Hosea 3

What we now call Hosea chapter 3 is a brief section containing only five numbered verses. In spite of its brevity, it contains a thorough summary of the themes of the book.

There is a current of interpretation of verse one that has God instructing Hosea to buy back his wife. Although this interpretation is not entirely ruled out by the text, I must point out that the original text says lech ehav ishah ...Literally "go love a woman" not "love your wife again" which in Hebrew would be lech ehav et ha ishcha. Moreover, all the translations I could consult (Spanish, Portuguese, English -- two translations -- , French, and even the Septuagint in Greek) all agree with the Hebrew reading.

So the text does not specifically say "Buy your wife back." As I pointed out in previous posts, the purpose of the book is not to give us a biography of Hosea's family life. Rather, God has Hosea carry out demonstrations of God's intention for the people of the covenant and interpret their meaning, or rather let God comment on their meaning.

Hosea obeys God by buying a woman for a small dowry of little worth from whoever owned her. He tells her that she will no longer "play the whore" (NRSV) and that no one will have intercourse with her, not even Hosea. That is the extent of the events in this section.

There are two sections of commentary by God. The first, in verse one, is "...just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods..." (NRSV). That is the point of having Hosea buy the woman as an object lesson. It should be clear at this point that whether Hosea buys back his wife Gomer or another woman is not the point of the text. The point is that God loves his people even though God is no longer under obligation to do so because the people have broken the covenant agreement repeatedly for centuries.

The other section of commentary is found in verses 4 and 5. The Israelites are to remain out of relationship with God for a long time, even being deprived of king, prince, and the sacrificial rites. After that they "shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; they shall come in awe to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days (NRSV)."

The commentary is given for us and it can be dangerous not to give it the importance it clearly is meant to have.

Hosea 1-2

The very first "verse" of Hosea (be mindful that chapter and verse divisions are not part of the original biblical texts, but rather were introduced in the Middle Ages for easier reference) begins "The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, son of Beeri." Whenever we encounter in the English translation the word "Lord" in upper and lower capital letters, the Hebrew original has the word "Yaweh," which is the name of the Covenant God of Israel.

For those who have not read my posts on Romans, it is important to know exactly where the name comes from because there is a great deal of loose discussion of the name based not on the Hebrew original but on the Septuagint (mis-) translation and on Revelation. The latter book we can take as authoritative ("The One who is, who was, and is coming") but it clearly is a new teaching and a new vision of God.

In Exodus, when God encounters Moses at the burning bush, Moses asks: What if Pharaoh refuses to listen and does not liberate the people? God answers "I will be with you," in Hebrew Eheyeh im cha. Then Moses asks, "If the children of Israel ask me who is this God who sent you, what name shall I give them? God answers Eheyeh asher eheyeh, "I will be who (what) I will be." Hebrew cannot say "I am" as the verb "be" has a past tense and a future tense, but no present tense. God says to Moses, in effect, "I will be who I determine to be, and I will be with you."

The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, dating from around 300 years before the birth of Jesus) translated "I will be with you" correctly, as Esomai meta su. But when it gets to the name, it mistranslates Ego ho on ("I the being one"). A faithful translation would be Esomai hoti esomai. It is important to keep all this in mind. When God tells Hosea that Israel will be destroyed because of its own willful disobedience, that is not the end of the story. God in the end will redeem and restore all who see the error of their ways and return to God. That is, no one and nothing will condition God, God will be with them and with us.

In Hosea we see the eternal redemptive purpose of God. At the end of chapter 1 God says "Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people' it shall be said to them, 'Children of the living God' " (v. 10 NRSV). Chapter 2 opens: Say to your brothers Ammi (my people) and to your sisters Ruhamah (pitied). The condemnation is not forever for those who repent. For them there is redemption.

I must mention another translation. The NRSV English says "say to your brother" and "say to your sister" (singular both times, but the Hebrew text is very clearly plural in both cases. The offer stands for everyone.

The remainder of chapter 2 is a poetic section comparing the people of Israel to an unfaithful wife. The husband formerly gave her food and drink, but because of her unfaithfulness (worshiping other gods and participating in their festivals) he will withdraw his support. This is a symbol of the people's unfaithful relationship to God, nothing to do with Hosea's biography.

Verses 14 and 15 are a picture of reconciliation in which hope and relationship and joy are restored.

In verse 16 there is a play on words, lost to those who do not speak Hebrew. "On that day says the LORD, you will call me 'My husband' and not 'My Baal'." (NRSV). Where the English has "Husband" Hebrew says "man." In Hebrew he word for husband is "baal" and wife is ishah. In some way there is an equating of persons with the use of "my man" (ishi) and "my woman" (ishti). It is not possible to achieve a full understanding of the meaning of the verse, not being an ancient Hebrew person. In general, we can interpret with confidence that God wishes to reclaim the close relationship with people which God intended from creation.

The end of the chapter has God promising have pity on Lo-Ruhama and to say to Lo-Ammi "You are my people," who will respond "You are my God."

The purpose of this post is for the reader to be able to read the first two chapters of Hosea with greater understanding.

Introduction to Hosea

Now that April, the most activity and responsibility-filled month in academia, is over, I can return to the blog. We finished Romans and now we move to Hosea, a much misunderstood book in the Hebrew scriptures.

This introductory post is a How Not to and a How to read Hosea. Most commentators start their study of the book by trying to figure out Hosea's life story. That, however, is not the point of the book. Rather, aspects of Hosea's life illustrate God's purpose in human history and God's nature.

There will be fewer posts on Hosea than there are chapters in the book. Much of the material is repeated and so the treatment will be thematic.

Hosea lived in the 9th century BC, had a 60-year career, spanning the last kings of the northern kingdom of Israel and beyond, by which time only the southern kingdom of Judah remained. He was the only prophet from the northern kingdom to have left written prophecies. His purpose was to interpret God's purpose in letting the northern kingdom fall and to give a message of hope for the future.

In Hosea, Israel is accused of "whoredom" meaning to signal its infidelity to the Covenant God of Israel, called Yaweh in the Hebrew scriptures. The people and their leaders all worshiped the gods of the Canaanites and Assyrians alongside Yaweh, violating the First Commandment. Therefore when God tells Hosea to "marry a wife of whoredom" it is not a punishment. One may take it that Hosea was disinclined to marry any woman, because she would be unclean owing to the worship of other gods. But God tells Hosea to go ahead and marry. In doing so, Hosea participates in the life of his people, though not in their unfaithfulness to God.

