Unfinished
There are many things, good and bad, that we can say about the Apostle Paul. There is some difficulty understanding his writings. However, the example that he gave us of how to live the Christian life and walk our spiritual journey is amazing. Specifically, during his journey to the West; God told him multiple times: “Don’t go here, don’t go there.” Yet, that did not stop Paul from going. He kept walking and changing his direction until God told him where to go. In this life, it is good to have a plan, strategy and a target. But it is more important to keep walking. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know where you are going, as long as you are going. Please, keep walking.
-Pastor Nate
In the Book of Romans Chapter 5, the Apostle Paul assumed a theological position regarding the nature of sinfulness in humanity. His overall idea groups all humanity in the sin of Adam. We can better understand this by reading the passage in Romans. However we also need to understand the history of Salvation throughout the Scripture by understanding the story of the fall.
In the beginning we had a man and a woman who lived in a perfect world; this world was beautiful, shinny, and good reflecting the perfect image and likeness of its Creator, just as the man and the woman did (Gn. 1.27; 31). But the gardeners damaged everything just by disobeying the Creator. After the disobedience of Adam and Eve, sin came into the perfect creation of God, and with sin evil and therefore, death.
The narrative of the Old Testament (OT) addresses of the concept of sin from the perspectives. It is provoked by the desire of satisfying a pleasure out of God’s perfection and this can be identified as the root of all transgressions. Transgressions could be identified as the anthropological response towards that desire. In reality, sin is not just the desire or the transgression, but the fulfillment of both together in an act against God’s moral law.
The truth of the matter is that the OT only deals with the fact that sin is present and humanity had to stay away and purge them from it. The OT does not waste time dealing with the question of originality and so does Paul. What Paul is doing in this passage is stressing the major subject of all of his writings, Salvation in Christ.
When Paul talked about the sinfulness of humanity through Adam he was looking at the ethical principle of this story. However, we need to ask ourselves one question. What if Paul was really talking about sin from the consequence perspective rather than asking the question of originality?
Paul noticed that Adam did not solely pass his sin; he sinned, passing the consequences of sin to us which are the excommunication from God, the loss of our innocence, evil and death. Therefore, we all inherited a predisposition toward sinful behavior. Paul does not accuse us of Adam’s sin, but he is doing us justice, for we are the victims of that sin. If we read the passage of Romans carefully we will notice that Paul’s main subject is not at all the nature of sin (or sin in general). Instead, Paul is defending his soteriology. His case for sin originating from Adam is not as important as the principal it is supporting: Salvation comes through Christ.
If we look at the Roman’s passage from this perspective it makes total sense to use Adam as a counterpart to Jesus. Perhaps, this is because in Paul’s mind his readers needed to know the reason for which they needed that salvation. If one does not know he/she is sick, one will not look for the medicine. In one hand we all are in sin; not Adam’s sin but our own sin. Why are we in sin? Because Adam’s actions opened the door so that sin would be approachable for us. Hence, we all decided to sin because we did not know better. On the other hand, Jesus provides forgiveness, cleanliness, and salvation from all the sins past, present, and future. Therefore, we do not have to sin any more.
When the biblical writer expressed that God has delivered him from his iniquities, he was stressing that God had chosen him. In the Bible God is identified as the author of goodness and source of holiness, because it is understood that God had made us good and holy. The understanding of all this knowledge was seen as the wisdom of God given to His people.
Therefore we could also identify God as a fountain of knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is information that has been acquired throughout life experiences and hard study. Wisdom is what we do with that knowledge. The knowledge of God’s power, and the significance of his word, work as fuel that keep our life going. But God’s wisdom is not naturally known to humans for humanity is wicked, sinful, perverse, and unclean.
God poured out his mercy upon those us; he purified our hearts. He chose to make his wisdom known to us. Our purpose starts by acknowledging that God is in our presence; everything we do, say or think we are doing before him. Everything that has happened and will happen has been appointed by God. But our wisdom is for us to live according to His Word.
Never forget that the knowledge of our purpose gives us wisdom.
Dad: Nathan, sometimes we walk with God, and sometimes we wait with Him. What you do doesn’t matter as long as you are with him.
Me: Well, waiting sucks, but at least I’m not alone.
Great day for American Sports today…the Steelers and the Packers, two of the oldest franchises in American Football history are going to the Superbowl….this is the meaning for their careers, but my question are: What is your meaning? Is it as exciting as today’s games? If is not, reconsider your life and turn your meaning to the one God wants to give you.
I’m attempting to analyze biblical prophecy from the big picture socio-rhetorical (original listener perception) perspective. In Biblical times political and social criticisms were basically pioneered by the prophets. The prophets criticized Israel’s society as being driven by their godless behavior and the way leaders and the upper classes were taking advantage of the people. Historically, Israel depended on God’s mercy, interventions, and Law. Part of this law was to behave in a righteous manner to every single individual. Doom prophecies came because of Israel’s failure to understand that. The people of Israel knew the voice of God and his commandments for each were part of their daily lives. Hence, they also knew that because of their failure to accomplish their part of the covenant, God would bring calamities into their lives.
In a comparison to our modern, western, and liberal society, I want to make a parallel between Israel’s disobedience and our modern indifference from a pastoral perspective. We first have to look at the big picture and note that Israel’s social and political life was, in the first place, theocentric. As a God-seeking community, we want to address our modern society like the prophets confronted Israel. However, that poses a large dilemma: Israel’s theocentric legal system. In our western world, our legal system is based in a capitalist democracy where there is a noticeable separation between law and state. As Christians we might feel compelled to act on social action in order to fight against structural evil. Nevertheless, our society does not have to be accountable to God’s call like Israel had to be accountable to the call of the prophets. Hence, the real dilemma is how to address our society with a rhetorical message that might bring change, but without crossing the lines that have been established and that we must respect?
Perhaps we can find the answer in the book of Jonah. Jonah’s prophecy could have been seen as an argument for the universality of divine law. There are other accounts where the Scripture mentioned that God destroyed Gentile cities because of their sins. An example of this is Sodom and Gomorrah. However, Jonah’s story is peculiarly diverse from the other prophet’s stories; no background, few poems, nor summary of sins. It also has a very oxymoronic wisdom added to it. Jonah, even though that he prophesied to a pagan nation, had success when most of the other prophets in Israel and Judah did not. This might actually have been a legend. But it worked in order to communicate the message across; the understanding of righteousness is universal and if pagans can understand it, the People of God must live by it.
In conclusion, we can receive six biblical principles from the prophets that can be used in order to address today’s society: (a) God is the God of all nations, whether they know it or not, (b) justice and righteousness are universal, (c) punishment toward injustice and moral depravity is also universal, (d) God sends his oracles in order to address any particular society, (e) God wants the listeners to modify their behavior so he doesn’t bring doom to them, (f) the response toward God’s message and his oracle will determine God’s final answer. If we are aware that these principles are universal, then we not only can, but we must use them in order to address the injustice of our society.
