Romans;- Living in the gospel

By the end of the eighth chapter, Paul had completed his main task, of explaining the gospel of righteousness by faith.
It remains, then, to remind his readers in Rome what follows on from righteousness by faith.

He appeals to them (ch12 v1) “by the mercies of God”.
That is, God’s mercy in grace, which he’s already described, is the reason why they should seek to conduct themselves according to God’s will.

The mercy of God was made possible by the self-offering of Christ, the only kind of sacrifice that God ever wanted.
In response to this, those who belong to Christ should be presenting themselves to God as a “living sacrifice”.
They need to renew their minds, to transform their mindset away from conforming to the world and towards conforming to God’s will (vv2-3).

This can be expressed in many practical ways.
Paul begins with the way the individual believer fits into the community of believer s(vv4-8)
The starting-point must be humility, to protect him from the self-exalting pride of exalting himself above the others
Paul regards the community as a single corporate body.
On the analogy of a human body, it needs to be recognized that different parts of the body have different functions.
We all have different gifts from God, which we will apply in proportion to our faith.
Life in the church should bring out our love towards the brethren (vv9-10).
And also our zeal towards the Lord (vv11-12).
It’s well to pay attention to the different verbs being used here;
Rejoicing (in hope); being patient (in tribulation); being constant (in prayer).
Love to the brethren and zeal to the Lord are combined in the practice of contributing to the needs of the saints.
Appeals to live peaceably with others alternate with appeals to be patient with those who are not living peaceably with us. Bless those who persecute you, do not take vengeance (vv14-21).

This theme of submission to others leads into a discussion of submission to authority, but perhaps, nowadays, that needs to be given separate treatment.
At the end of that discussion, Paul urges them to pay respect and revenues wherever they are due.
Picking up that point, he tells them they should have no debts to anyone, except the continuing obligation to love one another.
Love, in itself, is the fulfilment of the “law” in the real sense of that word (ch13 vv8-10).

They need to make themselves ready to meet their God. For the time when they will meet him is necessarily closer than it was when they first believed.
He draws on metaphors which he has used before. It is a time for waking, not for sleeping. A time to live in the light, and not in the works of darkness. It is a time for soberness, not for drunken debauchery and other kinds of uncontrolled behavior.

They need to make no provision for the illegitimate demands of “the flesh”. But experience shows that they cannot resist the demands of the flesh in their own strength, so they need the strength of Christ.
That is why they must [continue to] “put on” the Lord Jesus Christ, like a garment, allowing him to take over the running of their lives (v14).

[I postpone to another occasion the long discussion of how to deal with fellow-believers who are “weak” in their faith.]

Finally, Paul excuses himself to the Roman church for giving them all this advice (though he is not, strictly speaking, their own apostle and pastor). He is confident that they are really full of goodness and knowledge, and well able to instruct one another even without his help.
However, he has ventured to remind them, because that task, in a general way, is part of the grace and therefore part of the duty which has been given to him by God as a general minister of Christ towards the Gentiles. So he has come back to the address which opened this letter.

He is entitled to be proud (because it is God’s work, not his own) of the ministry he has been able to fulfil all the way round the Levant from Jerusalem to the coasts which we would now call Dalmatia. Evidently the account in Acts is only a selection of his journeys. The needs of this work have prevented him from getting around to visiting Rome, but he hopes to repair that omission once he has carried out the task of taking the money collection to Jerusalem. He asks for their prayers, that the saints in Jerusalem will find that service acceptable, and that he will be kept safe from the unbelievers there.
Of course all readers of Acts know how that worked out. And how God fulfilled Paul’s intention of visiting Rome by means of the very circumstances which might have been an obstacle.

After the list of greetings, the last paragraph of this letter returns to the topic of the first, marveling in the mystery of God’s plan for salvation.
In the opening verses, Paul emphasized how the gospel had been promised beforehand in the prophecies of scripture.
He now shows the other side of the coin. The exact nature of the mystery had been kept as an unguessed secret, until the secret had been exposed by events and by “prophetic writings”, which may now include the Christian prophets.
Either way, the object is the same; “To bring about the obedience of faith” (ch1 v5, ch16 v26).