There was a tradition among prophets to act out in public scenes depicting what God meant to say to the people. In marrying Gomer (a name that sounds perfectly normal in Hebrew for a woman), Hosea is acting out God's presence among his disobedient people. They have a boy, whom God tells them to name Jezreel. That was a military stronghold that witnessed a bloodbath when the evil king Ahab and his consort Jezabel were executed along with countless other people. In naming the boy Jezreel, God was signalling that, unless Israel changed its ways, it would suffer the fate of Ahab and Jezabel.

Then they had a daughter and God said to name her Lo-Ruhamah (not pitied). God would not have pity on those who persisted in disobeying. Finally they had a second daughter, who was to be named Lo-Ammi, which is "not my people." God's people are those who worship only Yaweh, the Covenant God of Israel. The Israelites of the northern kingdom were not God's people by their own choice.

In all this, God called on Hosea to live out aspects of God's love for Israel and Judah and the pain God felt, caused by their infidelity. However that's not the end of the story. Basically we have covered chapter I of Hosea, but in so doing put our sights on the purpose of God, not on Hosea's life history, which is not the topic of the book.

I plan four or five weekly posts on Hosea. I hope they will be instructive and helpful.

Romans 16

The closing portion of Paul's book-length essay, known to us as Chapter 16, consists of the salutations (greetings) that he sends to people he knows in Rome and from people the church at Rome know but who are with Paul. On the face of it, there is not much to get from it for our edification. A closer look, however, reveals a number of different significant matters.

In verse 1 Paul commends Phoebe to them, calling her both a sister (meaning a fellow believer) and a deacon of the church at Cenchreae. This is important. If she is a deacon, then the early church had women who were deacons. Some English translations fudge by translating the word diákonos in this verse as "servant," while translating the same term when referring to men as "deacon." Not so the NRSV. The word in Greek is "masculine" (as opposed to "feminine" or "neuter"), so that it is exactly the same word as that applied to men. It is not known to what extent the term "deacon" was considered a church office status at the time Paul wrote in the first century of the common era. What we can deduce for certain was that the term, whatever it specifically entailed, was applied equally to men and to women. The exclusion of women from holding church office positions came later, perhaps much later, but it has no basis in scripture.

Phoebe was also the person who apparently took Paul's text to Rome. There was no postal service at the time except for the Roman highest officials and officers. This was the normal way of getting letters to the intended recipients. It was an important task and it was entrusted to a woman. Paul asks the church at Rome to help her in any way she needs.

There follows a long list of individuals at the church in Rome whom Paul greets. All the names appear to be Greek and none Jewish. It should be noted that many Jewish people who had never lived in Palestine adopted Greek names, so one cannot be certain. The greetings are divided almost equally between women and men.

Next is a warning to avoid those who cause dissensions and offenses. He implies that dissension is a sign of disobedience to the teaching of the way of Christ. As a matter of fact Paul says that such people are only serving their own base appetites, but they fool people by smooth talk and flattery. Paul immediately afterward blesses the believers in Rome.

Paul also sends greetings from eight men who are with him to the church at Rome. All but one have Greek names, and one, Tertius, puts in the he is the writer of the letter. It was the custom, when sending a letter, to hire a scribe, also known as amanuensis, to do the actual penning of the text. They would have parchment or papyrus, ink, and pens, articles too expensive for most people to keep around their dwelling. Besides, the scribes were experts at clear penmanship. On arrival, one person who read well would read the text aloud to the congregation of believers. This process was known in the Greek of the time as anaginóskein (to know again). Normally one heard the missive. The public in general did not become literate until the advent of the printing press at the beginning of the Modern Age, making texts numerous and much cheaper to obtain. The oral nature of the "reading" explains the repetition of important points, typical back then, but frowned upon now in good writing.

Paul's essay/letter ends, as usual with a doxology (an expression of praise to God). Paul praises God because the great mystery, kept secret for the ages, was now made known through the writings of the prophets to all, including the Gentiles, in order to bring all to the obedience that comes from trusting God. "To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever, amen!" (16:27 NRSV)

Romans 15

At this point, Paul summarizes the main thrust of his essay and discusses his plans. In the first six verses, he reminds the church at Rome that the strong must put up with the failings of the weak. After all, Jesus took on himself the insults of all the people. Then he appeals for harmony, unity and trust in Christ, which will lead to their glorifying God the Father.

Then he turns to his mission to the Gentiles. Christ became servant of the Jews so that (1) the promises in the Hebrew scriptures would be fulfilled and (2) so that the Gentiles would receive God's mercy. Interpretation: God's purpose has always been the redemption of the human race, of all those who trust God the Father through Christ, God the Son, in the power of God the Spirit. Paul quotes from the Psalms and from Deuteronomy to prove his point. He rounds out the above section as follows: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (15:13 NRSV)."

In the remainder of Chapter 15, Paul first repeats his mission to take the gospel to the Gentiles, that is, to those who have never heard. He is called to go where Christ has not yet been proclaimed and thus expand the church, so that "those to whom he has not yet been announced will see, and those who have not heard will understand (quoting Isaiah 52:15)."

Paul then outlines his plan to visit the church in Rome on his way to Spain. First, however, he was compelled to travel to Jerusalem to deliver the offerings from the churches in Macedonia and Achaia for the poor believers there. He asks for prayer to be delivered from those in Jerusalem who intend to harm him. We know from Luke's careful account in Acts of the Apostles that Paul's plan was undone. God had other plans for Paul and another plan for getting the good news of Jesus to Spain.

The Chapter ends "The God of peace be with all of you (15:31 NRSV)." The normal greeting in that day was (and still is in Hebrew) shalom, that is, peace. Paul follows the lead of Jesus, who said "I leave you my peace, but not as the world gives it." It is the peace (completion, fullness) that only God can provide.

Romans 14

The 14th chapter of Paul's book-length essay appeals to all believers in Christ to accept one another and not judge. The background to this teaching is the multi-ethnic makeup, not only of the church in Rome, but of virtually all the churches springing up in the Roman Empire. The gentile contingent had to decide whether they could eat meat sold in the market because, before it was made available for purchase, a portion of it had been sacrificed to a pagan deity. Some argued that the meat was unsuitable for a Christian, some argued that people outside the church would know and misinterpret the actions of the Christians, while still others argued that the Christian need not fear the meat and perhaps even that it was a good witness to eat it and not suffer at all from doing so.

Paul urges them not to take sides at all. Both those who refrained from meat and those who ate it did so to the glory of God. Those who did not eat were not to judge those who ate meat and those who did were not to belittle those who did not.

Among the Jews, there were some who still observed the weekly Shabbat (the Hebrew word "seventh" to designate the day we call Saturday) as a day of obligatory rest and some who considered themselves freed from having to observe, not only the Saturday rest, but also the observance of the festival days prescribed in the Torah.

