Since The Message isn't really a good study version, I've decided to try something different. I've heard good things about the ESV, so I'm going to give that a whirl for a while. I will likely change the auto-linking to go to the ESV as well, although the old quotations will stay NIV. Since I'm changing translations again and I had only read the first Chapter of Romans, I figures I ought to just start over. To here we go.
Romans 1:17 - The footnote for verse 17 in the ESV reads "beginning and ending in faith". I feel as though I forget how faith is the beginning of Christianity. I think of relationships and love, but it all rests on our faith.
Romans 2:1-3 - Being judgmental, like this describes, is not only sinful, but it's hard. Not hard on the one you've judged, although it is that, but hard on yourself. I know, for that's me. For years, for whatever reason, I've looked in judgment on nearly everyone around me. It has become such part of who I am that I scarcely notice it. If you are different or have a different view, even a different preference, you are wrong. I'm not entirely sure where this comes from in me, but it is prevalent. I wonder sometimes if I can escape it. What's worse is I've begun to see how it has hurt me more than it's hurt those I've judged. In many cases, they have no knowledge of what's in my mind, thankfully. But because this is how I tend to think, it's how I assume others think as well. So, any words of disappointment, frustration or anger I interpret as criticism of me personally. When my wife has a headache, I feel responsible. If her PC isn't running right, I feel that I'm to blame. If someone expresses disappointment to me, I feel that it must mean that they think I'm to blame for it. I've found that I don't know how to just hear someone express something negative without taking it personally. I hope that being able to see it will help me overcome it, but It's hard to see how.
Romans 2:7 - "patience in well-doing". Not persistence or perseverance but patience. Patience to me implies waiting, not "doing". Does that mean we keep doing, even while wait on God for the results or the reward?
Romans 2:25-29 - I guess some use this passage to teach that those who are not baptized, but who live the heart of Christianity will still be saved. I do see the parallel here and I think it's valid. But the point Paul was making here was not that circumcision was trivial or even optional. He was saying that it it not what made one a Jew. It was one's heart that made one a Jew, circumcision was secondary to that. I think the same can be said of baptism. It is not a dunking that makes one a Christian. It's a change of heart, repentance, metenoia, that make one a Christian, the baptism is secondary. Not that baptism is trivial or optional for salvation, but it is not what makes a man righteous before God. Jesus said something similar in Luke 11:37-41, did He not? Will the righteous, yet unbaptized be saved? It's not my place to say for sure, but presuming such a man exists (and he was merely ignorant of the command of baptism, not defiant of it), I would think so. However, knowing as we do that God has promised us forgiveness in baptism, but has not promised anything out side of it, why chance it? This verse does not, as some might like, get us off the hook for teaching what baptism is to a religious world who doesn't want to hear it, it merely reminds us if it's proper place. Vital, but secondary.
Doug wrote:
> I'm not entirely sure where this comes
> from in me, but it is prevalent. I
> wonder sometimes if I can escape it.
I wish I knew the answer.
I had a conversation recently with a member of our congregation about a local mainline church of Christ. She was disturbed that I would be open to visiting that church, saying "their doctrine is not right." When I questioned that, she said they didn't believe in baptism. I pointed out to her that their web site says otherwise. Then she countered that some of their members (allegedly including a leader) were "wishy washy" on the subject...whatever that means.
There still exist people in our church who have an elitist attitude, like what Paul confronted in Rom 2:1-3. Some are willing, even eager, to justify non-fellowship with a large church because of a perception about the "wishy-washy" conviction of a handful of people. Yet our own house is not free from flaws.
The chip that some people have on their doctrinal shoulder is a dangerous thing. With the judgment we use, we will be judged.
Alan
In F.W. Mattox's "The Eternal Kingdom: A History of The Church" he quotes from the "Didache" or the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" (with which has an unknown Author, some dating this uninspired writing as soon as 90AD, but others date it at 150AD; all this on page 62-63) The quote reads, "It is definitely established that during the period from 100 to nearly 150 the church was gtoverned by elders and deacons without a distinction between elders and bishops. This reasoning is usen to date the comporsition in the early period. However, there is a statment concerning baptism that indcates it was not close to the Aposstolic period. THis statement reads "baptize in this way...in the name of the Father, Son, and HOly Ghost, in living water, but if you have not living water, baptize in other water. And if thou cans't not in cold, in warm, if you have neither, pour water thrice on the head ..." This is perhaps the earliest statement found in Christian literature indicating that even in emergency conditions any other baptism that immersion might be acceptable to God. Throughout the entire New Testament period, baptism was pratciced only by emmersion and this compoesition indicates that immersion was the regular form in use."
To me this is an interesting qoute. It is hard to tell how or who by this book (the Didache) was written, but still an interesting qoute. My guess is that living water would be a lake, river, or stream, and other water a bath of some sort, and then it talks of pour water on the head. I also think often of people in prison with genuine contrition before Christ, and how thay may be baptized.
We should not draw doctrinal conclusions from writings outside the Bible, even in such an early period as 100-150ad.
In many cases, there are reasons to believe that the existing copies of early writings have been tampered with (The letters of Ignatius are obvious examples). But even if we can identify some that are known to be accurate, they cannot be relied upon as carrying the unpolluted teaching of the apostles.
Even during the apostolic era there were false teachings in the church. 1 John 2:18-19 refers to one such situation which resulted in a group splitting off from the church where the apostle John resided. Even during the apostolic era there were false teachings in the church. 1 John 2:18-19 refers to one such situation which resulted in a group splitting off from the church where the apostle John resided (believed to be Ephesus at that time). Irenaeus records that the apostle John, upon seeing the heretic Cerinthus in the bath house at Ephesus, fled into the street for fear that God would bring the building down upon Cerinthus' head. (Heresies III 3:4) So there have always been significant false teachings, even in the apostolic era.
I find the early writings very interesting. But at best they only provide a historical snapshot of a church that, as we all know, was drifting away from the original pattern delivered by the apostles.
Alan