Romans Study XLI - Wrapping it up & The Mystery

Finishing up the letter in Romans 16:

 ¹⁷Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.

 ¹⁸For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

Paul here is warning the believers to stay united in faith and avoid people who teach other doctrine. That seems simple enough. But what IS the doctrine they have learned? To highlight the main points of this epistle at least:

• All have sinned - Jew and Greek, everyone is guilty, whether having the law or not, everyone has morality written on their conscience.
• Salvation is a free gift given apart from the Law. Paul uses the example that before even circumcision, Abraham was justified by faith.
• As is Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. 
• We are now dead to sin and alive unto God. Sin is not to rule us any longer.
• The Law tells us what sin is and what God's character is like.
• All things work for the good to those who love God.
• God is Sovereign and works everything is history and into the future in accordance to His plan.
• The nation of Israel was predetermined to fall, but will be restored at a future time to receive the promises that God made to them.
• The Body of Christ is diverse, yet unified just as a human body needs different parts but is a whole.
• God is in control of the world's governments.
• We are to be at peace with one another in the area of Christian liberty.

 ¹⁹For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.

 ²⁰And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

 That's an odd thing to say:

It immediately reminds me of this:

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15

Thy seed (the seed of Satan) and The woman's seed, Christ. Paul says God will bruise Satan under the believer's feet shortly...hmmm. There's got to be something there.  I'm leaving it for now.

 ²¹Timotheus my workfellow, and Lucius, and Jason, and Sosipater, my kinsmen, salute you.

 ²²I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.

 ²³Gaius mine host, and of the whole church, saluteth you. Erastus the chamberlain of the city saluteth you, and Quartus a brother.

 ²⁴The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

More names.

 ²⁵Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
 ²⁶But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:

The revelation of the mystery. I've been trying to find out what Paul is talking about here, but it isn't very clear to me at this time. What was kept secret since the world began?  I'm leaning toward it being the death and resurrection of Jesus, due to this:

1Corinthains 2:7-8  But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, [even] the hidden [wisdom], which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known [it], they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

From the (brief) research I've done in this matter, 1Corinthians and Romans were written within a year or two of each other, so this fits. Any other ideas are welcome.

 ²⁷To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.

Well, that's it for Romans. This was a great exercise and wonderful way to verse by verse it for me. I hope some of you got something out of it too.


I would love to do this again, but not sure where I want to go. I think I'll take the summer off from this and then perhaps direction will come as to where to go next. Thanks everyone who has been reading and commenting during this study.

Hello... I'm a Pharisee

Of all the admonishments Jesus gave out,  the harshest were against those religious or outwardly righteous or "elect" of the day.




Over the last several months, the Lord has been working on me in the area of love. This isn't easy do when everything is all peachy and every relationship is good, so He's made sure to mix things up a bit-which is a necessary, but certainly painful thing.

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy [is] understanding.

The beginning of wisdom...that would indicate to me that there is so much more.

My salvation experience was out of fear (of which I'm extremely thankful for and I don't know how it could've been any other way, so God knows what He's doing) and since then I have been scared to death of Him for many years, in between times of feeling that He really does love me, which I do know unquestionably but often wondering what exactly it is that He wants from me.




Lately, though, all the love scriptures have been popping out like never before.

1John 4:18  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

I've been guilty of the I'm saved and good with God, but you'd better get it together or He's gonna get you attitude.  While we must speak the truth and not compromise God's standards, it is not our place to condemn. I fear that in my zealousness I have kicked some people when they were down.  I think of what God said to Jonah about the people of Nineveh not knowing their right hand from their left.



God is Love and God WILL judge. I have been pondering on what Jesus said is what the Law and Prophets were all about.

Thinkin' about Jonah and 1Corinthains 13

I was thinking about Jonah this morning, how he is much like us.

For whatever reason he didn't want God to save those in Nineveh. They were REALLY bad sinners, unlike himself of course.

He was angry enough to die!

But they repented and at this Jonah was not joyful, but instead waited around for the hammer to fall on them. He was ready to rejoice over their destruction.

The kids had to memorize part of 1Corinthians 13 for Sunday school recently:

Charity (agape)* suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Charity never faileth:

Heavenly Father, let me not rejoice in iniquity.

* I really do prefer the KJV, but it does have a tendency to translate the same word different ways in different places..the same word "agape" translated "charity" here is translated as "love" in other passages..go figure.

Matthew 24:5

    For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

When reading this, I have always assumed (or was it taught to me?) that what Jesus is saying here is that many will come saying "I am the Christ" and will deceive many.  In other words, people will rise up and say "I (a person saying me myself ) am the Christ" and many will believe them and be deceived.

It could say that OR:

(I heard a different take on this yesterday.)

Could Jesus have possibly be saying that many will come in His name saying He (Jesus) is the Christ...and deceive many?   The gist of it being that the many that will come will be all manner of teachers, preachers, priests, and the like saying that Jesus IS the Messiah, but will deceive many because of their wrong teaching. 

The point made was that the handful of people that have actually claimed to BE Jesus aren't really deceiving "many".

I can see how this can be read this way, but I'm not a Greek scholar, so Strong's isn't helping much. Anyone out there a Greek scholar?

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting.

TBN's Holy Land Experience Theme Park for instance

What was up with that Tree?

I've been in silence mode recently (except for now of course).

I ask Him all the time to give me wisdom, help me to understand His word, Him. He's giving me some things to chew on.  I can't put them into words just yet, but this morning was thinking about the tree.

more gorgeous photography here

If God's world was perfect and all was "very good" why put a tree in creation...in the midst of the garden no less, that was forbidden for men to eat?  A tree in which was desirable to man's senses and could do nothing but provoke curiosity in them? A tree in which the knowledge it would give man would ultimately bring sorrow and pain and hard labor and death.

I think most theologians would agree that if God had not intended for man to fall, then what was up with that tree?  Could God NOT have prevented it? Of course He could have but instead He placed the temptation and even the tempter there.

So The man and his wife were told that in the day they ate of the fruit of the tree they would die  Apparently, death was not in the mix yet and was unknown. They of course didn't die physically that very day, many would say they died spiritually, but that's really not the point here I guess.

They were banished from the Tree of Life (the other tree which doesn't get much press)...in which they could have lived forever, and the way to this tree was now guarded from them.  The way of immortality was lost and the introduction of sorrow and sin became mankind's lot.