My cell group is embarking on a three-chapter-a-week journey through the Bible, and we have started on Romans. We share our thoughts periodically. Here are mine. I thought to edit the letter, but I think more nuances come through in the unexpurgated form (save for names)--for instance, the feeling that I must have been high when I wrote this.
Dear all,
Hello!
Thank you for the sharings. They are very encouraging and I learn new things from them. I think we don't have to share anything utterly "cheem" but just let the Word sink in and share from our heart. It would be very cool if more people share (hint hint) a line or two. I mean, I like to be long-winded but a short line can do as much (and even more) than any number of paragraphs. And I believe writing in is as much an action as it is a reflection. We encourage each other and ourselves, and develop (as P--- would call it) a rhythm of Bible reading and a pattern of encouragement. =D
Romans 7-9 presents some very challenging thoughts--challenging to human pride, that is. First of all, Romans 9 talks about God having mercy on whom he will, and the troubling example of Pharoah being raised up specifically to become hardened and for God to display his power to the world through him. I found this hard to swallow when younger. The question "Then why does God still blame us?" (9:19) was in my thoughts.
I suppose eventually one finds out that one has missed the trees for the wood (or however the saying goes). Reading this passage again, I realise that my thinking has changed over the years (hopefully this is the "being transformed by the renewing of your mind through the Holy Spirit" thingy in Romans 12:2). Rather than being a piece about God's harshness, Romans 7-9 presents His incomparable mercy. First there is a dilemma: we are at war within ourselves because we keep doing bad things which we don't want to do. But we are saved from this "law of sin" through Jesus so that we no longer need to fight from the losing side. We can start from the winning side instead. Like B-- said, we are called to work out our salvation and not work at our salvation, which I think is a powerful summary of the whole book of Romans.
Thus, we have the amazing freedom of living by the Spirit and no longer being trapped by sin. We are free to do anything and be anything, and not just keep acting self-destructively. I'm in the Humanities (i.e Literature, theatre and so on) and there people are always saying things to the effect that Christianity is controlling and limiting and whatnot. But I think that this is not true and I am angry. Yes. I am. Angry. (no, not the wanna shout back kind of anger). I had a Bible teacher once who compared living in sin to having a whole field to move around in, yet we insist in walking into the post in the middle, just coz' God said don't walk into it, it's not good for you. I guess that's a simpler analogy of what happened in Eden.
I would like to share, though, that this rhetoric of freedom can be daunting to people trapped in cycles of sin (like addiction and stuff). I had a friend who would think herself condemned when she read these verses, because she couldn't seem to be victorious over sin like all the stuff conventional church preaching says. And I don't mean to say that the Bible is wrong. I think this is something we absolutely need to know. It's just that real life can be pretty messy and in my experience most of the time God doesn't miraculously take our predilection to sinning away and leave us completely pure and holy do-gooders. But why do we still face temptation (and sometimes give in)? I guess God wants us to find our strength to stand up under temptation, and He wants us to find our strength in Him. If that means making a few more errors while we go the wrong way in order to find the right one, His mercy is such that He allows it. Because He doesn't want us to remain softies who fall at one blow (though it's perfectly fine that that's what I am now). He wants us to grow to be mature Christians.
So I've found that in my life and in the life of others, God clears us of our sins instantly (justification), so we have complete salvation. At the same time, and paradoxically so, redemption is a process. God isn't finished yet. There's a future glory that's just waiting to be revealed, that's so much more that anything we can imagine, and so much more than our sufferings can ever win for us, because it's a glory that Christ won for us through his death and resurrection (8:18). Don't you know the whole of creation is waiting for the moment when Christ comes back again (8:20)? Maybe that's what we are all really looking for, deep inside even without knowing it (8:23). Isn't that why we changed fairy tales to have happy endings? Aren't we all waiting for that ultimate happy ending? We are waiting for the redemption of our bodies, to be completely free of the sinful nature. Meanwhile, from what I've seen and known, I believe that God works in redemptive cycles in the lives of those who are trapped in cycles of sin. I have witnessed it in the lives of people around me. One who had constant outbursts of anger grew less angry over time, though she still continued to have outbursts. Eventually she stopped altogether. One who was trapped in addiction slowly came out of it, not without pain--but over the years, the desire for short-lived pleasure and self-gratification is slowly being replaced with the desire to please God, so that one gives in less and less to the addiction over time. And one whose life moved in cycles of depression found that each cycle, though more painful, ended in far more peace and joy than she could ever find on her own, all due only to the grace of God. We are all, I think, moving in redemptive cycles, slowly being weaned off an addiction to ourselves and placed on the highway to freedom in Christ. It is more true than we could ever know, that "the path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, growing every brighter till the full light of day" (from Proverbs, but I'm rushing off now so I can't find the reference. sorry)
So I ended somewhat off the topic but I just felt moved to give my testimony from the passage. I told you Romans 8 is my favourite! Please write back! (and I don't mean K-- and B--). Don't you know it makes me feel like glass to write and write from the core of my being and face only a crystal silence? Just a line! Not to thank me or whatever. But a line from you about you and about Romans or whatever. I love letters. Ok, before I can sound more berserk than I already do, I shall end.
Blessings,
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