Koinonia Ministries

In this time, we share our (updated) vision for the future of Koinonia. Thank you for your continued support and love for one another!

Truly, thank you all so much. To the Golden Shores!

Paul concludes his epistle to the Romans with a great number of greetings. By placing himself in the company of many faithful Christians, Paul establishes his unity with them. From women to slaves to Jews to Gentiles to free to acquaintances to closest companions, the Gospel brings people together knit in love who greet each other warmly. Paul wants to ensure that this Roman church, like all churc...

Continuing a discussion on unity, Paul insists that the strong put others first. Following the example of Christ, we learn from Scripture the hope we have which gives us endurance to bear with and welcome one another for the glory of God. Because the division likely happened along ethnic lines, it is critical to see that Christ has served both Jew and Gentile in fulfillment of Scripture. While Pau...

In matters of conscience and opinion within the Christian faith, we must welcome and not quarrel with one another. The stronger brother must not despise the weaker, nor the weaker judge the stronger. The Lord stands as judge of all and can persevere His people. Whether therefore we eat, drink, observe days or abstain from doing so, we must do all to the honor of the Lord with thankfulness to Him....

As an expression of love, Christians should submit to government because God appoints them to execute His judgements of morality within the human political sphere. While they should look kindly upon what is good, God has equipped them to exact punishment on those who do evil in society. For sake of God and conscience, we must pay what is owed and respect those in authority. One debt that never exp...

The Christian life is intended to be one of worship to God. As we grow in grace with our transformed mind, we learn to discern more clearly how God would have us to live. First, God would have us to live humbly in community with other believers. Each of us having an accurate assessment of ourselves, we contribute our respective gifts to the body functioning cohesively. Second, Christians love. Tre...

God has not rejected national Israel. While today there is a remnant chosen by grace as there has always been, someday there will be more. When national Israel rejected the Gospel, this caused the Gospel to go forward more fully to the Gentiles which is in turn designed to make the Jews jealous to salvation. Gentiles have nothing to be prideful about. Rather, we should be in awe that we were inclu...

Gentiles who did not seek God have received righteousness unlike the Jews because the Jews sought God by works of the law and not by faith in Christ. While their legalistic efforts may be zealous, they missed that Jesus is the culmination of that law. God has made His revelation in Christ accessible. Man must simply respond by believing and professing the Gospel. Since belief/profession is the pat...

Paul is deeply sorrowed by the unbelief of his Jewish brothers who had received such great revelation from God. This calls into question if God’s promises will finally be true for national Israel since they have not believed the Gospel. Paul, in turn, argues that salvation was never about race, but grace (Wright). If it is not about race nor any intrinsic human factor, then it can only be based on...

The Christian is free from condemnation, law, and the power of sin due to the freeing power of Christ mediated to us by the Spirit orchestrated by the Father. Whereas in the flesh we were destined for death, the new mind and deeds of the Spirit has charted a course of eternal life. In this eternal life, we have become children of God, united with Christ, ready to receive our inheritance from God....

Christians, by virtue of their dying with Christ, are set free from the law. The law produces sinful desires leading to death. The only way to break this captivity to sin through the law is by the Spirit, previewing chapter 8. The law is not sinful, but sin becomes more defined and powerful with the coming of the law. The law does offer a path to life, which sin uses the law to trick people into w...

Paul emphatically denies that we should sin in order to bring more grace. Instead, Paul argues that by virtue of our forensic union with Christ, we have died to the sin which characterized our corporate identification in Adam. Living in and waiting for the resurrection hope, Christ inaugurated the age to come where life to the glory of God has conquered sin and death. Reckoning this to be spiritua...

Now that we have been justified by faith, we can also take hope of the glorious future we have in Christ. Whenever we fall into suffering times, our hope grows as we are transformed. This hope is sure because of the love of God which we experience in both a subjective way and an objective way. This objective demonstration of God’s love by dying on the cross justifies, reconciles, and causes us to...

Seeking to demonstrate his third chapter claims to be true, Paul argues that Abraham was justified not by works but by faith. Forgiveness then is not a debt of God’s to be paid but purely of His grace. The external rite of circumcision also does not save since Abraham was declared righteous prior to being circumcised. As such, Abraham is Father of both the circumcised and uncircumcised that have f...

Continuing the thought of chapter two, Paul shows that while the Jews do have genuine advantages by nature of their Jewishness, they were not faithful to God. God is, however, faithful nevertheless which means that he can and must judge Jewish sin as He does gentile sin. Paul shows that the Old Testament supports his claims regarding human depravity. From not desiring God to hurtful speech and act...

The sinner appearing as highly moral, who hypocritically does the same sins as the sinner who appears highly immoral, is still subject to God’s judgement. It does not matter who you are—Jew or Gentile—God sees your righteousness or unrighteousness as it flows from your faith or lack thereof and will judge accordingly. While Jews have the written law to be judged by, Gentiles also have a sense of l...

Paul was specifically and specially called to carry the Gospel about Jesus to the nations which was Paul’s eager duty. He longed to strengthen and be strengthened by people God had called to salvation which he had never met. Paul shows us that the point of this epistle is the good news of the Gospel, but that good news must start with the bad news. That bad news is that mankind loves sin more than...

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