Romans Parts 1 and 2, 1-4 and 5-8: Preschool Class Walking the Line.

Presented to TSA AV Ministries 16 March 2025 by Major Michael Ramsay

 

Before we needed to be away for a little bit, we were looking at Paul’s letter to the Romans quite a bit. Today I want to review a little bit of what we have spoken about and look at some of the broad themes, ideas and context of the first seven or eight chapters. First some questions:

 

·       Who wrote Romans? (Paul)

·       When was it written? (Mid to late 50s CE)

·       Who was it written to? (Holy People / Saints in Rome – which means Christians)

·       Where is Rome? (Modern day Italy)

·       Who is Paul? (an Apostle, a Roman, a Pharisee from Tarsus in modern day Turkey)

·       Where and how does Paul die? (executed in Rome – probably beheaded)

 

This is important. Paul writes these words probably realizing that he is nearing the end of his life. He is respected by the letter’s recipients, and he wants them to be aware of many things. Now this is a very long letter. I have never written a letter this long – even my sermons aren’t near this long! - even in the days when I wrote letters to put in the mail – way back before email and social media, remember that? I never wrote letters this long. Now because this letter to the Romans is so long, he covers a lot of stuff. It is sort of like – do you remember the old days? – Did you ever have a friend or family friend who only sent you a letter once a year – maybe at Christmas – and it would go on and on for pages telling you more than you could ever possibly want to know about their life, children, family and pets, etc.

When Paul writes his letter, he has some things he expects that we will know before he even starts writing. When I used to teach, we would often give students vocabulary sheets of words they needed to know as they read. If the Bible was a Ginn Reader and we each had vocab sheets, words like these may be on them:

 

·       Law – rules the demarcate the people of God (separate out / reveal). Given to the Hebrews through Moses.

·       Circumcision – a sign that specific males are part of the people of God. This was given to the world through Abraham (hundreds of years before Moses was born). Looking around the room, all of us seem old enough that I don’t need to explain how that is done.

·       Flesh – our own body, our own self, our own thoughts, our own mind, as compared to ‘Spirit’ which is of God

·       Sin / Trespass - In Romans this refers to anything destructive that erodes holiness, peace, wholeness and/or life itself. Paul also uses the word to refer to things we do to hurt and decay ourselves and others (often translated ‘trespass’). He also uses the word ‘sin’ or ‘sin nature’ to refer to a desire or compulsion to do something we know that goes against peace, wholeness, and holiness. This is like addiction. We know what is right, we resolve not to do what is wrong but… and Paul spends a lot of time explaining the ‘but’.

·       Faith – this is a key word in Romans. The word faith (Greek: Pistos) also means faithfulness. It is a reciprocal word. Whenever you see it, you should probably read it as the faith of one person (either the subject or the object of the sentence) and the faithfulness of the other,

·       Grace – When one does what is best for another regardless of merit or anything else they are extending grace. Often a person experiences grace and mercy at the same time. You do something, you are awaiting the results or consequences of that action and instead you get a reprieve as grace is extended to you.

 

Romans in Review:

 

Chapter One: Romans 1:16-17 can be read as a thesis of at least the first part of the letter: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith[fulness] from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith[fulness].”

Chapter Two: Hebrews were given the Law but still they weren’t able to do what it said any more than Gentiles and others who were not given the Law.

There are good things in the Law that we should know and let people know about for their own benefit, because if they know in advance, they can be saved the consequences of these things such as: don’t murder, covet, lie, etc. These truths that are written down are all a very good standard for our life that warn us about what not to do to keep us out of trouble.

Chapters Three and Four explain the weakness of the Law. One of the weaknesses mentioned is simply temptation. Sometimes we would never even have considered doing something wrong, if someone hadn’t come up to us and said ‘no, don’t do that’! I remember I got in trouble a few times in elementary school because I just had to try whatever it was that the Teacher had told us not to do, because I had never even considered that before she told us.

