Scripture and Commentary
Online Bible courtesy of Gospelcom.net
See Romans
1 in the New King James Version
See Romans
1 in the New American Standard Bible
Commentary on Romans Chapter 1
One of the telling aspects of Paul's understanding
of Salvation is in how he sees his own relationship to Jesus Christ.
Romans 1 (NKJV)
5 Through Him we have received
grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for
His name,
6 among whom you also are
the called of Jesus Christ;
As I read this, my picture is that Paul
is an obedient servant, sent to call others into the same obedience.
When we begin our Christian journey, we
seek freedom for our souls. In John
chapter 8 (Worldwide English translation)
31 Jesus said to the
Jews who believed in him, `If you obey my word, you are truly my disciples.
32 And you will understand
the truth and the truth will make you free.'
How does being a servant set us free?
So by becoming a Servant, we become Free?
As my pastor would say, "How does that work?"
Romans 8: (NIV)
20 For the creation was subjected
to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;
21 because the creation itself
also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole
creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
and we read further in Romans
6:16 (NIV)
Don't you know that when you offer
yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one
whom you obey - whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or
to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
How Many Roads are there to walk down
Romans 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith
to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith." (NKJV)
Romans 1:24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in
the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,
25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped
and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.
Amen.
26(a) For this reason God gave them up to vile passions.
(NKJV)
Here Paul makes a solid distinction between
the believers and the unbelievers, which is a theme that continues through
Romans.
The believer lives by faith
The unbeliever lives in the lusts of his or
her heart.
God's purpose is to bring all believers
to a life of faith. It is my understanding that the believer can
choose to turn away from God, and when he does this he is no longer assured
of a place in the book of life. This will be a subject of another
day's study.
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Introduction to Romans Study, summary and other scripture references.
Romans is a primer on the relationship
of the Believer to The Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we are starting a study of the Book
of Romans.
On of the issues we want to be aware of
is the Controversy between two doctrinal positions. On the one hand
we have the Calvinist and on the other we have the Arminian.
I encourage you to use your resources to
study these issues, and to approach them with an open heart.
Through this study, you will probably characterize
me as a Wesleyan-Arminian. However, it is my desire to be open to
as direct an understanding of the Scriptures as possible.
Note that on different days, the placement
of the commentary on the page will vary. Sometimes, I will use the
left pane and sometimes the right pane.
Summary of Today's Study:
1. Christ sets us free to be His servants
2. There are only two ways to go,
either a life of faith, or a life characterized by living in the lusts
of our flesh (and as we will see later on, in bondage to forces that
oppress and destroy.)
3. We did not go into the catalog
of sins in verses 26-32. If we did, of course, we would be accused
of homophobia, hate-mongering and bigotry, among other things. This
would be true even if we pointed out that this was solely the truth of
Scripture and not our bias against certain persons.
First, it is a fact
of life that many of us work side by side with homosexuals and lesbians,
as we do with all other kinds of sinners. Christ calls all of them
to salvation.
Second, Christians
are called to pray for every kind of person. It takes love to persist
in prayer. The real measure of love is to pray for someone and to
listen to their needs without continually preaching at them.
Other Scriptures to Study:
Matthew
11: 28-30 (NIV courtesy Gospelcom.net)
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