Again, Paul instructs both sides not to judge each other, but rather to respect the practices of their Christian brothers and sisters. He then offers a higher teaching: the Christian no longer lives for himself or herself, but rather for God, because for that purpose Christ was killed and lives again. Accordingly, no one should feel justified in judging fellow Christians. Instead, we will all appear before the throne of God to be judged. and we will all have to give an account to the Lord. Then Paul quotes Isaiah (49:18 and 45:23) "I live, says Yahweh, so that every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess God." That is, do not try to put yourself in God's place by judging others.

This brings us through the first half of the chapter, which comes down heavy on those who condemn other Christians for eating meat from the market or drinking wine, or not observing Saturdays or feast days. The second half turns to the ones being judged. Apparently they countered by saying that they were strong in their faith while their accusers were weak. Paul tells the "strong" that they have a responsibility to their "weak" fellow Christians. This is the higher teaching: refrain from behaviors that bring grief to them or that could lead them to do things that violate their conscience. The work of God is not to be hindered for the sake of what one prefers to eat. Whatever you do, do it for the good of your fellow Christians and for peace in the church.

Finally, Paul says, whatever you do, make it in faith, that is, trusting Christ so fully that your greatest joy and your first priority is to obey him.

The issues vary, but even today Christians judge other Christians for doing things the former disapprove of or for living differently. To use a popular meme: get over it. Let's affirm each other in the faith and get on with whatever the Lord is directing the church to do.

Romans 13

Once again we encounter a passage of Paul's writing that has been misunderstood and misused. Paul argues that all should be subject to the existing authorities and not resist them. He gives two reasons: the first is that all rulers have been instituted by God and it follows that if you resist the rulers you are setting yourself against the will of God and will be judged accordingly; the second is that one has no reason to fear the rulers if what one does is just and right--only the disobedient and criminals have reason to fear.

This passage has been used by dictators, kings, and presidents to mean that no one should oppose them. The people who support the rulers politically put pressure on those who disagree with their policies. In one of my classes many years ago, before the class hour began, one of the students said that, if the US went to war with Iraq, there would be all kinds of problems created and we would regret it. Another student said: "But he is our president and we have to do what he says." I stayed out of the issue, as required of university professors and instructors, but I was very taken aback by the attitude of the second student. We know now that the first student was absolutely correct in her assessment.

The reading I have just described of this passage is an interpretation which takes no account of context, either in the essay itself, in the Biblical teaching as a whole, or in the culture and time in which the essay was written. It is important to note that in ancient Hebrew thought, and to a great extent in the thought of all cultures who believed in one supreme God, this God was the first cause of everything that happened. This being the case, it is not surprising that Paul argues that if a certain emperor is in power, it can only mean that God put him (always a him in the Roman Empire) there.

Another matter is that the idea of the great chain of being, in which God is the first cause and all events, through chain of causes which create effects, and in which the effects in turn become the cause of a next effect and so on ad inifinitum, did not exist in the first century or for many centuries thereafter. The idea is the creation of philosopher/theologians of the Middle Ages.

Finally, it must be noted from history that, at the time Paul wrote this essay, the Roman government was protecting the Jewish religion and with it Christianity, viewed as one expression of Judaism. When Paul later was caught up in a legal accusation and it seemed that he would never get justice at the Palestine province capital Caesarea, he appealed to the Emperor. At the time Roman justice had an enviously positive reputation.

Jesus exploded the idea that all events are directly ordered by God. He famously asked his followers if they really thought that the people who had been crushed and killed by the collapse of a tower (referring to an event in his hearers' memory) were really any more culpable than everyone else? The obvious answer had to be no.

We don't know what anti-government attitudes people in the church in Rome may have had, but Paul is arguing that, things being as they are, they should obey the authorities and be good citizens, thus showing a witness of their love for God. Jesus had said "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." This is what Paul is arguing. He does not say that Christians should do the yearly declaration, required at times and in some places of Roman citizens, to declare that Caesar is Lord. The confession of the Christian is Xristos Kurios: Christ is Lord, that is, the most High God. Implicit in Jesus's saying is that our loyalty to God must come before any other loyalty. We must interpret what Paul is saying in accordance with what Jesus taught.

In the latter half of Chapter 13, Paul reminds his hearers that, as far as human relationships are concerned, the principle to live by is "Love your neighbor as yourself," quoting Jesus, who in turn quoted Leviticus 19:18.

In the final section, Paul urges the church at Rome to put off the works of "darkness" (when the revelation of God was not full--before the coming of Jesus, metaphorically the "light") and to live righteously (according to the will of God) given that the light has come and that each day, the eternal kingdom (described by the word salvation) is one day nearer.

Romans 12

The section we know as Chapter 12 of Romans begins with one of Paul's most quoted and approved lines: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect" (verses 1 and 2, NRSV).

"Therefore" (in Greek just one syllable: oun) indicates that, given all the previous matters discussed in the essay, Paul is going to lay out how the Christian should live. That one little word means a great deal, but it is normally passed over or not assigned much importance. However it is crucial: given that God's purpose is redemption and that God offers salvation (God's love and protection) to all people on the same basis, here is how you should live. So then, how should we live? To the ancient Gentiles: stop giving your bodies over to licentious living. Instead, live an ethical life loving God and your fellow humans. That is, seek the good of others over your own desires and your own good. This message also applies to societies in post-modern times. To the ancient Jews: God does not want your sacrifices or your righteousness, he wants you to live in relationship with him and in obedience, relying on God's righteousness. Living for God and for the good of other people is the sacrifice God demands. This message addresses the self-satisfied people in churches that believe that God's nature requires retribution, but following the rules laid out by the community pleases God. Paul's message, based on that of Jesus, could not have been more counter cultural, then or now. Human wisdom only leads to trouble.

Paul goes on to point out that we must not see ourselves as alone and separate from others. The church is a community, metaphorically the body of Christ. Each of us has a part to play and none of us is the all-in-all, and none is unimportant, either. Christ, none of us, is the head.

Verses 9 to the end of the chapter explain how love (agape, not romantic love) is to be practiced. Never fall prey to schadenfreude, accompany with your emotions those who are in difficulties and those who are happy, persevere when you suffer, meet the needs of fellow Christians and give hospitality to strangers. The latter was a sacred duty in ancient times. As for your enemies, let God deal with them. Meanwhile, feed them if they are hungry, do not treat them as they treat you, give them water if they are thirsty.

All this is clear and easy to understand. It is extremely difficult to practice, because it goes completely against our human nature and what our culture says we should do.

Romans 11

We come now to a passage in this essay that is among the most misused by interpreters who do not pay attention to context, but rather interpret every verse as if it stood alone.

