that part of growth in Christ is coming to “know myself” in the same way that Calvin talked about self-knowledge in the sixteenth century: Seeing my inability to bring myself into a relationship with God is to see myself on the continuum. Even years after my first exercise of faith in Christ, the Gospel continues to challenge my continuum thinking, that is, the sin of either my self-contempt (“I am too bad to have a relationship with God,” or “God must hate me.”) or my self-vindication (“God owes me,” or “I do well for myself (so who needs God?)”). I am amazed that the Gospel never quits. Just as torrents of water cut canyons into rock over time, so the Gospel keeps on exposing the withheld areas of my heart, what the Geneva Bible editors called a “mad and forward mind.” Conversion is both crisis and a process.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Related posts:
- Ugly thoughts: defensiveness Self-vindication may be the biggest issue for everyday Christians....