An analogy: a teacher gives her class a rule, ‘no walking on the street’. She gives the class this rule because she doesn’t want them to be it by a car: if they get hit by a car they might be hurt, injured, die, and also, in so doing, emotionally hurt their friends and family, the driver of the car, etc. – so there is a good rule: don’t walk on the road.

Now there are some bad things to come out of this good rule: some people tattle. Some people tell the teacher every time a classmate walks too close to the road, every time a classmate accidently touches the road, every time a classmate walks in the direction of the road. Some people are so concerned about the rule – ‘don’t walk on the road’ – that they abuse their classmates with it. That rule which is made to protect people’s lives is now being used to make their life miserable. This is legalism: when we care more about the rules than the people the rules are there to protect, when we care more about punishing people who do ‘bad things’ than helping people to ‘do good things’ and to be safe – which is the reason the law is there in the first place.

And then, of course, there is that almost uncontrollable temptation, as well. Once the teacher tells Johnny not to step on the road, he wants to try it even though he has never even considered walking on the road before: he will walk as close beside it as he can, then he will put a foot on it. Then he will pretend to fall on it – all the while he is testing to see why this rule is here. And then Cindy Lou Who telling on him all the time doesn’t help either. This all makes him want to break the rule, which makes him vulnerable to the natural consequences of breaking the rule, which is getting hit by a car.

Now if you look at your vocab sheets, you will notice that Paul talks about circumcision. Circumcision is a sign that people belong to a group: the ancient Hebrews, the descendants of Abraham. It is like when classes of children are walking near the road how they all have brightly coloured pinnies or t-shirts on. These are the kids that have been told specifically not to go on the road. Now, it would be best for us all not to go on the road, but only the kids in the class wearing the pinnies have been given that rule for their outing: so the Law is the rule not to go into the road (which could result in death and / or other things) which was given to the children wearing pinnies (which is circumcision) but it really is best for everyone not to step on the road, whether they were told the rule or not. Does that all make sense? There are many ‘pinnies’ we have in the contemporary church to identify ourselves as children of God like this today. In the modern/post-modern church I would say that whenever you read ‘circumcision’ in the Bible, it may be valuable to read ‘baptism’ or any other pinnie that Christians put on to show we are God’s children.

Chapter 5 we have talked about a lot and I will speak more about too – but for today’s purposes, it talks about getting back to the Garden of Eden, getting back to a time before we needed rules to avoid doing what is harmful and to do what is good: when we could just do that by being in a relationship with God. Perseverance through the suffering of life brings us back to the garden.

Chapters 6 through 8, which we will look at soon enough, wrestle with sin: the desire of the children in our school/pre-school analogy, to walk in the road, those telling you to (or not to sometimes) walk in the road, and -of course- the act of walking in the road itself. Basically, what Chapter 6 says is that if you just follow your teacher you won’t walk in the road. These days preschoolers, as well as wearing pinnies, often hold a rope to help them follow their teacher. Chapter 6 says just keep holding the rope and follow your teacher – if you accidently step on the road or if someone else does, don’t dwell on it, just keep looking at the teacher, holding the rope and walking – it is when you stop and focus on the road or your friend who is on the road or the one who is nagging you about walking on the road, that you run into trouble (that is not to say you shouldn’t help your friend up if they fall on the road) but you just need to keep on keeping on following the teacher.

Chapter 7 always reminds me of AA. Anyone here who has ever attended AA meetings will know just how valuable they can be. AA’s step one paraphrased, “We admitted that we were powerless over sin [alcohol] – that our lives have become unmanageable.” Chapter 7 speaks of Sin as that force, that temptation, trying to draw us into that which leads to destruction, into the peril of the open road; Sin in Chapter 7 is the Odessey’s siren song calling us to some imagined pleasure that in reality will just wreck the ships of our life on the rocks of death and destruction. Sin is calling the preschoolers away from the safety of the path towards certain doom in the road. In Chapter Seven, Paul sounds like Odysseus strapped to the mast of his ship, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate to do, I do” (7:16) “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law but in the flesh a slave to the law of Sin” (7:25)

Chapter 8 offers us the hope. The teacher sees us on and near the road and still “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”. (8:1) The teacher pulls us aside, kneels beside us and offers us much comfort. She tells us that we don’t need to worry about all the do’s and the don’ts of the rules. We don’t need to worry about getting into trouble, taunting others, or even telling on them. We just need to follow our teacher along the path she is leading us along and then we will be okay, Romans 8:14, “for those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.’