Paul continues in what we now call Chapter 11 of Romans to insist that God's redemptive purpose is offered to all people, of all races and ethnicities, on the same basis. That being the case, God has not set aside the people of Israel nor excluded them from the offer of grace (vv. 1-2). As it has always been, it is up to people to accept the salvation offered by God, but again as it has always been, most people will say "no, thanks, I'm good." That is the very definition of sin, and it is the message of the story of temptation in the Garden of Eden.

Then look carefully at verses 3 and 4. Paul references the story of Elijah in 1 Samuel, in which the prophet cries to God that all the other prophets had been killed and the altars demolished and now he alone was left and they were out to kill him too. God replies that there were seven thousand men (sic) who remained faithful to God. We can safely assume that we can add that many women and at least that many children, probably more. So, although the majority of Israel rejected God, there remained a large contingent of faithful people.

Paul goes on to say that this is the working of God's grace, and is nothing these people could have earned by their own efforts. That is, he is reminding his readers of what he has been emphasizing all along: God offers to all God's grace through faith (not works) but not everyone accepts it.

The import of verses 7 through 10 is that God never did obligate the people of Israel to obey him. The expression "God gave them eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear" should not be read as we would now. This essay was written well before the concept of cause and effect and the great chain of being, with God as the first cause. That belongs to the Middle Ages and still tends to affect our post-modern thinking. If anything, in ancient times people thought of God as the first cause of everything. That was one reason people were convinced they had to appease their gods. At same time the Jews held what we would consider a contradictory position: that individuals were responsible for their own decisions and actions. Accordingly the passage cannot be read as saying that God made the Israelites disobedient so that the Gentiles could also participate in the Kingdom of God, but rather, that one advantage or result of the situation is that God used it to move the good news of Christ's kingdom out to the Gentile world.

After laying out the disobedience of the Jews, Paul tells the Gentiles of the church not to be proud or feel they have it made. He compares the church to a plant, originally Jewish, that the Gentiles were grafted onto. God's sovereignty means that Israel can be grafted back on, so watch out.

Verses 25 and 26 have been sorely misinterpreted because they have been taken as a blanket statement requiring no interpretation. Given all that Paul has to say, and that he often used the metaphor of the church as the new Israel, the statement that "all Israel will be saved" is best understood as referring to the total sum of Jews and Gentiles who recognize Jesus as their God.

At the end of the chapter Paul quotes Isaiah 40:13 and Job 15:8 and 41:3, verses that assert that no one can know the mind of God, whose purposes exhaust and go beyond our understanding. He concludes with a doxolgy: "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen." That is the future God is making and that is our hope.

Romans 10

I'm back from the winter break and gearing up for the new semester, glad to be able to resume the blog on Paul's letter to the Romans.

Chapter 10 is a reprise of the main point Paul has to make in his book-length essay: God offers salvation to all, Jews and all other ethnicities, on the same basis. The Jews, says Paul, were strongly committed to God, but insist on relating to him on their own terms. What they refused to accept is that "The perfection of the law (Torah) is Christ so that all who trust fully in him will be accounted as righteous" (v. 4). That is, it is trust that places your life on the line for God, who came as Jesus, that makes you right with God.

Paul continues by expanding on the concept. In verses 9 and 10 he argues that "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You see, with your heart you trust and become righteous and with your mouth you confess and are saved." In other words, when you trust in your inmost being that Jesus will always be who he said he is, you stake your very life on it, and you verbalize it, you come into relationship with God, who brings you into the eternal kingdom of God. Submit in humility and set to serving others. That is what "salvation" means.

In the remainder of what was designated much later than the writing as Chapter 10, Paul makes very clear that "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (v. 13)." He is quoting the prophet Joel at 2:32, again insisting that this has been God's purpose all along. He ends the section by quoting from the Torah and the prophets sections that declare that those who did not seek God (the non-Jews) found him, while of the Jews he says "all day long I (God) have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people (NRSV)," implying that they missed his coming as a result.

I have commented before to the effect that context is everything. That is, we always must take the entire context of a book into account when we interpret. That said, please keep in mind what Paul has just laid out clearly as we deal with Chapter 11, where Paul talks of the restoration of Israel and which we will take up in the next blog post.

Romans 9

The section of Paul's book-length essay known as Chapter 9 of Romans has been subject to a great deal of misinterpretation arising from two errors. The first is reading into the text and the second is failing to interpret in context (i.e. the entire essay) while overlooking important statements of principle.

Reading into the text has the fancy name of eisegesis, defined by Merriam-Webster as interpreting a text by imposing on it one's own ideas. It is the opposite of exegesis, which denotes the practice of reading a text on its own terms and allowing it to challenge the reader. A typical case of eisegesis is that of people who see the Bible story as a series of different plans God had for saving people. The first was Eden, but the humans disobeyed. The second was up to the great flood, the one Noah built the ark for. The next was Israel, followed by the coming of Jesus and the establishment of the Christian church. These people look to a future plan in which Israel is restored and Jesus reigns for 1000 years. Then there will be a great battle after which the elect (there is a certain amount of predestination built in to this way of interpreting the Bible) are taken into the Eternal New Jerusalem. Each one of these plans (and mind you, we are at Plan F by this time) is called a dispensation of grace, a different way of saving people. It depicts God as failing in his first intents and shuffling the cards each time things just do not work out. My description of the dispensationalist interpretation is not meant to be critical of people who hold this view, but rather to point out that it imposes a system onto the biblical texts rather than let the Bible speak on its own.

Let us try out an exegetical approach instead: What does Chapter 9 have to say. What is the context? At the beginning of the essay Paul establishes that all of us have sinned and that God makes no distinction between Jews and Gentiles. In Chapter 15 he insists that God has commissioned him to take the good news of Jesus to the non-Jews, the Gentiles, the peoples (ethnoi in Greek). If God sent Paul to the non-Jewish people and if God holds all people with the same regard, and if Paul makes a big deal of the fact that Abraham was put right with God through trust (faith), then Paul cannot be saying in Chapter 9 that merely being a good Jew will turn out to be enough in the end.

What Paul does say in Chapter 9 is that he recognizes his Jewishness and that he feels sorrow for his own people. After all, the salvation history up to the time of Jesus was first and foremost a Jewish story. They were given the adoption (as children of God), the glory (a vision of God's presence), the covenants, the law, the (temple) worship, and the promises (v. 4). God's word and purpose did not fail, but rather the problem was that not all Israelites truly belong to Israel (v. 6). Paul sees the church as the New Israel. Jeremiah foresaw that God would make a new pact, one written on people's hearts rather than on stone and parchment (32:40). Jesus said his death (and resurrection) established a new pact (Luke 22:20).

