Romans 5-7

…...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Patience, I am getting there. Just seein' who actually read Romans 5. What I got most out of this chapter is the fealty of trying to clean yourself up prior to accepting Jesus. Do you really think you still get an opportunity to make a good first impression? Jesus is ready now, and is fully aware of your spots and wrinkles. Secondly, after accepting, through faith, God's grace, don't look back through doubt. (We are supposed to be the salt and light, not a pillar of salt). If God made your worthy while dead and worthless, you certainly have nothing to fret about now that you have been reborn.


In the beginning of Romans 6, Paul answers his rhetorical question from chapter 3 that he began this discussion with. Should we keep on a sinnin' to magnify God's grace. Of course not, why would the living want to live as the dead? (My paraphrase.)


Paul changes tact a bit and discusses salvation as freedom, but not freedom to live a life of sin. I look at it like this. Would a prisoner receive a Governor's pardon, and then decide to hang out in the prison for the rest of his life?




In Roman's 7 Paul passionately defends the law. Paul wants us to understand that salvation through grace was by no means a replacement for the law. I think that Paul was concerned (as a good Jew) that Jews would think that all of this talk of “freedom” from the law would lead people to think that somehow that the law was imperfect or had failed.  The law did not fail, it served (and continues to serve) its purpose of demonstrating God's will, and man's shortcomings in comparison.  However, fallen man got his hands on the law and turned it into a club. After reestablishing the intention, and continued need for the law, Paul admits that he cannot avoid sin without help, (and clearly neither can we.) Jesus was that help, he came to free us from our failures while validating the need for the law's guidance.     Today's discussion question:  How do we continue to teach God's "right from wrong" without allowing our fleshly desire to "shape" the law to fit our personal opinions, and worse, as a way to get others to behave as we see fit.