Saturday July 30 – Romans 8: 18-39

Today - and again in worship on Sunday – we can enjoy the relief from the struggles of the last few chapters of Romans, to revel in a hymn of reassurance and encouragement. You’ll recognize some of it from funeral liturgies, eh?

We may not understand or agree on the underlying metaphysics, but who denies the appeal of seeing this age as the labour pains of creation birthing something new and better? Who does not want hope that is greater than wishes?

Hear the pastoral assurance that even when we can’t find words for prayer, the Spirit moves in us and for us. Hear it: nothing can separate us from the love of God. There’s Paul’s heart, after a lot of pages of his brain laying down propositions. Thank God!
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Friday July 29 – Romans 8:1-17

Here’s a hinge in the argument, which Paul intends to reach decisive reassurance. Does it work for you? How does ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set you free from the law of sin and of death’? Is incarnation, crucifixion, or resurrection the key?

Whatever it is that God did in Christ, apparently our job is to live and walk according to that spirit, setting our minds on the things of the spirit. Remember 3 weeks ago, Paul’s challenge in chapter 1 to those who worship and serve creatures rather than creator?

This argument is easy to steer into interpretations rejected by the church over the ages. Did Jesus only appear to take the likeness of sinful flesh? Are we to despise flesh and body, and become spiritual ascetics denying physical cares? I prefer the spirit of adoption, identification, rather than copying a ‘WWJD’ role model.

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Thursday July 28 – Romans 7:14-25

Is this an explanation, or an excuse? How is it that knowing the right thing does not necessarily lead to doing the right thing? Paul is not saying that the law is wrong or bad, but he is admitting that he breaks the commandments.

Is this the original ‘devil made me do it’ rationalization of sin? Our introspective consciences and modern psychology grabs hold of the rhetoric of ‘the real me’ struggling with ‘something inside’. What did Paul mean with such talk, in his time and worldview?

The argument concludes with something closer to acknowledgement of ‘moral hazard’ that when we are most righteous, we are most vulnerable to err. In the end, don’t count on anybody’s righteousness, but on the faithfulness of God to us.
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Wednesday, July 27 - Romans 7:1-12

OK – here’s an analogy: can you be unfaithful to a dead spouse? When the spouse is no longer your spouse to you, can you not re-partner? Of course you can, according to Paul.

Paul wants to construe the end of his relationship to Torah as ‘dying’ to it, and adoption into the body of Christ as a new relationship no more adulterous than the re-partnering of one whose first marriage has ended in death.

How we construe, or make sense, of the world, is not only objective scientific observation, but also a matter of choice. Torah can shape how you read and see your world – but sin can distort how you choose to act in relation to those constructions.
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Tuesday, July 26 - Romans 6

Why be a sucker? If God likes forgiving so much, why not make God happy by providing more to forgive? But once you recognize the new frame of reference, why play the game out further?

What team are you on? What side do you serve? In the middle of the game, you can play for either one, as if it were the ultimate winner, or dismiss the other, as if it were the loser. But once you know how the game will end – how will you play it?

It’s an ethical construction of purpose, (unfamiliar to those accustomed only to rule-based morality): whose are you? What is your allegiance, and your service, and your measure of success beyond your last few and next few mis-steps?


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Monday, July 25 - Romans 5

What do you boast about, and what is your shame, in our narcissistic culture and time? Despite the parodies of religious life as masochistic guilt – can you not recognize Paul’s celebration of ‘suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us’?

The wonder of this gospel is not our merit, but God’s reconciling act in Christ. We share the human mortality and fallibility and mortality, from Adam’s choice through our own. Does ‘you’re just like Adam’ define us? No – we can be just like some other guy!

It’s a metaphysical (so unfamiliar to us) construction of meaning: just as Adam’s story operates to condemn us all, so Christ’s story can redeem us all. Adam puts us wrong – Christ puts us right.

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Saturday July 23 – Romans 4:1 to 4:13

They call it ‘the Abrahamic ecumene’, the promise and challenge of how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam claim Abe. So what?