So that is my wish for us today. Let us just keep our eyes on Jesus – nothing else can save us from sin or death. Nothing else can make us holy or whole. Let us cast our eyes upon Jesus. For us we turn our eyes upon Jesus and look full in his wonderful face, all the temptations of life will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Let us pray.

 

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Romans 7: 7-13: The Law: Leave it to Beaver.

Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministry, 18 September 2022, by Major Michael Ramsay

 

We had a great time at the toy run and the food drive this weekend. 2,878.1 lbs. of food were raised from the food drive and an elevator load full of toys from the toy run! Thank you everyone! It was great to be able to be out there serving coffee, doughnuts, publicly praying for the community, serving lunch, picking up toys, setting up, cleaning up and helping in everyway we can. So much of my life in this day and age seems to be spent looking at a computer screen: filling out forms, entering information into databases, answering questions, doing computer tasks from headquarters, emailing and messaging people about this or that or the next thing and since the pandemic struck, Zoom and now Teams has invaded our lives – so that even meetings we used to have in person are carried out on a screen!

It is a weird place to be, societally speaking. I grew up in a generation and a household that did have a TV – but we were always told that too much screen time and sitting too close to the screen was bad for you; as a result we kids were often thrown outside: to climb a tree, kick around a soccer ball, or ride our bikes over to a friend’s house (hoping they would have a TV that we were allowed to watch)

I remember when I was in elementary school one show that I used to go over to a friend’s house to watch after school was Leave it to Beaver. Does anyone remember Leave it to Beaver?

Heather and I have found old episodes of Leave it to Beaver on-line and, when we get a chance, we enjoy watching it together. Leave it to Beaver is an old black-and-white show that ran from 1957 to 1963 (it was already in re-runs even by the time I remember watching it as a child). The show was about a family with a mother (June) and father (Ward) and two brothers (Wally and Theodore, also known as the Beaver). One thing that strikes me is how this series stands the test of time. You can watch this show that was made in the1950s today, in the 2020s, and the themes are still relevant. That is really something - especially when I think of other shows and movies I have watched with much less of a time gap where I really need to stop, think, and remember the cultural references of even the 1990s, for instance.

Heather and I watched an episode this week entitled ‘the Pipe’ and that episode really reminded me of our scripture passage today from Romans Chapter 7. Reading again from verses 7-8, 11-13:

7 What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness…11 For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

13 Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

https://archive.org/details/leave.it.to.beaver.complete.series/Season+2/Leave+It+To+Beaver+-+S02E09+-+The+Pipe.avi

In this episode Beaver’s family gets a pipe as a gift from friends who are visiting Germany. Beaver’s brother and parents don’t smoke. Beaver isn’t allowed to smoke until he is 21 – he is about 7 years-old. One day when his parents are out, Beaver and his friend Larry convince each other to try to smoke the pipe. They first try to smoke coffee in it and then after that doesn’t really work, a couple of days later, they try smoking tobacco. The story focuses in part on this and on the fact that Beaver’s dad suspects and blames Wally, Beaver’s much older brother, when he notices that the pipe has been smoked. It is quite an interesting episode. This is how my mind related it to Romans Chapter 7:

The rule (the law) here stated that Beaver wasn’t supposed to smoke at least until he was 21. Once he began dwelling on that rule, he began to be tempted to break that rule. Without having the pipe at his house and the rule never to smoke it, he and Larry may never have tried to smoke – but with the rule in place they were drawn to break it…more and more.

Sin deceived them. They deceived each other. Sin grabbed them and they suffered for it. Sin grabbed them and their brother suffered for it. Sin grabbed them and their father suffered for it.

