I’ve been watching the ‘statistics’ for this blog. They tell me there have been a number of ‘first time’ visitors lately. Just a word to the wise (and you must be wise if you are visiting me, right?). If you want to understand what this is all about, read the oldest entry first. That will tell you how this all got started.
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Read the book of Romans
Sorry about not responind right away! I was sort of busy over the holidays.\’Read the book of Romans\’? Could you be more specific? I have read books my many Romans: Livy, Suetonius, Tacitus and, of course, Caesar – not to mention a fair bit of the poetry of Catullus. What should I be reading and what should I be looking for?
I suspect George means the Epistle (or Letter) TO the Romans by one Paul aka Saul of Tarsus Technically it should be called the Letter to the Jews AT Rome—which definitely makes it someone else\’s mail but I think that is what he wants you to read. I don\’t know why he does, of course, but he seems pretty definite about it.
@Cassie: I sort of suspected that. I was just being a little sarcastic, I guess. But I also thought it would be nice if he suggested the actual verse he was thinking of so I didn\’t have to reread the whole thing to figure out what he was getting at.
Oh well, as to that I could hazard a good guess. Chapter 1 verses 22-28 are usually the ones they hit me with. Which then forces me to remind them that Paul\’s Theology is somewhat different from theirs. The whole of the seventh chapter explains how Christians are not bound by the Laws of Moses at all. He says, in effect, that a man (or woman) is bound by the Laws of Moses while he or she is ALIVE but one who comes to Christ is considered dead WITH Christ and is no longer under those Laws. Which means, obviously, that all those Biblical Quotations our opponents hit us with are irrelevant. For, even granting that we are SINNERS just by being GLBT (which I do not actually agree with) but even if we WERE, it doesn\’t matter. As Paul goes on to say in seventh chapter, a Christian is not held guilty because of the sins of the flesh because a true Christian loves God and Christ in the spirit (heart, soul, mind)…therefore it isn\’t the Christian who sins but the flesh. The wages of sin is death and the flesh indeed will die because of sin but the spirit (being guiltless) will live in Christ. The whole of the eighth chapter of Romans expands on this.I understand that all of this is very complicated for Fundamentalists and other intellectually challenged lifeforms so let\’s break down what Paul is actually saying: When a person comes to Christ the Father no longer judges them according to the works of the flesh but according to the spirit which is in them—which is the Spirit of Christ. In other words, He no longer judges them by the LAW.Naturally when I say these things I get accused of preaching some perversion of the Gospel but I\’m not, you know. Just telling what the Book of Romans actually says (which then throws light on everything else this "Apostle to the Gentiles" is saying in his other letters. When one understands that, in Paul\’s view, the body may be guilty of all sorts of sins but the person is not held accountable for that because of Christ\’s sacrifice on the cross (as with Abraham whom Paul mentions in Chapter 4 verse 3) God counts their faith in His Son AS Righteousness and therefore Romans 1:17 is the key to ALL his writings. "For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." (New International Version).Okay, the Sunday Sermon is over 🙂