Romans 8:18-30 :: "Easy for you to say..."

Romans 8:18-30 (The Message and TNIV)


There is much more in these verses than I want to cover in a blog post.  Three main topics make up these ten verses:  environmentalism (v19-21), suffering (v22-28) and election (v29-30).  Due to space here, I want to look specifically into the middle section and our response to suffering.  I may hit another one later today, though.

I think we have to back up to the beginning verse of the section to get the umbrella thought Paul lays over his explanation.  I personally like the TNIV better here, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”  It’s easy to get caught viewing the grand story God is writing from a lower perspective.  One that sees life from the underside - the sickness, the sadness and the suffering.  We can be confident that no matter what we are going through now, it pales in comparison to what is coming.  What an incredible testament to hope.

Verse 28 may be one of the most often quoted and misused verses in all of the bible.  If I read it in the TNIV (“We know that in all things God works for the good...”), I have a bit of twitch.  That is the quote that gets thrown out when someone we love has just been diagnosed with cancer, been in a car accident, lost a child or some other instance that a Christian cannot explain.  It feels like a platitude that distances us from the suffering of others and offers an insufficient excuse for bad things happening.

Because of this, I’d much rather read from The Message.  He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our eager condition, and keeps us present before God.  That’s why we can be so sure that in every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good (27-28).  What an amazing hope.  We don’t have to sugar coat the bad things that happen in our lives.  When bad things happen, we can confess that life sometimes sucks and we don’t always have an answer.  We can sit with a friend and mourn with them and let them bear their grief.  In the end, we know that God can take a terrible situation and manipulate it for good in the life of someone who has trusted their life to him.  He always works “every detail” into something good, but we sometimes have to wait to see it.

Is my assessment of verse 28 fair?  Have you found comfort in this verse in times of suffering personally?  Maybe you have offered this verse to someone else in their suffering.  What was their response?  If a person does not have a “love for God,” do you think God is not working the details of their life into something good?

Feel free to focus on another of the sections in this passage.  Maybe God wants you to wrestle and engage with something different today.

Acts 5 :: Can't Let It Go

Acts 5 in The Message and TNIV Translations

On Friday, I left everyone with a few questions, but didn't really give much thought.  The Ananias and Sapphira story leaves me with a mixed bag of emotions.  I have a hard time reconciling this with what I've seen of Jesus.  Peter seems to be going off-course from the way Jesus led.  Jesus didn't even come down this hard on Judas Iscariot, when he was betrayed.  I can do my best to clean this up and make it make sense, but this weekend I didn't feel like doing that.  I just wanted to let the tension exist in my soul as I asked God to work the truth into my soul.

I dug into the story and discovered something interesting.  There is a phrase that bridges this story to one in the Old Testament book of Joshua.  Luke uses the Greek word, nosphizo, which means "kept back" or "put aside for oneself."  This is not that unique except that in the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, Joshua also uses this phrase in Joshua 7:1 when giving account of a man named Achan, who kept back some plunder when God said to destroy everything.  Luke, being a Gentile, would have been accustomed to the Greek version of Joshua's account, and it is widely thought that he intended to draw a parallel to this story.

Interesting note:  While the story of Ananias and Sapphira is about not giving, Achan's story is about not destroying.  Both ended with a smiting.  The issue does not seem to be a giving issue or a destroying issue, but a deception issue.  Both parties were guilty of assuming something was their's that was not.  Selfishness moved both Achan and the couple to deception.  This selfish deceit had not place in the establishment of God's kingdom in the Promised Land, nor in the New Kingdom that Jesus had established with the establishment of the New Testament Church.

This is important because I do not believe Luke is giving us a lesson about giving - "If we don't give our money to the cause, then God will smite us."  I have heard teachers use this story to get people to dig into their wallets and pull out more - all of what they have.  What crap!  Not the intent here by Luke...in my humble opinion.  I believe that Luke is carrying on the theme he began to develop in chapter one.  This new way of life was going to involve 100% of us - not 50, 75 or 99, but 100%.  We cannot present ourselves to God and to each other as being all in when we are withholding.  The reaction of Peter in response to this sort of deception is not so far removed from Jesus' reaction to the Pharisees who confessed one thing with their mouths, but something very different with their lives.  Ananias and Sapphira had a much larger problem than simply wanting to keep the money.  This is not something that the early church could afford to take lightly, either.  Peter is setting precedent that this sort of deception is completely unacceptable and leads to death (sounds eerily familiar to the story of Adam and Eve, too).

In order for us to be the Church that God intends for us to be and make the impact He intends for us to make, we must not hold back - our hobbies, our jobs, our families, our thoughts, our online habits, our reading, our watching, our...whatever!  We cannot pretend to be all in and not be.  God may not strike us down cold, but don't mistake that for Him condoning this sort of pretense and deceit.  Can you imagine being part of a church where people were completely honest about their pursuit of the Christ-life, not pretending to be one thing while living out another?  What would that look like?  Would that be as refreshing to you as I think it would be for me?

Anyway, thank you for allowing me the time to process this weekend.  I hope that you found something helpful in your readings this past week.  Remember to read with an eye toward application.  If our reading doesn't change us, we aren't reading it the way God wants us to.  Get into the story and let the story get into you.  Pray, seek and find!