When Beaver and Larry smoked the pipe, Beaver’s parents found the pipe and could easily see that someone had smoked it. Beaver’s dad assumed it was Beaver’s older brother, so he confronted Wally and then punished Wally. Beaver suffered the natural consequences of smoking – he felt sick! And more: he and his family suffered the consequences of his deception.

The more I read the New Testament (especially Paul) about the Old Testament Law, the more I am convinced that the Law cannot stop anyone from falling prey to Sin. And in some cases, we may never have been tempted to sin if we had never heard of the Law. Sometimes the mere fact of being told not to do something can propel us towards that very thing. I remember one instance where as a teenager someone was challenging me to a fight that I had no intention of fighting – but… then… with each person who came to me and told me not to fight the other person because they were, bigger, stronger, a black belt in this, that or the next thing; I was drawn into this fight that I never wanted to have in the first place – and then a few seconds later when I broke the person’s hand, I felt bad, the person felt bad and sore, and we all suffered the consequences of this thing that I never wanted to do in the first place. I have heard similar stories of people trying alcohol or cigarettes or other substances this very same way – they were never drawn to it until they knew that they were told not to do it. I think the ‘War on Drugs’ failed for this very reason.

That is not to say that these rules are bad – again as shown by our culture’s current drug policy: drug use is seemingly encouraged and people are dying because of it. Rules in general and the Law in the Bible especially, are things that people and society have worked out over time in and through their relationship with God and each other. The Law, the Ten Commandment and more are not there to tempt us to sin. They are there to share with us the collective knowledge and experience of the way the world works. If one lies, cheats, steals, commits adultery, covets, murders, etc., the natural consequences will naturally be bad. They may be very bad. Not a punishment but a natural consequence. The results of doing these things are often terrible and sometimes unimaginably so. The Law isn’t a list of arbitrary dos and don’ts; it is a great warning from history, experience, our elders, and God Himself because He loves us and He doesn’t want any harm to come of us.

The problem comes when people focus on the Law, when we focus on rules, when we focus on prohibitions; when we do that, Sin can step in and tempt us to do things that are self- and others-destructive. Instead of this, as we spend time with God, He will let us know what is best to do; this is what I think it means when the Bible says the Law will now be written on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

The more I live and the more I read, the more I think about sin as the way it is portrayed here in Romans Chapter Seven and also in Genesis Chapter 4 and elsewhere. Genesis 4:7b, God says to Cain, “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” I used to think of sin like it was simply doing a bad thing -there is that element to it; however, the more I read the Bible the more I think of Sin as almost a force pulling you away from all the peace, contentment, and joy of holiness; pulling us towards in some case an actual and/or a metaphorical ‘living Hell’.

The Law was meant to help point out the ways in which Sin tries to draw us away from the Love of God but, of course, no rules can fully do that. The only thing that can keep us in the love of God, is the love of God. Again, this is what I think it means to have the law written on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

We have all heard the analogy over and over again of the counterfeit bill. The way one spots counterfeit money is not by studying counterfeit money; they way one stops counterfeit money is by studying real money – when you are intimately familiar with what is real you instantly notice what is not real.

The way we know how to have perfect peace, the way we know how to have perfect love, the way we know how to best be a blessing to God, ourselves, and others, is not to study rules about how not to behave. The way we know how to be the best, blessed follower of Christ we can be, is to spend time following Christ. The more time we spend with God – praying and reading our Bible, meditating, singing and talking to Him, the more we grow in the likeness of Christ and the more we are naturally compelled to avoid those actions that can destroy ourselves and others. Jeremiah 31:33-34 records it this way:

33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Let us pray.

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Week 26: Galatians 3:24: Freedom

A devotional thought presented originally to Swift Current Men’s Prayer Breakfast, Thursday 26 March 2015

Read Galatians 3:23-26

The Galatians are at risk of being trapped again by the Law. Paul is desperately, in this letter, trying to point them to freedom.

This raises a question: If the Law is something that traps us, why did God give us the Law? Why were God’s people expected to follow it for hundreds of years? Did God want to trap us?