If Abraham gets put right with God, a model of being justified, redeemed, saved, sanctified by the atoning faithfulness and righteousness of God – how do any of us get some of that?

Paul’s midrash, his sermon on when God gets right with God, says circumcision was not the first step to get it, but a seal to show it. Was the first step of ‘faith’ his cognitive assent alone?

The sermon continues to chase down faith as related to trust, and as imputed, or ‘reckoned to’ him, not earned by his state of mind or good deeds – as we rely upon the same imputed justification…
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Friday July 22 – Romans 3:19 to 3:31

So the law silences every mouth? Would that it were so, eh? Just as ‘sin’ is more than ‘sins’, ‘law’ is more than ‘laws’.

The righteousness of God is revealed, now not only in the law and the prophets, but also through God’s faithfulness shown in Jesus Christ, who puts us right, atones, redeems – what does it mean?

Sure enough, it has more to do with what God does, than what we do. God reveals, and we believe what is shown. That’s the language of grace and gift, not works and deeds.

Do you always read ‘faith’ as our subjective state of cognitive assent to propositional beliefs? What if it’s the faithfulness of God, shown in and through Torah and through Jesus Christ?
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Thursday July 21 – Romans 3:1 to 3:18

What good is belonging, or being good? Don’t the hypocrisy and frailty of the religious make you just want to give it up?

It’s hard to tune out the supercessionist interpretations of Paul that claim Christianity replaced Jewish failure – but if we can only read Paul as a self-hating anti-Semite, post Holocaust, let’s quit.

Measure goodness by God’s righteousness, God’s faithfulness in Christ, God’s good creation, not by religious folk. God of Jews and Gentiles is faithful in Torah for Jews, in Christ for Gentiles.

What will you make of all the scripture, piled upon itself? Does it matter when Paul shifts from our ‘sins’ to the power of ‘sin’, from moral measure to cosmological myth and narrative? Read on!

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Wednesday July 20 – Romans 2:17 to 2:29

Who is Paul writing to: Jews, or Gentiles tempted to claim to adopt their own version of Judaism in a Christian community?

This argument continues the warning against claiming too much in pride - and the invitation to a more modest confession of faith and of mortal limitations. Some religion gives God a bad name!

The distinction between the external sign of circumcision and inward ‘circumcision of the heart’ is not an anti-Semitic rant. What does it say to those relying on baptism and outer show?

What kind of company do you want to keep, and what company do you want to keep? If you can be religious and not right with God, or irreligious and right with God – what’s God’s offer to me?

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Tuesday July 19 – Romans 2:1 to 2:16

This argument would shut up the moralistic accusers, if they could ever get past Monday’s reading as blame, to confession.

Slow down with Paul to reflect on choices and consequences. What results in eternal life, and what leads to wrath and fury? Remember to read this as confession, not blame.

God does not play favorites in this game of consequences. Chosen people get Torah, but we all account for what we do with what we get, within or beyond the pale. Don’t blame your mom!

Who talks the talk, and who walks the walk, hearers or doers of the law? Who has no heart or conscience - secret thoughts? This is reflection on morality – but is it really that moralistic?
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Monday July 18 - Romans 1:18 to 1:32

Can you get through and beyond today’s reading? Paul’s polemic is only exceeded by popular pietistic interpretations in toxicity.

I can hear that God revealed God-self in creation for anybody to see, and gave us freedom to work with it or against it. Choose small, worship the creature not the creator – and stuff happens!

I have trouble tuning out the salacious homophobic interpreters who obsess on verses 26 and 27. Why do we never linger as long on verses 28-31, longer lists of vices that we all share?

