‘DEATH BE NOT PROUD’ Death came unexpectedly, And uninvited too It left us lost, wondering What’s a soul to do. You realize you’re helpless And have no final say You’ve lost control quite quickly And it’s too late to pray Yet death can be a mercy Instead of endless pain Life’s not endless sunshine But it shouldn’t be just rain I miss my friend quite deeply It chills me to the bone One moment we’re together... Read more
Rom. 8. 31-39 should probably be seen as one paragraph, though it could be divided up at vs. 4 as Tom does, but then vs. 4 has to serve as a bridge for both sections of this climactic portion of Rom. 8 so it is better to take them together. It is interesting that at the outset of Tom’s discussion about 8.31ff. he notes that the list of potential threat in vss. 35-38 does not include personal sins, or the... Read more
We have already mentioned how awkward a literal translation of Rom. 8.28 would be, and it is proper here to emphasize that Paul very rarely talks about the believers love for God, but he most certainly does here, and this is crucial for what follows in vss. 29-30 because these verses are linked together. It is those who love God, for whom God works all things together for good according to purpose/choice (there is no modifier ‘his’ in the Greek... Read more
In Rom. 8.22-27 we have begun to move to the climax of this powerful positive Spirit-filled argument. Here Tom emphasizes that Christians must be prepared to suffer with those who suffer in pain, and with the creation itself which is groaning for liberation, and even the Spirit is groaning within us and on our behalf, with groans too deep for mere words, so great is the longing for liberation. Paul quite rightly speaks of stages of liberation in this passage–... Read more
As it turns out, it was not just human beings that experienced the consequences of human sin, or ‘the Fall’, so did all of creation, and Rom. 8.17-21 is the passage that highlights this disturbing reality. Creation has been subjected to decay and death, just like human beings, and its fate is linked to ours, hence creation is looking forward to the day when God’s children will be revealed as raised from the dead, and beyond disease, decay and death. ... Read more
Rom. 8.12-17 is about what the Spirit does in the life of the believer, including leading them, eliminating the spirit of fear, and replacing it with a spirit of sonship which leads to an intimate prayer with God whom one can even call Abba, like Jesus himself did. And furthermore, as children of God we are also heirs, fellow heirs with Christ himself ‘as long as we suffer with Him so we may be glorified with Him. One of the... Read more
All this time you thought you were getting fit, but the large shadow of America’s cultural Embassy was frankly overshadowing all your efforts. But seriously folks, I was in Luxor with a group of my students once and we were studying the hieroglyphics at Luxor, and my students had been eating Middle eastern food for a week, and listening to languages they didn’t know, such as Arabic, and our guide knew they were coming down with a case of cultural... Read more
One of the more interesting aspects of Tom’s treatment of Rom. 8.5-11 which is the next subsection, is his reading of the last verse of the section, which he takes to mean that the Holy Spirit who lives within the believer ‘will give life to your mortal bodies on a parallel to the way God physically raised Jesus from the dead. This Spirit is said on the one hand to be God’s Spirit, but also elsewhere Jesus’ Spirit (presumably because... Read more
Forget speed reading, or skimming, but with technical texts you need to take a detached approach, take the time to back up and get some perspective on what is being claimed in the text, and then ruminate on what you’ve learned. As it says in Alice in Wonderland— Feed your head. Read more
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