Paul speaks of people being imprisoned and guarded by the Law. He says that the Law was our disciplinarian, our custodian, or some translations even say our schoolmaster. This is interesting because the word in vv. 24-25 that is translated these different ways probably can best be rendered ‘tutor’ and tutors –unlike guards or disciplinarians- were not considered bad people in Galatia. They were good guys: servants protecting, teaching and helping children.

I look at the historical role of the Law like a storm cellar. It is a place to hide in a storm. When Sin entered the world like a tornado bringing death and destruction to everything in its path, the Law was given to us for protection (3:19, cf. Ro 5:20).

People were dying in this storm so God built this storm cellar of the Law for our protection. He gives it to Moses and says, “In there, take everyone. Quick. Hurry!”

Moses does and people remain in this safe, albeit somewhat cramped and confining, shelter for a long time and then something happens… Jesus, through His death and resurrection, defeats Sin. He calms the storm. It is finished.

The storm is over; Jesus freed us from the cellar of the Law. It kept us safe during the storm but it is of no use now that Sin and Death have been defeated. Jesus rose from the dead offering us new life so let’s leave the storm cellar now and experience the freedom of life with Christ.

With that in mind, I have another question: are there times when, like the Galatians, we are tempted to return to the confines of the Law or a contemporary equivalent? Are their ways in which, even though life is carrying on outside the storm cellar, we refuse to walk in the freedom of Christ? What are some of the rules, special days, and traditions which we have that can – like the Law or a storm cellar - cut us off from our freedom in Christ (4:10)?

www.sheepspeak.com 

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[1] Based on the sermon by Captain Michael Ramsay, Galatians 3:19-25: Don't be a McChicken, Presented to Nipawin Corps of The Salvation Army on 20 Jan 2008, Tisdale on 27 Jan 2008,and Swift Current on 26 Aug 2011 On-line: 

http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2008/01/galatians-319-25-dont-be-mcchicken.html

Galatians 4:8-11: Vs. Old Jewish Law

Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 28 July 2013

by Captain Michael Ramsay

I heard this on the radio the other week: A man was nervously walking down the street in New York. A large intimidating man approaches him and asks ‘do you know where Central Park is’

‘No”

“Then I’ll rob you here…”

 A man in his car asked a police/by-law officer, ‘Is it alright if I park here?’

‘No’, the police/by-law officer replies

‘What about all of these other cars?’

‘They didn’t ask…”

In our pericope today we are speaking about the old Jewish Law. And just like Larry here enforces parking and other by-laws in our city, many of which probably didn’t exist 100 years ago, when The Salvation Army came to Swift Current; the Apostle Paul is saying that the old Jewish Law’s time has been fulfilled, it is no longer needed so they shouldn’t be enforcing it anymore. I’m going to read a few old Canadian Laws that have been fulfilled; some of which are still law on paper if not in practice:

Ø      You may not pay for a fifty-cent item with only pennies (Canada).

Ø      Citizens may not publicly remove bandages (Canada).

Ø      It is illegal to kill a sasquatch. (BC)

Ø      A law requires jailers to bring convicted debtors a pint of beer on demand.  (BC)

Ø      Driving on the roads is not allowed. (New Brunswick)

Ø      Bylaw states that no more than 3.5 inches of water is allowed in a bathtub.  (Ont.)

Ø      Businesses must provide rails for tying up horses. (Alta)

Ø      It is illegal to kill a sick person by frightening them. (Alta)

Ø      If you have a water trough in your front yard it must be filled by 5:00 a.m. (Ont.)

Ø      You can't drag a dead horse down Yonge Street in Toronto on a Sunday. (Ont.)

Ø      If you are released from prison, it is required that you are given a handgun with bullets and a horse, so you can ride out of town. (Alta)

A lot of these old laws sound silly to the post-modern person, as they are no longer required because the world has changed significantly since they came into effect. And today, even if it still is ‘on the books’, I wouldn’t want to try giving an Alberta ex-con a loaded handgun outside the prison gates. I can’t see how that would end well for him or for you. And if you have a trough in your yard, I would be very surprised if Larry gives you a ticket for not having it filled with water by 5am.

