Victor Scott - Jeremiah's Vow

Romans Series (Pt. 7) – Romans 2:25-29

Paul bridges chapter 2 with its emphasis on God’s righteous judgment on sinners and chapter 3 with its emphasis on righteousness through faith with a brief discussion on circumcision. While this may seem strange Paul does this because circumcision had become a point of contention regarding salvation. In light of the argument that he was making Paul wanted to remove this as an obstacle to faith. Was it necessary for gentiles to become Jews before becoming Christians? (cf. Act 15:1-35, Galatians 5:6, 11-15).

Circumcision of the Flesh (2:25-27)

As Paul comes out of his discussion about God judging according to a righteous standard and moves into the issue of circumcision. What is interesting in his treatment of the issue is that he begins to drive the issue of faith and salvation beyond the physical conformity to the Mosaic Law. It was important for the Romans to understand that faith in Christ was more than external, behavioral conformity. Paul, a pharisee and student of the Old Testament, alludes to the prophet Samuel’s mistake in looking at the outer appearance instead of looking at the heart (1 Samuel 16:1-13). As experience has taught us, appearances can be deceiving. This may be why Paul wants to move away from the appearance of a person’s compliance of holiness to the actual practice of holy living.

Circumcision of the Heart (2:28-29)

Paul goes so far as to say that there are some among the Jews who are not truly Jews. The standard that determines whether a person is a Jew is that they “are one inwardly” [v. 29]. There will be an expansion of this idea of justification by faith in chapter 4 when the example of Abraham is examined. This is a very astonishing statement from someone who was among the most devout and zealous observers of Jewish customs, culture, and faith [Philippians 3:3-6]. As Paul wraps up the second chapter he begins to firmly establish that faith is the measure and the means by which God will judge those who claim to be in Christ. Paul established here that the proper order of any good work done by a Christian comes as a result of the heart transformation that has taken place because of salvation and not the other way around.

In times like these…

Shooting in Colorado

The news out of Littleton, Colorado, is basically that it could have been worse. Bruco Strong Eagle Eastwood, 32, began shooting at middle school students as they were leaving to go home. The motive has not been identified, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Murder is a horrible thing, but when you take it to the level of attacking children it takes on another dimension of the sinister. I think of the brave teacher, David Benke, that tackled Eastwood and still wishes he could have done more. I can’t even think about what Benke did without getting a little choked up. The line between heroism and cowardice is a fine one, and yet we see average, normal people stepping up and doing things that inspire all the time.

In times like these, I find myself wondering why does this happen? What is going on in the lives of some people who would think shooting kids is “the thing to do.” As a Christian, I struggle to make sense of the chaos that finds expression in our world. To say that it is because of sin seems to over-simplify and even trivialize the issue. But I think that this only appears to be the case because we don’t truly understand what sin is.

Sin on Display

Sin has to be understood not by the nature of the offense, but rather by the worth of the offended. Rape is a terrible scourge independent of the victims involved, but make the victim a child and you raise the level of indignation. In like manner, the depth of sin’s offense must be seen by virtue that God, the one offended, is infinitely perfect and holy. It is because of God’s purity that any sin, no matter how small, deserves eternal punishment for God is of eternal worth.

In times like these I have to remember that sin is an utterly terrible blight in the human experience. I have to remember that sin is an insidious enemy that taunts us and tempts us away from God. I have to remember that none of us is beyond the reach of Sin’s influence. Sin will only be eradicated when God sends Jesus back to claim those that have called to him and believed that Jesus is the only way to have a relationship restored with God the Father.

While I understand these things to be true I still mourn and struggle with having to wait for Jesus to return as long as we live in times like these.

Romans Series (Pt. 6) – Romans 2:12-24

God’s Judicial Philosophy (2:12-16)

In these verses, we begin to see how God will perform his judicial responsibility to render justice to all sinners. What is interesting here is that all sinners will be judged according to the “laws” under which they lived. “For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law” [v. 12]. One of the objections to God’s goodness has been this: How can God condemn to hell those who have never heard the Gospel of Jesus? I believe that Paul is speaking to this very thing when he tells the Romans that God will be just to all regardless of when they live or what they have or have not heard. He is bringing his understanding of the revelation of God’s character in Creation back to the minds of the Romans by saying that when men see the creation they would be introduced to the Glory of God and would be without excuse [Romans 1:19-20]. Paul wraps up this paragraph by saying, “God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” [v.16]. Whatever this means, it does mean that God will be just.