How does a good life in a good creation go wrong? What’s the root of how humans mess up with God and with each other? Who deserves to die – what choices have what consequences?
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Sunday July 17 - Outline of 6 Weeks of Reading Romans

Today's message in worship was 'Invitation' - an invitation to a conversation with Paul's letter to the Romans, and with others of us as we read - the message will be podcast at www.thornhillunitedchurch.ca, notes of the message posted at www.billbrucewords.com, and the daily notes posted here - the outline's like this:

Week 1: Introductions
From whom, to whom?
Daily Readings & Weekly Discussions
Fri, Sat, July 15, 16 – Romans 1:1-17
Thurs July 14, repeated Sun July 17

Week 2: Problem & Response
Who & what needs to be put right with God?
By whose faithfulness: God’s, Jesus’, ours?
Daily Readings & Weekly Discussions
Mon to Sat, July 18-23 - Romans 1:18 to 4:25
Thurs July 21, 8pm, repeated Sun July 24

Week 3: Freedom & Law
Freed from what, for what, by what?
Daily Readings & Weekly Discussions
Mon-Sat July 25-30, Romans 5:1-8:39
Thurs July 28, repeated Sun July 31

Week 4: God’s People & Other People
Us & Them, Jews & Gentiles
Daily Readings & Weekly Discussions
Mon-Sat Aug 1-6, Romans 9:1 – 11:36
Thurs Aug 4, repeated Sun Aug 7

Week 5: What to do about it all
Exhortation – advice on living
Daily Readings & Weekly Discussions
Mon to Sat, August8-13, Romans 12:1 – 15:13
Thurs Aug 11, 8pm Repeated Sun Aug 14

Week 6: Conclusions
Paul’s conclusions – and ours…
Daily Readings & Weekly Discussions
Mon-Sat Aug 15-20, Romans 15:14 – 16:27
Thurs Aug 18, repeated Sun Aug 21


The detailed Romans readings will follow...
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Saturday July 16: Romans 1:7-17 – ‘To Whom?’

So – we’re picking up the pace already! To whom was Paul writing, according to these bits?

What difference does it make to be residents of Rome in the first century after Jesus – or residents of New York, Washington, London or Paris in our time? Empire is based here, and communications and trade and power of every kind flows through the capital.

Is Paul trying to appeal to a purely Jewish audience? Does this sound like an anti-Semitic rant directed against Jews? How about a mixed crowd by ethnicity, education and wealth? How many names for groups of people can you count?

Is he coming on all pompous, ‘Let me tell you’? How do you like the rhetoric of apologizing for hot coming sooner, and of proposing to listen, learn, share, and mutually encourage, as he says he always does?

Reading Romans in Thornhill, there is an ethical key for us in a community with many ethnicities and varieties of Christians and Jews, among other peoples. Does Paul write to ex-Jews who join a replacement religion, or affirm Judaism while extending the circle to Gentiles and Jews and barbarians like us?

The reading closes with a set of words that seem familiar: gospel, salvation, faith, righteousness to replace the demographic distinctions above. Perhaps they are less familiar than we think – if translated ‘trust’, ‘putting people right’, acts of faith, or other terms: ‘faithfulness of God’, not belief or ‘faith in God’.


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Friday July 15: Romans 1:1-6 – ‘From Whom?’

We’re starting slow and easy: who’s writing this letter?

Have you written a cover letter to introduce yourself to a potential new employer or client or school? Did they already know about you by reputation?

Paul is on his way to Rome – actually to stop in Rome on his way to Spain, he’ll say soon in this letter. He has been working around the east end of the Mediterranean, in Turkey and Greece.

What do you know – or assume that you know – about Paul and his reputation? Is he, as Crossan puts it in a ‘Living the Questions’ video, an ‘Appealing or Appalling Apostle?’ Are you predisposed for, or against him?

How does Paul place himself as an agent? For whom or for what does he say he’s working?

Which translation do you prefer? The New Revised Standard Version is the bible in our pews, updated in the 1990’s to address issues of gender in translation, but generally keeping to the mid-20th century RSV standard of careful academic and orthodox accuracy. The Message is a more freestyle, vernacular version, a paraphrase of the original which was written in Greek. Many of us find the Good News easier to read – or know the Jerusalem Bible from their Catholic roots.

We won’t go this slow for the coming weeks – and we’ll leave it up to you to have the text in hand or online, in some translation that you like reading.


Text of Romans 1:1-6 Read more...