In the previous chapter, Chapter 3 of Galatians, Paul explains quite nicely this very point as it pertains to the old Jewish Law through the analogies of a student and a child.[1] When a student graduates, she is no longer under the authority of her teacher. When a child comes of age, he is no longer under the authority of his parents. Likewise now that the ancient Israelites have grown up, they are now longer under the authority of the Law of Moses; they now can experience freedom in Christ.

Another contemporary example: even if our town was in Alberta, where the law was written, Larry wouldn’t come by the Thrift Store and give us a ticket for not providing a rail to tie up horses because there is no longer a need to provide that service; horses aren’t the primary mode of transportation anymore. It is the same as recorded in Galatians with the old Jewish Law.

The Israelites and Judeans used to have to follow the old Israelite Law because it used to be applicable in the ‘old days’ but today the world is nothing like it was in the days B.C. (Before Christ) so the Jewish-Christians no longer need to follow these laws.

A couple of important review questions before we go forward:

Ø      What was an Israelite? (a person from the old United Kingdom of Israel or a descendant of the person ‘Israel’)

Ø      Who was the person Israel? (Jacob)

Ø      As a side note people descended from the remnant of Israelites who remained in the country after the conquest and exile, do you know what they are called? (Samaritans after the capital of the northern country of Israel, Samaria)

Ø      What was a Jew? (A person from the Israelite tribe of Judah, the independent Kingdom of Judah, or the Roman province of Judea, or a follower of their national religion)

So Israelites are people descended from Israel (Jacob) and Jews are people from Judea (Judah).

Back to the question of the old Law that we have been discussing then: the Israelites, who are descended from Israel; and the Jews, who are people who live or lived in Judea; they used to follow all these old laws stretching back to long before their countries were ever founded and now their countries are long gone and they are ruled by Rome and even more than this: As Paul reminds us, now that Jesus has come the Jews don’t need to follow these old laws from Before Christ because absolutely everything has changed now – Chapter 5 of Galatians will explain this part in detail.

This is a central part of Paul’s letter to the Galatians but here comes the confusing point: Paul says that the Jews don’t need to follow the Law because it is already fulfilled – that makes sense - but this letter isn’t primarily written to Jews; it is primarily written to Gentiles.[2] Who can tell me what is a Gentile? Technically (s)he is a Greek person but Israelites and Jews used the term to refer to anyone who was not a Jew.

So how can all of this about out-dated Jewish laws here possibly relate to Gentiles? What do Gentile Christians care about obsolete foreign laws that they never ever followed anyway? And why should we care about obsolete foreign laws that we never ever followed anyway? How does all of this relate to us here today in The Salvation Army? How does all of this relate to us today here in Canada? How does all of this relate to all of us here today in Swift Current, Saskatchewan?

The answer to this question – in part – comes from Galatians 4:8-11. Paul, after he spends a lot of time speaking to Gentile converts about the old Jewish Law then says to these non-Jewish Christians:

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.

Do you see what Paul is doing here? In saying this, Paul lumps the Gentiles and all of us together with the Jews of old. He says to the Gentiles in Galatia, who never were slaves to the old Jewish Law, he says that they were in essence just as much slaves, as the Jews were slaves.[3] Paul says, as recorded in 4:8, that they were enslaved by their own gods, their own cultic legal systems, their own cultic traditions. Some Jewish Christians have been telling the Gentile Christians now that they are free from the confines of their old Gentile rites that they need to adopt the old Jewish rites.[4] Paul disagrees: Paul tells these Gentiles that now that they are free from their own rites if they do start obeying all the special days and months and seasons and years of the old Jewish rites, the old Jewish rituals, and the old Jewish Law; then Christ will be as useless to them as if they had never met Him. This is because if they do start following the old Jewish laws then they will be in exactly the same situation as they were before they ever knew Jesus. Following the old Jewish Law after the resurrection of Christ, Paul says, is exactly the same thing as being a pagan or worshipping a foreign god: neither will get you anywhere near heaven (cf. TSA doc 2).

