Old Testament: Genesis 29:15-28
Gospel: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Epistle: Romans 8:26-39
Gospel: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Epistle: Romans 8:26-39
Sorry, about a lack of a post last week. I have been in
Yellowstone with little internet access until today. We have seen a lot of incredible
things that creation has to offer. It is no wonder than that Jesus so often
drew from creation when he was teaching in parables. Today in Matthew, we have
the example of the mustard seed, which starts out tiny yet is able to grow into
a large tree and be used by many other animals for refuge. Jesus also uses the
examples of a treasure and a pearl of great price, both of which might be small
and missed by others, but when found, bring great reward. He finally ends this
segment with a parable that compares the kingdom of heaven to a fishing dragnet
where at the end of the age, the fish will be separated. The parables are
profound and deep, yet because they are drawn from everyday experiences, they
are able make us think and try to understand even 2,000 years later.
We have been working through Romans the last few weeks and the only thing I would recommend is to go get yourself a good commentary (maybe this commentary here, put out by Nazarene Publishing House). What I try to do in this blog as a whole is get us into the Scriptures and asking questions. Hopefully some of those questions will stick with one of you or me and will lead us to more study and reflection. I don’t have the knowledge or space here to answer many questions. Unfortunately, Romans is one of those books in the Bible that has so much depth that it needs a whole other book to understand it. This is not to say that we can’t read and understand the Epistle to the Romans at all, however. There is a surface level understanding and the Holy Spirit is able to speak to all of us through the Scriptures. However, Paul’s arguments are complex and draw on a lot of sources, Scriptural and otherwise, and if we want to grasp more of the meaning then it is helpful to read some other commentaries. I recommend the Nazarene commentary because it is written from a Wesleyan-Arminian perspective. This section in Romans can and has enforced to some people a doctrine of predestination. In this interpretation, less freewill is ascribed to humanity than Wesleyans typically do. So, it is helpful to read within the tradition we reside and then read other voices on the topic
Perhaps it feels like a cop-out to just tell you all, and
even myself, to go read another book. But this section in Romans is a difficult one
to understand. For example, verse 28 reads, “And we know that God
causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who
are called according to His purpose.” Is cancer always good? Murder,
death by drunk driver, rape…? The list can go on, and although we might look
back and see good things that have happened since these events, the child or
mother or whoever that died didn’t come to a very “good” end. Perhaps the best
way to understand Paul’s meaning here is in relation to Phil. 1:21 “For to me, to
live is Christ and to die is gain.” No matter what happens to a Christian, in
life or death, God is with us. But the issues don’t stop there, however, because
of that little word “causes.” If God can turn horrible situations into positives,
then why didn’t he prevent them in the first place? This is the classic problem of evil[i], and also again gets into human freewill and predestination. Just what
does God cause? And does the “good” mean only in the next life? If so, then what
about Jesus’ words, that the Kingdom of heaven is near and at hand? That sounds
like God is indeed at work in the present day in some sense.
Well, hopefully I haven’t muddled the water
up too much. We should end on a note of hope, which Paul also does in chapter
8. He writes:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What a great comfort and hope we have in the
knowledge that nothing can separate us from the love of God!
Grace and Peace.
[i]
Two brief sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14569a.htm
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