Daily Liturgy and Scripture

Paul has been working out the idea of grace and salvation, our status with God and our identity in Christ. Now he makes another thing clear: that salvation is God’s alone, we are not earning it. This should be the best of news, because we cannot be taken away from him.

Good news to finish Paul’s thought: even though the Law brought awareness of sin and the closeness of death, we have Christ. With the Spirit dwelling within us and Christ working through us, the death of the law need not govern us. We have the Spirit of Life, and that is made possible because of the victory of Christ.

Paul is still building his message. The cross is for all, we all enter by faith. But now he comes back a step: the work the law is only to point out the sin in our lives, it cannot give life. He makes that point with his discussion on coveting. Don’t give up, though. This chapter talks about a sort of hopeless situation with the Law, but chapter 8 will complete the thought.

Paul has made two steps from the previous chapters to get her: because of Christ, both Jews and Gentiles are saved through faith like that of Abraham. Because of that faith, salvation is Gods; it is not because of anything we do. The next step seems pretty logical. Because God has done that work, doesn’t that mean that we’re pretty much off the hook? Can’t we do what we want anyway, because God wi...

It the last chapter, Paul talked about how Jew and Gentile both enter the presence of God by faith. Now he takes it a step further: once in the presence of God, we have the work of Christ bringing salvation. Just as Adam brought the Fall, so one man rises from that Fall, and that is always Jesus. We need no other source of redemption.

God's design for his children was always that they have faith in his salvation. This was the thing that Abraham had both before and after the promise was made by God, and it is the pattern for us today. As Paul discusses, it is common to both Jews and Gentiles. Jews have the promise of Abraham that includes his faith, and Gentiles can show faith in the same way as Abraham did.

Paul is making the ground at the foot of the cross level. Speaking as a Jew, it means a lot that he folds in the promise of Abraham into the Gentiles. That would have probably still been a little scandalous among many Jews. It’s also a somewhat turbulent time in Rome, the city to which Paul wrote. Jews had actually been expelled from the city during Paul’s life, and there probably would have been...

At the end of chapter 1, Paul made a list of ways that people fail to honor God: everything from sexual sins to disobeying parents. This is a pretty wide range, and we would certainly treat those two things very differently. But now he brings that list into a different light: we are all sinners before God, equally broken. We cannot judge, we must leave that work to God. He also brings his Jewish u...

Paul starts off his letter to the Christians in Rome by departing from his Jewish scholarship and appealing more to the Word the the Spirit writes on their hearts. The Spirit has the ability to move us, but we certainly have the capacity to move against it. When we do so, we take on a long list of qualities, and Paul names several. If we wish to be closer to God’s heart, it’s not a bad idea to kee...

A spiritual father is still accountable to keep his flock focused on the right thing, and Paul has scolded the Corinthians many times throughout this letter. As he ends the letter, his frustration with them remains unhidden. This is difficult to hear if we're looking for positivity and encouragement, but we need a person in our lives who is willing to be that real with us, even better if it happen...

Remember back in chapter 7 when Paul talked about the value of Godly sorrow? He certainly doesn’t let him off the hook for that very thing. Certainly he has had his share, and he has talked a lot about that. Now it gets personal. Paul hasn’t just struggled with circumstantial things, but also with a nagging issue. He wears it almost as a badge of honor, because while God didn’t take it away (whate...

Paul isn’t claiming foolishness because he’s lost his mind, he’s drawing it out to show a contrast with his rivals. It’s foolishness to try and be a “super apostle” because all apostles should point to Christ, not themselves. So Paul launches into his own credentials, holding it up against those who were against him. It’s a goofy comparison, and that’s exactly what he wanted to Corinthians to see.

Clearly Paul has his critics in Corinth, and he's back to defending himself. It must have been a tough line to walk: imitating Christ, trying to take leadership, showing authority, and trying to remain humble. Paul must have had his failures. Still, he remained their pastor, so he couldn't cut them loose. He needed to keep their trust, because the body of Christ must function as one.

Giving is about more than doing what we should, it’s creating bonds between us and those to whom we give. This is a flow that is shown to us by God: we weren’t deserving, but he gave to us. That kind of outward flow is something we should practice because doing so brings us closer to God’ heart.

Being willing to give to others isn’t a condition of our salvation, that is the work of Christ and the gift of God. But giving to others is an indication of where our heart might be. If we hold everything to ourselves, we have missed the opportunities of being connected to our brothers and sisters, meeting their needs, and helping them be whole. We cannot give away all that Christ has given to us,...

Sorry isn’t something we seek out, it’s not something we would choose to have in our lives. It does still have a purpose. Paul gives it to other believers if it can become a way for them to be restored to God, and that’s a much more important objective than momentary happiness. Of course, we shouldn’t go around breaking people down for our own purposes. We should also have their restoration in min...

Paul is exercising his oratory gifts in this passage by listing the hardships of following Christ, and the need to remain faithful through both good and bad. This has followed a passage where he talks about being Christ’s ambassadors, so perhaps he didn’t want to make his listeners think they were getting an easy ride? Whatever the reasons, it is certainly an honor to be Christ’s ambassador, but i...

Life in Christ is truly supernatural. Not that we have some sort of super power, but that we are moved by Christ, and that the way he moves us changes our entire view of life. Being the ambassador of Christ is no small task, and it requires transformation. He offers the Sprit for nothing less.

Paul is bringing something very personal into the conversation: the death of Christ, carried around in our bodies. Remember in the last chapter he talked about how the Spirit brings life? This is where it comes into our own personal bubbles. We are co-heirs with Christ, and so we carry Christ’s death, resurrection, and redemption. This is a promise that cannot be taken from us. This is our victory...

Paul has gotten mostly past his unpleasantness, now he brings some of his Jewish scholarship back to the letter. It’s a great contrast: how the glory of Moses (the human symbol of the law) was apt to fade, but not life in the Spirit. It’s the different between Life and death. This must have been especially personal to Paul, since the first part of his life was dedicated to that very law that he no...

Paul starts this second letter by being cordial, but also defending himself a bit. It seems there has come a bit of a tension between him and the church. According to Craig Keener, the church may have thought Paul was a bit late in visiting, and Paul seems to think that the Corinthians needed a bit of a rebuke. Paul is defending his decision about travel, and you can be pretty sure that he’ll stil...

As Paul finishes his first letter to the Corinthians, he takes care of a few housekeeping items, reminding the young church to be faithful in their giving and loving to one another. This might seem like something to rush through because the important stuff is over, but it’s really not. This is a great picture of life in community. Paul has been at times harsh with them, at times he has been like a...

Resurrection was not just Jesus’s thing. He came first but that will be our future as well. God will give us all new bodies, spiritual bodies that are raised to live forever with him. This is the perfection that God seeks for us, the undoing of the Fall, and the best future we could possibly imagine.

The resurrection is central to the Christian faith. Not just because it makes Christ unique in his deity, but because it’s a preview of our own coming attraction. This is a promise from God that better things are coming, and that we will follow Christ in resurrection to a new kind of life. No other religion has a risen Savior, and we are bound to Christ because of the working of God.

This passage is not meant to keep women from being equals. Both the section on tongues and the section on how women were to act in worship both revolve around order. According to scholar Craig Keener, women in Greek tradition were not traditionally well-educated and didn’t participate in public forums, so that would have been way out of line in their culture. Paul wanted to keep the emphasis on Go...