In a nutshell, this is what has happened. People in Galatia –who were not ever Jews or Israelites – they became Christians. They gave up all their old pagan or old secular or old cultic lifestyles and became Christians. Most Christians to this point in history we remember were from Judea. Most Christians at this point in history were Jews. So then these other Jews or even Jewish Christians show up in Galatia where the Gentile Christians have already stopped following all the outdated pagan rites of Galatia, and these Jews are telling them that they now need to follow the out-dated Jewish rites and the Law of the Jews if they want to be real Christians; then some of the Christians in Galatia believe them, turn and walk away from Christ and towards these out-dated laws.[5]

Do we ever so this? Do we ever turn away from God and towards out-dated traditions and regulations? Do we ever walk towards those who are telling us that in order to be saved we need Christ and something else; I tell you the truth we can’t turn and walk toward something else without turning and walking away from Christ (TSA Doc 9).

For those of you who came to know Christ later in life, I want you to cast your mind back to that time when you first came to the Lord; when you first came to Christ, what did it feel like? When you first came to Christ, what did you do and what did you want to do?

For those of us who have been Christians for as long as we can remember, I want you to think of a time when you were especially close to Christ: maybe it was at a summer camp; maybe it was at an evangelism week; maybe it was at a prayer weekend; maybe it was when you were first married; maybe it was when you were in college; maybe it was when you spent some time away?

Has everyone got a time in mind when they were really intimate with God? Those who can vividly remember when you first entered into that relationship, what was it like? I have compared it to when you first meet that special someone. Remember when you first saw him or her and then you first asked him or her out on a date or you first accepted his or her invitation? Remember that excitement? You wanted to spend every moment with each other? You wanted to get to know each other intimately. You didn’t want to be separated for a moment…

Marriages break down when this feeling is replaced by rituals, frustrations, deeds and other things that you have to do. Marriages break down when people stop being considerate of each other and start just thinking about themselves. When you have a close personal relationship with someone you want to spend time together and you are naturally considerate of each other because you love each other. When the initial feelings wane, many people in our day and age turn into themselves or to something or someone else and in this day and age many people even walk away from the relationship altogether.

This is in essence what the Galatians were at risk of doing: turning towards rites and turning away from Christ. This is the same for us today. If we here today are more concerned about rites, rituals, rules, than about experiencing a right relationship with Christ; if we here today are more concerned about whether somebody else smokes, speeds, swears; if we here today are more concerned about if someone reads the ‘wrong’ version of the Bible, holds the ‘wrong view’ of the rapture, or sings the ‘wrong kind of songs’;[6] Paul says if we are more concerned about how other people are to worship Christ than we are about actually spending our own time worshipping Christ then why did we even bother to say that sinner’s prayer anyway? Paul says that if we are more concerned about how our brother or sister acts – what he wears, who she’s dating, how he speaks – then we are about spending our time in prayer and worship of God through Bible study, service, and other means; then our faith is about as useful to us as an atheist’s. Like so much in this world it is not what you know but whom you know and how well you know Him.

With this in mind, I encourage each of us to encounter God daily. With this in mind, I encourage each of us to pray and to read our Bibles daily. Susan encouraged us weeks ago to read through Galatians as a congregation; I encourage any of us who have done so to do so again and I encourage each of us to commit to pray to God everyday. Today I have left these cards at the mercy seat to remind us to spend time with God and there are sign-up sheets for those who wish to make that commitment to spent time everyday with God in prayer and Bible study. If you leave your name and number, we will follow up and encourage you in that pledge.