In the remainder of Chapter 9 Paul insists on God's sovereign right to have mercy on who he will have mercy, to put all humans on an equal footing, to use Israel's disobedience to allow multiple millions of Gentiles to come to faith. The discussion of Chapter 9 really ends in 10:4: "Christ is the fulfillment of the law to make righteous all those who believe." It could not be clearer. He will go on to cover the matter of how Israel will fit in God's future purposes in Chapters 10 and 11. Keep in mind where Paul ends up in this part of the essay: "I do not wish you to be ignorant, my brothers and sisters, of this mystery, so that you will not think too highly of your own wisdom: the hardening of a portion of Israel has come about until the fullness of the Gentiles enters (the kingdom of God) and that is how all Israel shall be saved (11: 25). This is the new pact, all who put their full trust in Jesus, whether Gentile or Jew, will be made right with God.

Romans 8

I ask your permission to indulge in a brief digression, the purpose of which will become apparent below. Perhaps my favorite novel is Pêcheur d'Islande (Iceland Fisherman) by Pierre Loti, set in the 1890's. The main character, who lives in Brittany, spends his summers on a fishing boat that circles Iceland. There are poetic descriptions of a large sun which circles the horizon constantly, looking like a large balloon. Meanwhile, his brother is fighting with the French army in Vietnam, where he is hit by a bullet. As he travels back toward France on a hospital boat, he dies at the precise moment the boat crosses the equator as the evening sun dips into the horizon and darkness comes swiftly in that latitude. This happens at the exact middle of the novel. I later discovered that the best written novels usually have a centrally important turning point in the exact middle, give or take one or two pages either direction.

Now Paul, in his book-length essay divided much later into 16 chapters, begins chapter eight, the very middle of his book, with the resounding affirmation that summarizes all he wrote before and announces what comes in the remainder of the essay: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death" (NRSV) What can be more clear than that? The remainder of the chapter explores what that means and how it works. Several sections in this chapter are among the most quoted in books and from the pulpits, not always paying sufficient attention to the context.

As you read the remainder of the chapter, keep in mind what Paul has argued in the preceding portions of the letter: God takes the initiative to offer his grace, leaving us free to trust in such confidence that we respond in obedience. or to refuse to accept the offer of grace in order to live as we like. Those who respond in trust have their faith accounted as right relationship with God, as was the case with Abraham. If you read his story, you will see that God forgave him much.

Up through verse 17 Paul contrasts the flesh with the Spirit. The flesh is Paul's metaphor for our desire to disobey God, leading to all sorts of evil results. The Spirit is Christ, God himself, living alongside us and transforming us. He gives us the right to call God Father. Paul uses the Hebrew word, Abba. Preachers often declare that it means "Daddy," but we must be careful. Abba is the only word Hebrew uses for "father." Overinterpretation can be dangerous. The point is that we are God's children, if the Spirit is in us, and if so heirs of God, that is, joint heirs with Christ. God adopts the believers as God's own.

In verses 18 through 30 we see that the presence of the Spirit and the rightness with God that is thereby worked in us gives us faith in the future, a future which makes anything we suffer in the present worthwhile. The Spirit prays on our behalf when we do not know how or what to pray. The Spirit, that is God in us, knows us, loves us, helps us withstand the bad things that happen to us, and in God's time turns them into something good for us, something that makes us mature and experience joy in spite of what happens.

At the very end of that section, Paul affirms that God knew all along who would respond in faith and therefore prepared a purpose for them, calling them to be conformed to the image of Jesus, that is to be made more and more how we were meant to be and to fit us for glory (that is, living in the presence of God). Taken in the full context of the essay, this cannot mean that God decided beforehand who would be saved and who would not. That is overinterpretation taking a verse or two out of context.

Verses 31 to the end of chapter eight tell us what that means: that nothing the world can throw at us can separate us from God. Because God has already triumphed, we will triumph, if we respond to God in a total trust that issues in obedience.

Romans 7

In the section of the essay we know as chapter 7, Paul makes two final efforts to drive home what he has been saying: That everyone in the world is in the same condition before God. Obeying the Torah and the extensions of the law developed in the era following the exile of the Jews in Babylon cannot make God owe you anything. Conversely, being acquitted by the grace of God does not entitle non-Jews to live as they please.

In the first six verses Paul makes an analogy with marriage. An analogy is not an argument and seems strange in post-modern times but the intent of the writer is clear. It goes like this: A married woman was bound by the law to her husband. As a result she was not free to marry another. If her husband died, however, she was no longer bound by the law and could marry freely. In the first century C.E. the men were allowed to divorce their wives at will, but the wives could not divorce their husbands. Jesus pointed to a higher moral standard: keep to your marriage vows. Paul's point is that the death of Jesus freed all Jews from the condemnation outlined in the law (as the death of a husband frees his widow from the law) and the resurrection of Jesus allows to live a new life of freedom and of following Jesus (as though bound to a new husband).

The remainder of the chapter has puzzled interpreters for ages, with people staking out a position and verbally fighting those who assail it. But if we are right in reading Romans as a book-length essay, it becomes clear that at this point Paul is describing the common condition of all people: we cannot under our own power create the will to do what is right (if we can even know what the right thing is) and make it stick. In other words, we cannot justify ourselves, we cannot make ourselves right with God, we cannot make God owe us, and we cannot appease God. The mind may want to please God, but our human nature (what Paul means by "flesh") keeps asserting itself.

The first part of verse 25 gives thanks to God "through Jesus Christ our Lord." In a previous post I mentioned that the name God gave to Moses was "I will be who I will be" and that it is closely connected to "I will be with you." The word "Lord" is the Greek word Kyrios which is always used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures for "Yaweh". Jesus' last words to his disciples were "I will be with you to the end of the age." It is the God who is with us who acquits and brings us into the holy Presence.

Romans 6

At this point it may be good to take a deep breath and remember: we must interpret what Paul has to say in his book-length essay we know as Romans in accordance with Jesus' teaching. Baptists, of which I am one, have too long tended to interpret Jesus' teaching by Paul's letters. I suppose the reasoning goes that Paul is more western in his thinking and his thoughts are difficult to follow. It must be, then, that his contribution to the New Testament is more complete and meaningful or deep. However that is a false bit of reasoning. If Jesus is God come to earth, then he must be the criterion for interpreting all other scripture.

Accordingly, you may want to spend a few days in the study of one of the Gospels: Mark if you want something fast-moving, Luke if you appreciate scholarly thoroughness and all the parables and stories only he recorded, or John for his intuitive and loving grasp of who Jesus is.

Returning to Paul, what he has to say in what we call chapter 6 can be summarized in verse 11: "So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (NRSV). The entire chapter says the same thing over and over: under the law we slaves to sin, but the eternal redemptive purpose of God means that under his grace we are slaves of a new master. Being a slave to sin brings condemnation, but being a slave of God brings acquittal and life.

