Romans

What comes first—your actions or your beliefs? Here's Paul's answer: neither one. What comes first is the love of God.

What comes first—your actions or your beliefs? Here's Paul's answer: neither one. What comes first is the love of God.

For this Sunday's Living by the Word column, I focused on the theme of hospitality in the reading from Romans.

For my own sermon on this text, I almost went with the title "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"

While this is not the exuberant rhetorical surplus we find in 1 Corinthians 13, love is still Paul's guiding principle.

The church is still uncomfortable with human bodies. It does little to promote the rich connection between bodies and Christian spirituality.

Paul uses "body" as a metaphor, and contemporary Christians do the same when we say "the body of Christ." This metaphorical usage generally takes precedence in the church’s practice.

Bodies matter for Paul. And they matter for Christian discipleship. Paul foregrounds the human body as critical for the Christian response to God's mercy.

It's an old saw: When Protestants say “the Bible” they mean the New Testament, when they say “the New Testament” they mean Paul, and when they say “Paul” they mean Romans. I was looking forward to this opportunity to write Living By the Word. Then I received the specific Sundays I was assigned, and I confess I rolled my eyes a little. I could be yet another Presbyterian to write on Romans!

I went with Romans anyway.

Our age is tremendously excited about the visual. Yet here is Paul, firm in the conviction that "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."

Our age is tremendously excited about the visual. Yet here is Paul, firm in the conviction that "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."

Growing in prayer is not simply acquiring a set of special spiritual skills. It is growing into Christian humanity.

Bart Ehrman's conclusions aren't novel to anyone familiar with historical scholarship on Christology. But those aren't the readers he has in mind.

Preaching on biblical passages about labor and childbirth is important, but it's also dangerous.

Preaching on biblical passages about labor and childbirth is important, but it's also dangerous.

One way to approach the epistle text for this week is to talk about the spiritual discipline of saying yes and saying no, an idea I was first introduced to by M. Shawn Copeland. (I find The Message translation of this passage helpful here.) God created us with the freedom to say yes and say no. But as Paul reminds us, we don’t always know how to use this freedom very well.

We learn to be Christian not when we succeed at perfection but when we realize that we will always fail.

If Paul is right, we are living fantasy lives. Anytime we live as though power conquers and wealth protects, we live a fantasy. Anytime we live like death wins, we live a fantasy.

Paul tells us about a future that has already happened—yet we live not only like it hasn’t happened yet but like we don’t think it ever really will.

Is there any chance that people will not sin?

In this life, sanctification is gradual and difficult. Why would it be different in the life to come?

A runner is stranded on base, in a far country, unable to get home on his own. The batter bunts, aiming to obey the manager.

A runner is stranded on base, in a far country, unable to get home on his own. The batter bunts, aiming to obey the manager.