All glory, then, to the all-wise God for evermore, through Jesus Christ.

Here was my account of How God got Paul to Rome
I also considered How Paul won his case in Rome

Dude! What an excellent read man....gotta go see those links, man....thanks perfect timing I'll sit here all night reading

a reply to: DISRAELI

a reply to: DISRAELI

Slavery is the only answer. Too bad we have the 13th Amendment.

a reply to: dfnj2015
Your obsession is off-topic, as usual.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
They need to make themselves ready to meet their God. For the time when they will meet him is necessarily closer than it was when they first believed.
He draws on metaphors which he has used before. It is a time for waking, not for sleeping. A time to live in the light, and not in the works of darkness. It is a time for soberness, not for drunken debauchery and other kinds of uncontrolled behavior.

They need to make no provision for the illegitimate demands of “the flesh”. But experience shows that they cannot resist the demands of the flesh in their own strength, so they need the strength of Christ.
That is why they must [continue to] “put on” the Lord Jesus Christ, like a garment, allowing him to take over the running of their lives (v14).

I struggle with the logic in this. I understand it but.. I'll explain.

God is timeless and immortal, it can see all, correct? From your birth to your sinner days, then to your accepting of Christianity or any other religion for sake of discussion, all of the events that transpired and how you reacted to them. God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son so you wouldn't perish, but have eternal life. The most pious, morally and ethically perfect people that reality has ever seen who passed away before his coming would've still been doomed to an eternity of torture or non-existence at the least were it not for his execution and resurrection.

We're talking about the best of the best, sinless for their entire lives like Jesus. None of them would've been able to play the "if you want it and can think of it, it'll appear in your sandbox" game for infinity (heaven). It never seems to occur to anyone that they'll have no flesh, no brain, and thus no desres, Muslims being the biggest culprit in this case with the 72 virgins but the concept applies to all religons.

72 women for eternity? If you had sex with each one in every way imaginable for 100 years a piece, you'd be bored with them after a millenium which is a blink of an eye in eternity I'd imagine. The true Christians know this and just want to be close to God forever in bliss? What is bliss when you're no longer a human, thinking like a human, with emotions and thoughts? You need a brain to have those and you have to be a highly evolved animal.

God in its infinite power created this vast reality with DNA, evolution, a self sustaining eco system, science as we know it just to live in it for >100 x 365 days? That's only 36,500 days maximum from birth to death. Then, if you followed Jesus and lived like him, you get to enter good infinity and if you don't accept and believe that he was the son of God, even out of innocent ignorance to the story and the book, you "wake up" in an eternally evil torture world.

Why? No one knows, God made it and it makes sense because it exists on Earth and they wanted to make it seem as bad as possible so you'd accept Jesus out of fear of it and temptation of being in paradise world forever. All over if you followed a man or not, ethics, morals, works and deeds not applicable. The most sinless non-Christian who lived a perfect life go to torture world and the most sinful Christian who gave their heart to Jesus after being a murderer or thief their entire lives up to that point end up in blissful world where if you will it, it's yours except you don't want anything because you're not a human anymore.

a reply to: FlyingSquirrel
Your main issue is that we don't understand how and why the "bliss" of eternal life should work.
I think that issue is built nto the circumstances. The problem is that it would lie completely outside our present experience, which means that we have no points of reference. I sometimes compare it with the struggle of a species of sea-bed dwellers to understand life on dry land, having the expectation of being transferred to that life in the future. How could it be explained to them? What concepts would be available to them? How much could be expressed even by extensive use of metaphor?

That must be the reason why the New Testament says almost nothing specific about the afterlife, except that it will be "in the presence of God" and will be preferable to not being in the presence of God.

In your last paragraph you put forward a popular summary of the way the choice is made, but I think the popular summary is distorted by over-simplification. If you dig back through my profile, this time last year I was presenting a long series of threads under the "NTS" banner, exploring the Biblical presention of the way that "salvation" works. The question is too big to be re-cycled here.

I will say this. The essence of Biblical faith is trust. That is key to the whole relationship between God and man.