Jesus said it clearer: "If anyone wishes to be my disciple, deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me." Once we give ourselves to God we must live a life of obedience. It is all well and good to stress that God's salvation is once for all, but we have too long failed to take seriously Jesus' call to discipleship. Paul says "Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!" (v. 15 NRSV). We are all the same before God. Disobedience brings death but God came in person to buy us back, metaphorically speaking, but a metaphor causing Jesus' execution and resurrection. The law cannot save anyone. God saves us by his grace and we respond in trust that leads us to do what God commands, to live "in newness of life," to love God and live an ethical life of faithfulness by loving our fellow creatures.

To say it another way: Paul says no, you cannot live as you please because you are under grace, and no, continuing to live under the Torah and Talmud will not do either. The Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit in us means to transform us and make us fit for the Eternal Kingdom. Because Christ is risen, he leads the way.

Romans 5

Since writing the last post, I received some feedback questioning what I meant by saying that, according to Paul, the Jewish law (Torah) brings condemnation. In 4:15 Paul says the law brings wrath. He doesn't go into explanation at this point, but, judging from what he has been saying, it can be taken to mean that the law cannot save us from our sinful nature. If it is the case, as Paul argues, that if there is no law, there is no guilt, then it follows that the Torah gives some guidance as to what to do, and some prohibitions, which we would not have known are wrong without the Torah having told us. The "wrath" Paul refers to is not "the wrath of God" but just "wrath." To us that doesn't sound very satisfactory, but consider the following: we bring condemnation on ourselves. This is not something God wants, but it is inherent in the freedom God gives us to obey or not. God's purpose is redemption, not condemnation.

Paul starts his essay by establishing that God has no favorites and that from the beginning, humans have been acquitted and made right with God by his grace, which we accept through trust that leads to repentance. So some of the Greek Christians say "Great! Now we can live as we like, since God gives us grace, right?" Paul says "No, that's not it." The Jewish Christians said "To know what God wants of us we all have to know and follow the Torah law." Paul says "No, that's not it either." However, Paul's problem is to explain to the Jews what to do with the law.

So Paul embarks on an alternative that applies to all, Greek and Jewish Christians, in chapter 5. God acquits us when we respond in faith and puts us at peace through God the Son, Jesus Christ. We are therefore entitled to boast of our hope of the eternal Kingdom and even in any suffering we encounter because it sets off a process of growth from endurance all the way to a hope based on God's promise, which is therefore secure. That's the first five verses.

Jesus gave his life for all of us while we were still sinners and because of his resurrection, saves us from death (verses 6 to 12). Under the Torah and the sacrificial temple worship, people had to purify themselves and provide the applicable sacrifice before they could come to God. It follows that the Jewish system had it backward: God provides the sacrifice and the life. We come as we are to him in trust, and he is faithful to acquit us. We then respond with faithfulness to God, following Jesus in complete obedience.

In the remainder of the chapter, Paul apparently deals with a question he has been asked or is anticipating may be asked: How can just one man do the full sacrifice for all people for all time? The Jews needed to sacrifice over and over. At the time the essay was written, the temple sacrificial worship was still in operation. The answer is not the kind that would probably convince us post-modern people, but it would make sense to those to whom the essay was read: sin came into the world through one human being. Now God provides the one human being (Jesus) who can undo what Adam did. Now you may be thinking: wasn't it Eve who took the forbidden fruit first? But you see, what Paul's readers and listeners would know is that Adam in Hebrew means "mankind." God's provision more than suffices for all who trust God with their lives.

Paul's teaching is not that we are obliged to believe that Adam (Mankind) and Eve (Life) were individual humans in the creation story. His point is that Jesus and Jesus alone gives life in the eternal kingdom to all who trust fully in him. We need no other.

Romans 4

In Romans 4 Paul argues that people are made right with God solely through faith. Much has been misunderstood owing to the large gulf between the meaning of pistis in Koiné Greek and "faith" in English. We are the victims of centuries of practice of using the word "faith" to mean intellectual assent to propositions about God developed by the Church, whether Roman Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, or Baptist, and so on. Faith so defined misses Paul's point.

Pistis means "trust." In New Testament terms, as we will see, it means "trust that leads to following Jesus in loving obedience" or "trusting Jesus to be always who he said he was when on earth and behaving accordingly." Yet another way to define pistis is "faithfulness." It is used of God to describe his faithfulness in dealing with us.

In what we know as chapter 4, Paul quotes Genesis 15:6, which says that Abraham believed in God, that is, that God would keep the promise to make Abraham's descendants a great nation. This trust in the faithfulness of God justified Abraham (accounted to him as righteousness). Justification is a legal term meaning to acquit an accused person. In Paul it means that a person is put into right relationship with God, whose purpose has always been redemption, and whose message is personal and ethical. That is what righteousness means.

After quoting from the Torah, Paul goes on to say that works did not justify Abraham, otherwise we would have something to boast about. Keep that idea in mind, as later on in the book Paul talks about what it is proper to boast about as a believer. When we work at a job and are paid, we are given what is owed to us. It is not a gift. Similarly, we cannot make God owe us, but rather justification, or being accounted as right with God, is a free gift.

Even the psalmist says "Blessed are those whose iniquities (acts of disobedience to God) are forgiven and whose sins are blotted out; blessed is the one against whom the Lord (יהוה) will not reckon sin." (Psalm 32:1-2).

Then Paul points out that Abraham was accepted as righteous by God before he or anyone of his family was circumcised and long before the Torah was given. At this point in the reading of the book in Rome, the Greek Christians were probably nodding with satisfaction, while the Jewish Christians were squirming. God set Abraham as the father of many nations before there was law (Torah) or even circumcision. Abraham continued to believe after he was very old and Sarah was, to all human knowledge even today, beyond child-bearing possibility. That is what faith (trusting) is. All the hearers of the letter knew that, in her old age, Sarah bore a son to Abraham and named him Yitschak ("he laughs").

If becoming right with God were a matter of obeying the Torah, then faith would be meaningless, and the promise to Abraham would be empty. If you can by obedience to rules make yourself righteous and attain your hope, then there is no place for faith or promise. So what is God about, then, and what was the purpose of the Torah? Paul's position is that what the Torah does is to bring wrath (condemnation) and to make faith and promise empty, while God is working out his promise to Abraham in those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, he who died because of our rebellious living and was raised from the dead to make us right with God.

That is strong enough, however, something of major importance is lost in translation into English. When Jesus is given the title Lord, that is the word in Greek kurios, which all of Paul's hearers knew was the word used by Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint) every time the covenant name of God (יהוה) appeared. This is the Trinitarian teaching that Jesus was none other than the One God come to earth as a first-century human.

