These discussions and weekly studies have been great! Today Jo Ann, Dan, Karen, Diana, Dave, and Robin attended. We missed Cindy and David. Those who drop in once in a while, were also missed. Hopefully Debbie will have a free evening in Israel to join in again. I hope Athena too can visit.
Romans Chapter 8 was the subject of today.
We started with reading the first two verses:
“ Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a]free from the law of sin and death.”
We came to the conclusion that we really didn’t understand what this meant, so Dave suggested we read the notes that went with this chapter in The Jewish Annotated New Testament. After Dave read those notes, we concluded that Paul was saying a new and wonderful future is in store only for Christians.
Dan mentioned that a very well known Jewish evangelist named Moishe Rosen (the founder of Jews for Jesus) once said that Jewish people are not interested in a relationship with God but are concerned with living Jewishly.
Robin commented that there is nothing wrong with “living Jewishly” since those in our temple are living out their Judaism by social action outreach and working to provide food for those less fortunate than us.
We talked about how the Ultra Orthodox certainly “live Jewishly” but does that not mean they have a relationship with God? Of course they do.
As we read more of the chapter we talked about Paul saying “living according to the flesh” and how there are born again Christians that definitely drastically change their lives once they decide to embrace Jesus. In comparison, Jews don’t have a dramatic change like that, but it is true that those who follow the Torah do wish to live holy and godly lives.
This got us on to the Torah. We realized that everything that Paul suggests to these gentile believers in Rome is already in the Torah. Robin gave the example of the Ten Commandments. Karen mentioned how holy a life her orthodox Jewish grandfather lived.
The very end of the chapter stood out: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
We decided that Paul was convinced that belief in Jesus is the only way. Dan mentioned that after one believes he is then required to do many things though like go to church, pray, give money, get baptized, and study the Bible. Paul truly the founder of Christianity because Jesus didn’t tell his followers they had to do those things.
Also verse 28 is a famous one:
“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
Dan said it reminded him of a statement by the philosopher Voltaire who was making fun of a person who said “this is the best of all possible worlds,” so Dan said “is this the best possible world for those who love God? Really?” He mentioned that is an SUV driving into a holiday parade in Wisconsin and killing five people…was that a way God was working things for good? Huh?
Then we got to verse 35: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”
Dan said this sounded like the persecution Jews experienced in the Holocaust. Did they go naked to gas chambers to be killed for not following Christ?
After we were done discussing and studying we again talked about how difficult this book of Romans is to understand. Diana said we really need a “Romans For Dummies” book! Jo Ann mentioned she read the entire Bible in a comic book once and wished that Romans could be found in comic book form.
Jo Ann will try to buy the Kindle Version of the Jewish Annotated New Testament to put on the screen so we can follow what we are reading better together.
Again, please add anything to my summary.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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