We now come to Romans 5:12-21, a section, ironically that is often used by young earth creationists to argue for the historicity of Adam. The argument basically goes like this: Since Paul refers to Adam, and since Paul is inspired by God, and since God cannot lie, therefore there must be a historical Adam. Since…
In our journey through Romans, we now come to a different section of Paul’s argument. We must always remember, though, what Paul has been arguing up to this point: Both Gentiles and Jews are sinful Having the Torah doesn’t give the Jews any special advantage with God when it comes to righteousness Both Gentiles and…
Here we are now at Romans 4. Let’s do a quick recap, so we can always keep in mind the flow of Paul’s argument. Paul has argued: All Gentiles are sinful and deserve God’s wrath (Chapter 1) All Jews are sinful and deserve God’s wrath (Chapter 2) Having Torah doesn’t give Jews any special advantage…
In my last post, I gave the analogy of the Torah being like a medical report that diagnoses cancer. As welcomed and vital as that medical report is, only a fool would think that because he has the medical report, that somehow that medical report will cure the cancer. Such is in the same case…
As we move on to Romans 3, we need to remember that Paul is in the process of building an argument. He is ultimately going to get to the question, “How does the righteous person live?” But in order to get to that point, Paul has to first explain what is it that makes that…
After that opening salvo of Romans 1:18-32, one thing would be sure: Paul’s fellow Jews would be saying, “Preach it, brother!” (For that matter, given the topic in Romans 1:18-32, a whole lot of Evangelicals share that very sentiment). After all, what Paul put forth was the standard Jewish view of the Gentile world. Every…
Romans 1:18-32: Paul’s Condemnation of the Pagan World Romans 1:18-32 begins Paul’s actual argument that runs throughout Romans. It cuts to the heart of the Gospel itself, highlights the implications the Gospel has for living together as a community. Simply put, as I ended the last post, Paul isn’t talking about how one gets saved….
Today, I start actually going through Paul’s letter to the Romans. In order to really simplify things, I’m breaking this post into two sections: (A) Paul’s normal “introductory” material he uses in many of his letters (1:1-15); and (B) the “thesis statement” for the entire letter (1:16-17). So get ready to take some notes, we’re…
If you want to even begin to understand anything in the New Testament, be it the gospels or Paul’s letters, you need to make sure you have a handle on what was going on in Judaism in the first century. The Jewish Self-Identity First of all, you have to remember that the Jews viewed themselves…
Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to turn a corner and focus on something actually biblical. When I was at Regent College in Vancouver, I was fortunate to take classes from Dr. Gordon Fee, one of the foremost experts on the apostle Paul. Since then, I have taught Paul and his letters numerous…