If that is the case, then the nature of God is not that of an ancient Middle Eastern vengeful and angry God who needs to be appeased, but rather the loving God, attested to throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, whose purpose is redemption, whose nature is love, and who promises, as he did to Moses, to be with us to the end of the age.

Romans 3

The section of the letter to the Romans we know as chapter 3 is somewhat difficult to interpret. I will state again that I am not writing a verse-by-verse commentary but rather an exploration of the themes that run throughout this letter which is also a book-length essay.

The main thrust of this passage is verse 9: "What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin." (NRSV) Paul is preparing to expound further on the theme of equality before God and that all need his forgiveness and redemption. First, though, in verses 1 through 8, he makes an argument that is baffling to us. I am asking your leave to try out a hypothesis: that Paul is walking through the arguments and accusations that the Christians in the Roman church had been throwing at each other and that had been reported to him.

This is just a hypothesis and should not be taken as any sort of definitive interpretation. Based on what Paul says in 1 through 8, I imagine that the Gentile or Greek Christians had questioned the advantage that the Jews claimed they had in knowing about or accessing the favor of God and the value of circumcision. Many Jews had been unfaithful to God through history so consequently that nullifies their advantage. No, replied the Jews, the sinfulness of our forefathers served to confirm that God is just. Well, then why should anyone be condemned as a sinner if God's glory is shown by it? replied the Gentiles.

If this is the topic of argument, then what Paul says in verses 1 to 8 makes eminent sense. The Jews have the advantage of receiving the "oracles" of God (his message) first, before anyone else. Although some were unfaithful, God is always faithful. This should obviate the entire argument between Jewish and Greek Christians. No one has any excuse for their rebellion against or unfaithfulness to God.

Then Paul states in verse 9 that although the Greek Christians cannot claim to be better Christians than the Jewish ones, neither are the Jewish believers better off. Then he quotes from two psalms (14 and 53) and Ecclesiastes 7:20 to the effect that no one is righteous (right with God, saved by their good works or ethical behavior, etc.). We are all rebellious.

Then Paul argues that the purpose of the law (Torah) was to silence the mouths of those living under it and to hold the entire world accountable to God. Through the Torah we can know what is sinful and learn that we ourselves are sinful (rebellious against God). The NRSV translates "... no human being will be justified in" the sight of God "by deeds prescribed in the law." However, Paul actually wrote "no flesh will be justified." The word "flesh" (sarx) is used by Paul in various of his letters always to mean human nature, that is, rebellious and proud, self-satisfied behavior.

In verse 21 Paul says that "apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed and is attested by the law and the prophets." (NRSV) This saying is clear just on the surface. It helps, however, to note that the Hebrew scriptures are called by the three sections of text: torah, navi'im ve ctuvim (Pentateuch or first five books of the Bible, prophets, and writings--Daniel, Esther, Ruth, Chronicles, etc.). Jesus drew his message from all three sections of the Hebrew bible. Paul says that both the first five books and the prophets, which sometimes are read as standing in tension with each other, attest to the fact that all of us are made right with God (only) through faith in Jesus Christ. God makes no distinction of persons on any basis. It is in the context of all this discussion that Paul says the quote often heard in church: "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." The next verse is part of the same sentence and thought unit: (but they are) justified (brought into right relationship with God) freely, as a gift, of God's grace (willingness to forgive if we will accept it) through the work of Jesus Christ. Paul interprets Jesus' work as being a redemption (making free by buying back). Then for those who still see God as needing to be appeased (not a position I take, but common enough now and back then) Paul says that Jesus, through his obedience that led to being executed on a cross provided whatever sacrifice of atonement may be needed, forgiving past sins and, through faithfulness to him, making people right with God.

In the last paragraph of the chapter (remember that the original text was written without paragraphs, chapters, verses, or even division between words) Paul concludes that, as a result of what he has presented, it becomes clear that no one has any grounds to boast (that they are better off with God as compared to anyone else by virtue of ethnicity or obeying laws). We are made right with God through faith apart from any works of the law; moreover circumcision is immaterial. God is the God of all peoples both Jews and all Gentiles (the rest of the world) and the only way to become right with God is faith in Jesus. The section ends with Paul echoing the teaching of Jesus: the Torah is not being overthrown, rather its true purpose is being revealed and brought to fruition.

One last matter. The Greek word for faith (pistis) also encloses the concept of faithfulness. Faith is not an assent to propositions. It is trusting Jesus to be, now and forever, who he said he was, which is recorded in the Gospels. This trust should lead to faithfulness in living. Easy to understand, hard to do.

Romans 2

After establishing the main themes of his book-length essay, in chapter 2 Paul begins to dig into the implications of how God deals with people. Of course God will dispense judgment, but it falls on everyone equally. God has no favorites and so we are all in the same boat. The good news is that, throughout the Bible, both in the Hebrew scriptures and in the New Testament, the purpose of God is redemption.

The opening of this section can well be translated: So you have no excuse, all you people who judge; by judging others you condemn yourselves because you practice what you condemn. The exclamation often rendered "... o man" is o ánthrope. Anthropos is the word for human being, not a male person. That word is aner. One clear implication is that we men are not any better off nor less culpable because we are male. Paul repeats the word in verse 3. How seldom we stop to think about it in this light!

Verse 4 sums up what Paul is getting at: "Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" (NRSV). Repentance is a key New Testament word. Both John the Baptist and Jesus opened their preaching by saying "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand." Accordingly, it is important to understand clearly what repentance means. Our cultural concept (being sorry for what one has done) is inadequate. In Hebrew, the word for repentance (shuv) means to realize that you are on the wrong road and to turn aside or back to join the right road, the one that leads to God. It calls for changing your lifestyle. The Greek word (metanoia) implies to change your way of thinking, your intentions, your goals and aspirations. Taken together, this means that to repent, in the Biblical sense, is to change your way of life and your world view. This is huge. It's what Jesus meant when he said that if we want to be his disciples, we are to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow him. I take it to mean, obey Jesus, wherever he leads and whatever it costs. I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, our usual religiousness just doesn't cut it.

Paul means that we all, in our disbelief, hardness of heart, and assurance of our own rightness of purpose, condemn ourselves. He says several times that the principle applies to the Jew first and then to the Gentile (literally "the Greek"). God shows favor first to the Jew and then to the Greek and condemns disobedience, first that of the Jew and then that of the Greek. In dealing with time-bound humanity, God started dealing with us at a certain point in time with a specific individual (Abraham). So the Jew is first in chronological order because God, in entering into our world, had to start somewhere. But since God has been dealing with the Jew for so much longer in human terms, the Jew has more responsibility and is more liable for disobeying God. The Gentile, if doing what is right because of what nature (God's creation) reveals and follows, then God honors that. However, the fact is that we are all disobedient and rebellious (sinners) and all equally in need of redemption.