The Jews Chastised (2:17-24)

Paul then switches gears and turns to his countrymen in the church and questions them regarding the example they are setting. In one sense the Jews could boast in God. They had been called out from among the nations. God had sent to them the Law and the prophets. But all of this did not appear to have the effect of changing the hearts of the people. The Jews had “in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth,” and still they failed to live according to God’s precepts. Paul understood that the image and example of the Jewish people had not served the purpose of God as it ought to have. As a result, Paul quotes Isaiah 52:5: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” The purpose for which the children of Israel were to be set apart – to spread the truth of God – had become distorted into a conceited nationalism.

We will look at the source of the distortion next time.

Book Review | Life After Death: The Evidence

Author(s): Dinesh D’Souza
Publisher: Regenery Publishing
Year: 2009
Rating: (Out of five)

To say that life after death is not an interesting topic would be an understatement. What makes this discussion even more challenging is the fact that most who do not hold to a faith system of some kind would dismiss any religious attempt to defend the proposition of life after death as superstition or wishful thinking. This is where Life after Death: The Evidence comes in. While not shying away from his own personal faith Dinesh D’Souza embarks on the near impossible. He asks the question of whether life after death is a probable hypothesis and goes about the task of looking in every direction, except religion, to see if there is sufficient warrant for such a belief.

In the end what the reader discovers is that there is ample evidence to bring the claims of the non-theist into question, i.e., that there is no life after death. D’Souza first unmasks the self-defeating arguments of atheism and shows that as a philosophical system it has no legs upon which to stand. Or put another way, the basis of “belief” in atheism is the same as that of any other religious system. In both cases there is an element of “blind faith” that one’s system better represents the facts of our experiences.

After dismantling the arguments of the “Vendors of Unbelief” the author looks at the two overarching conceptions of life after death – The Western and Eastern views. This provides some insight to what people have believed over time. Following this is an investigation and analysis of near death experiences and what they tell us about the connection between the body and the mind, and provide some basis to continue the process of investigation. Don’t lose heart because this can be difficult territory, but the rewards of continuing on are worth the time spent reading.

Over the course of the book D’Souza looks at physics, evolutionary suppositions in the sciences and philosophy and the newly overturned earth of brain chemistry. The questions about where the mind resides within the brain and the implications of epistemological arguments from philosophy are brought to bear on the overall argument that is being shaped. Finally, D’Souza wraps up by looking at the issues of justice, societal order and the development of virtuous living as a result in belief in life after death to tie all of the strings of thought that were analyzed throughout the book.

All-in-all this is a good read and is worth the investment in time and mental effort to see that the case for life after death can be made and that a belief in this life should inform the choices and direction of our lives here and now. The implications of life after death are far-reaching and have ramifications of an eternal nature.

I will cite D’Souza near the end of his text in summation.

Some people may respond to this data by saying, wonderful! Let others believe, but not me. This is the position not of belief but of “belief in belief,” and it is held by quite a few people who like to think of themselves as sophisticated and above the popular multitude. This position, however, is quite irrational. If others stand to benefit from lives full of hope, purpose, and charity, why not you? Given the weight of the evidence in favor of belief, there is no room for unbelievers to claim that their position enjoys a superior claim to rationality. On the contrary, unbelief is neither intellectually plausible nor practically beneficial. [217]

Romans Series (Pt. 5) – Romans 2:1-11

God’s Reason in Being Patient (2:1-5)

After telling us in the second half of chapter one the depth of sin and its potential expression, Paul lets us know that because of this sinful inclination God’s judgment “rightly fall” [v.2] on us. The hypocrisy that we at times perform is only a small demonstration of our depravity. This hypocritical tendency should serve as a reminder of why God should and ultimately will judge the sinner. But Paul is not simply concerned with God’s judgment of sin.

Sometimes reading Paul can be difficult and we miss the little nuggets that are hidden in the letters. Here, even in the midst of laying the foundation of the Gospel, the grace of God is revealed. The Gospel at every turn and in every instance sheds the light of God’s grace in the midst of the darkness of our shortcomings. That is what is saying here. Paul says that “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” [v. 4]. This is unbelievable.

God does not hit the reset button and unleashes his angelic hosts because He desires for sinners to repent! The sad reality that Paul throws back at the reader is that the reason some do not head the Gospel summons is because of their “hard and impenitent” [v. 5] hearts. And it is this persistent condition that is “storing up wrath” [v. 5] for us when God finally returns.

God’s Demonstration of Integrity (2:6-11)

The major thrust of this entire section is that God shows no favoritism to the sinner or the believer in His dispensation of justice. All are sinners and are worthy and even deserving of eternal punishment, but God has overshadowed the sins of those that have believed and confessed in Christ. God will reckon what is rightfully due to each one “according to his works” [v. 6].

The irony in this statement is that those that believe in Christ have no work by which we are to be judged! The work of Salvation is the work of God in us. So the reward that we receive at the time of judgment rightfully belongs to God! We are the beneficiaries of God’s love and grace in spite of our sins. Look at what Paul says in Ephesians 2:4-10.

⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. [ESV, Emphasis Added]

Paul outlines how God will deal with all humanity. To those who live rightly and obey God’s commands and does good there will be reward and “glory and honor and peace” [v. 10]. But to those that chose their own way and chose “unrighteousness” [v. 8] and “does evil” there will be “tribulation and distress” [v. 9].

There is no partiality with God because he will not be swayed by sentimentality devoid of reason. God sees clearly and will dispense the just reward or penalty to all who will stand and kneel before His throne.

Romans Series (Pt. 4) – Romans 1:18-32

God is Righteous (1:18-20)

The Roman listener and reader would not have had the same reference point as the Jewish believer. So Paul begins with his own version of the creation story from Genesis 1 [vv. 19-20]. Paul speaks to the creation and all that is in it to demonstrate that God is good, but more importantly that God is righteous. The word righteous tells us something about the way that God lives out his existence. Everything we need to know about God is made knowable by virtue of God’s creation. What we see is the evidence that points to and illustrates for us who God is. And God is righteous and therefore stands up against all “ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” [v. 18].

God is Denied (1:21-25)

Paul then makes a move toward describing the state of those that forget to look at God, or more specifically, that intentionally turn away from looking at God. This is where Paul begins to lay the foundation that he will expand in Romans 5:12. What is important here is to understand what Paul is describing. God will suffer the reproach of man only for a time. But the longer we persist in denying God, Paul tells us that God will eventually give us up.

So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. [Romans 1:24-25, NLT]

Whenever we lose sight of God, when we forget to honor God for who and what he is we tempt God and become subject to God’s judgment. What we have to consider is this: Is there any greater judgment than to be left to oneself?

God is NOT Mocked (1:26-32)

Then Paul closes by illustrating the manifestation of Sin in the practice of sins. I don’t believe that Paul is saying that all will perform these sins. I think this is where many people begin to dismiss the doctrine of Total Depravity. We have to see that Total Depravity is not about the depth of sin, but rather about the culpability of sin and capability of sinning. We all, as sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, have become partakers in Sin. We are born in Sin [Psalm 51:5] and we are guilty of our own transgressions [Romans 3:23]. What I hear Paul saying is that once the path of selfishness and idolatry is chosen there is no means of predicting the depths to which one can fall. I find this to be the major thrust of this section and starting block for what is to come in the following chapters.

Book Review | Jesus Loves You This I know

Author(s): Craig Gross and Jason Harper
Publisher: BakerBooks
Year: 2009
Rating: (Out of five)

Both Craig and Jason see ministry and the church a little differently than most. They desire to take seriously God’s command to love Him, but also to love our neighbor, no matter where that neighbor is found. The entire book revolves around the premise that Jesus loves you, the reader. The unconventional nature of their ministry has taken them from the Las Vegas strip to Porn conventions all over the world because Jesus loves Porn Stars too. Through their journeys the authors have encountered many who did not know or could not believe that Jesus could or would love them. These are a few of those stories. Along the way it becomes evident that from the outcast to the porn star, from the skeptic to the religious all are loved by God and by Jesus, whom God sent.

The efforts of the authors are sincere and the motivations behind their ministries are biblical. One of the take-aways from the book is the merging of biblical teaching and practical living. These guys are in the trenches doing the hard work in the gutters of life. It is there Jesus was to be found on most days. Jesus himself said that he did not some for the well, but for those that are sick.