Paul's discussion here is important to what he expounds in the following sections. We are all in need of Jesus, because "God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all (v. 16, NRSV). In the remainder of what we know as chapter 2, Paul reworks the preceding theme. The Jewish law and circumcision are really secondary. The last two verses read: "A person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart -- it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God." There is a lot there. These verses should be read and reread carefully and their implication completely thought through.

I don't claim to deal with every verse, because this is not a detailed Bible commentary. I hope to highlight the main teaching of Paul and to explore the themes he sets out, interpreting them by what Jesus did and thought. Next up: Chapter 3 of Romans.

Romans 1, part 2

Good interpretation always takes context into account. The church in Rome consisted of Gentile (that is, non-Jewish) believers in Christ and recently returned Jewish believers. The emperor had expelled all Jews from Rome some years earlier, and then the empire allowed them to return. The church, which for a good while was much more culturally homogeneous now was dealing again with thorny cultural differences among the members.

Some of the Jewish believers held that people had to become Jews first (the men circumcised as part of this conversion) before they could become Christian. So Paul writes a letter which is also a book-length essay to the church to argue that all human beings have the same status before God.

In verses 18 to the end of the chapter Paul seems to allude to the entire history of humans, from the time of creation. In the first chapters of Genesis, God creates Adam (Humankind) and Eve (Chava, which sounds almost like Chaia, that is Life). God sets them in the Garden of Eden (Delight) and gives them both freedom and the full run of the world except for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (that is, deciding for themselves what is right and wrong instead of trusting God to make that determination). The humans listen to the temptation spoken by a talking snake and disobey God.

From the beginning humans have gone their own way and preferred their own counsel to that of God, who, because he gave them freedom, instead of destroying everyone (Genesis 6 through 11), set out to redeem us from the evil consequences of our disobedience. Paul says that everyone is without excuse, because God can be known from the natural world. Unfortunately, he doesn't explain just how that works, but he point he is making is that this estrangement from God applies to everyone. We think we are wise, but in so doing we become fools (verse 22). People make their own gods out of wood or stone, and nowdays in some photographs and some movies, in the images of humans or animals, who are all mortal. preferring them to the one God who lives forever.

In the rest of the chapter, Paul makes a list of awful behaviors that have resulted from worshiping the creature(s) rather than the creator. Most commentators make a great deal of verses 24-27, which deal with sexual behavior, and gloss over the remainder (28-32). This is picking an choosing rather than reading in context.

When Paul condemns undisciplined sexual practices, he is summarizing (very briefly) what many ancient Greek and Roman ethicists and social critics had already said before him. This was nothing new to any of the listeners of this book in the church. Most would readily agree, though I can imagine the Jewish Christians at this point would feel quite satisfied with Paul's criticizing how the people of the ancient Mediterranean world lived, which was different from Jewish practice. However, were not the people of ancient Israel criticized often by the prophets for worshiping idols?

The discussion of sexual practices is preceded by mention of idolatry and followed by condemnation of "evil, covetousness, malice...envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless" (New Revised Standard Version). Why do we not condemn envy and gossiping on the same level as sexual misconduct? The text certainly intends to condemn all of these practices equally. No human can claim to be blameless. This truth is fundamental to the rest of the book/letter.

As for sexual practices, Jesus set a bar higher than human wisdom can fathom. See Matthew 19: 1-12.

At this point we would do well to remember that it is God's prerogative, not ours, to judge and condemn. I would submit that Paul gives us this list for self examination. By the same token, it is clear throughout the entire Bible that God's purpose from the beginning is redemption. Oh, yes, and the teaching is that God is love.

Romans Chapter 1

First a word about chapter and verse divisions. When the books of the Bible were written, there were no chapter or verse divisions. As a matter of fact, there were no paragraph divisions and, as writing materials were very expensive, in order to save space and money there was no division between words, whether in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. Where words divide is usually obvious. I know of only two or three places in all the Bible where there is a question as to where the words divide and the choice is not significant to the overall sense of the passage where it is found.

When in the Hebrew Scriptures, there are books numbered 1 and 2, such as First Samuel and Second Samuel, it was because the complete text did not fit onto one scroll and had to be continued onto a second scroll. Books were in scroll format in ancient times until, around the first century of our era, when someone got the idea of cutting the columns apart and then tying the resulting pages together. Thus the codex was born. It is the format we consider a book.

The Biblical texts were divided into chapters and verses in the Middle Ages to make finding passages easier. The idea was so practical, that it survived to our days. It is important to keep in mind that they are merely references introduced later for convenience. The texts should never be read as if each verse has a separate life and meaning. Rather texts should be read as a whole and interpreted accordingly.

Finally, we should always keep in mind that even in the first century, when the New Testament was written, few people owned books. They were just too expensive and rare until printing was invented, nearly fifteen hundred years later. Most people never had the text of Romans in their hands to read alone. Rather, as a letter to a specific group of people, it was read out loud in meetings. No wonder, then that Paul repeats himself and deals with his handful of topics from numerous angles. He paints enough different word pictures to make sense to just about every hearer and hopefully "get through" to all.

In chapter one of Romans, after the greeting and beginning in verse 8, Paul expresses his desire to visit Rome. He has heard of their faith and in his prayers always thanks God for that and intercedes for them. He makes clear that his intention of visiting them is firm, so that he can strengthen them in some way as well as doing the same among all nations (ethnic groups-there were no nations as we think of them back then). Then he makes an intriguing statement: he owes both Greek-speaking people and speakers of other languages (barbaroi), wise and not wise. Strictly speaking for myself, I interpret that, as a minimum, Paul is saying that God has commissioned him to tell the gospel of Jesus to all nations, inasmuch as it is possible for Paul to do so. He is saying he still has a lot of work to do to make that happen. There certainly may be further meanings to this saying which escape me.

In verses 16 and 17 Paul mentions the pairing of Jews and Greeks for the first time. He says that he is proud to proclaim the gospel (the high points of the life of Jesus, especially his death on the cross and return to life on the third day), calling it the power of God for salvation of the Jews first and then of the Greeks. Salvation means the redeeming power and intent of God to forgive our sins and bring us into fellowship with him and to obedience because we trust Jesus to be always who he said he was. Faith should be read as absolute trust because we know the character of God through Jesus. That is why Paul says that God's ethical goodness and power (that is, righteousness) is revealed from first to last and at all times through faith: God's faithfulness to us calling us to be faithful. Therefore, Paul concludes (and this is his theme): the righteous persons are those who trust. Those who trust will find life.

In my next post I will say a word as to why "to the Jews first and then to the Greeks" and I plan to deal with the remainder of Chapter 1.