When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor–sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” [Mark 2:17, NLT]

This book does a good job of reminding its readers that God wants his children to get out of their comfort zone and into the world that he created and desires to redeem.

I would recommend this book as a worthwhile read. It is encouraging and will challenge the reader to look with new eyes at those that lie “outside” of the love of God. You may just be surprised to see that those on the outside are looking for someone to invite them in.

Romans Series (Pt. 3) – Romans 1:16-17

Paul’s Confession (1:16-17)

In these two verses we find one of the greatest confessions of what the Gospel is and what it is designed to do. This is not an overstatement of the Gospels intended purpose. Nor is it an exaggeration that Paul wanted the Romans to understand that the Gospel, by design, was intended to be the means through which people are regenerated and the gospel is the seed from which the germ of eternal life will emerge in the life of all who believe. It is this seed that will mature into the tree that the psalmist alludes to in the opening psalm of the psalter.

³ He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. [Psalm 1:3, ESV]

But it doesn’t end here. Even Jesus himself said,

³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. [John 1:3, ESV]

Here in lies the heart of what Paul is speaking to. The Gospel’s power breaks the dam of sin in our lives which is keeping us from having a right relationship with the Father. And it releases unto us the power of God to make us his children and the Gospel gives us the right to claim for ourselves the righteousness that rightfully belongs to Jesus. The challenge to anyone who agrees with Paul is that we have to receive this truth and grace in faith. For it is only from faith that we can receive it and it is only by faith that we can live it.

Romans Series (Pt. 2) – Romans 1:1-15

Introduction (1:1-7)

One of the main characteristics of Paul’s letters is the introduction. Paul follows the common pattern of the time for letters and identifies himself and gives a formal greeting to the people or person that he is writing to. Another characteristic of Paul’s letters is the connection that he draws between hos apostleship and the God’s activity in his life. Paul is intentional about speaking to the fact that God plays an integral role in all that He does as an apostle.

Paul’s Desire (1:8-15)

Paul then shares his desire to be with them there Rome. The church in Rome did not start because of Paul’s direct presence. Rather, it was through the evangelism and mission work by those converted that the faith made it to Rome. This was a great source of joy for Paul, but it brought with it a desire to be among them. Paul tells them that he had previously plan to go to Rome, but was kept from going for some reason.

This sets the stage for the rest of the letter. We will look at the heart of Paul’s message in our next post.

Romans Series (Pt. 1) – Who is Paul the Apostle?

Paul provides for us a mini biography of himself in Philippians 3:5-6. Paul says that if there is anyone who has reason to show pride it is him because of his lineage. Most of what Paul describes doesn’t mean much to us today, but Paul was a special individual. He was born at the crossroads of history. God selected Paul because in Paul were all the qualities required to take the message of Jesus Christ from the Jewish outpost of Jerusalem into the metropolis’ of the Roman world. Ravi Zacharias provides a wonderful summary of Paul’s unique place in the fulfillment of God’s purpose. Dr. Zacharias is looking at 2 Corinthians 4:6 as the evidence of Paul’s ability to bridge the gap between the three major groups during his lifetime:

The apostle Paul was born a Hebrew, raised as a Roman citizen in a Greek city. The Romans gave to us our legal ideals. The Greeks gave to us our philosophical ideals. The Hebrews gave to us our moral ideals.

The Hebrew’s pursuit was symbolized by light. “This is the light that lighteth every man that comes into the world.” “The people that sat in the darkness have seen a great light.” “The LORD is my light and my salvation.”

The pursuit of the Greeks was knowledge. “These things are written that we might know that we have eternal life.” The Academy was a Greek invention.

The pursuit of the Romans was glory – the glory of Rome, the glory of the Caesars, the glory of the eternal city, that wasn’t built in a day.

Paul, who was born a Hebrew, a citizen of Rome, in a Greek city, says this in Second Corinthians 4:6: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6 ESV).((Dr. Zacharias has used this example on several occasions. One example is from a message given at the Urbana Conference in 1993.))

It is not mere coincidence that in Christ God seeks to embody all of the pursuits and ideals of man. And it is Paul, because of his unique place in history, who has the insight to demonstrate how Christ is the Redeemer of the world.