Let us pray.

www.sheepspeak.com

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[1] Cf. Michael Ramsay, “Galatians 3:19-25: Don't be a McChicken...”, presented to Nipawin Corps (January 20, 2008), Tisdale Corps (January 27, 2008) and Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army (26 August, 2011). Available on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2008/01/galatians-319-25-dont-be-mcchicken.html

[2] Cf. James Montgomery Boice, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Galatians/Introduction to Galatians/Who Were the Galatians?, Book Version: 4.0.2

[3] Cf. David M. Hay, “Between Text and Sermon: Galatians 4:1-31,” Interpretation 54 (2000): 293

[4] Cf. R. Alan Cole, Galatians: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1989 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 9), S. 164

[5] Cf. Charles B. Cousar, Galatians, in Interpretation, ed. James Luther Mays, et. al. (Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 1982), 93.

[6] Cf. Richard B. Hays, Galatians, in NIB, Vol. 11, ed. Leander E. Keck et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000), 289.

Acts 10:1-11:18: It's All In Who You Know

Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 02 June 2013 and 24 May 2015 by Captain Michael Ramsay

This is the June 2013 text. To read the May 2015 text, please click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2015/05/acts-101-1117-impartiality-of-god.html

Acts 11:17 : So if God gave them the same gift [of the Spirit and therefore of Salvation] as He gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?

Today's talk is going to be a little bit different than most of our Sunday messages. Today will be more of a teach than a preach and this is for a couple of reasons. 1) There was a question that has come up a few times in people's Bible study as we have been looking through the book as Acts that I tough we should look at and 2) I wasn't planning on preaching today so I decided that I would re-write an academic paper that I had previously written rather than just wing it from the pulpit here.

Acts 10, which we are going to look at today, has been considered a very important chapter because it is understood to be the place where the Good News of Christ is brought to the Gentiles. Peter is recorded as declaring after this encounter with God and the centurion, Cornelius in Acts 10:34ff., “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). Acts 10:1-16 contains the visions the Lord gave to Cornelius and to the Apostle Peter.

In Acts 10:1-8 the reader is introduced to Cornelius and the vision that God gave to him. Cornelius is not only a foreigner but also a commander of the occupying military forces. The Romans were known to tolerate foreign religions and even invoke the names of regional deities before they attacked a city;[1] however, it is quite another thing for Cornelius to be “a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God” (Acts 10:2). This brings us to our first question of the text before us today:

1) Does this pericope, Acts 10, recall the first time that the Gospel (Good News of Christianity) is brought to the Gentiles (who had not already converted to the Israelites religion)?

HELLENIST JEWS

It is a commonly held idea that this chapter is a record of the Gospel being brought to the non-Jewish Gentiles for the very first time; is this so? After all, Centurion Cornelius “is introduced by language which presents him as already exhibiting similarities with members of the messianic assemblies.”[2] And back in Acts 6, which we looked at in Bible study this week, it records that there was a dispute where “the Grecian/Hellenists [Christians] complained against the Hebrews [Christians] because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food” (Acts 6:1). 'Grecian' or 'Hellenist' (depending on your Bible translation) or is just another word for 'Greek' and 'Greek' is just another word for Gentile; so from this it appears that before ever occurs our encounter with Cornelius recorded in Chapter 10; there were already, as mentioned in Chapter 6, Christian communities that consisted, at least in part, of Gentile believers.

So how can this be? How can Acts 10 be considered the first time that the Gospel is brought to the Gentiles when Gentile or Hellenist Christians are mentioned in Chapter 6? One possible explanation for this is that the Hellenist-Gentile believers referred to in Acts 6 may not have been Gentiles exactly per sae. This possible explanation would be why some translators would have translated the word as 'Grecian'/‘Hellenist’ rather than ‘Gentile’ in Chapter 6.  These Grecian/Hellenists or Gentiles in Chapter 6 may not have been of Greek blood. They may have actually been people of Jewish ethnicity who are were simply born abroad as opposed to those born in Judea. It would then only be those born in Judea who would be referred to in this pericope as ‘the Jews.’ 

This would be like if we -Susan, the girls and I- were posted in Germany when Heather was born, she would probably speak more German than we do; by now she would certainly act more like a German 3 year-old than a Canadian 3 year-old. She, however, would not be allowed to obtain German citizenship. She would be a Canadian citizen even though everything about her would appear to be German. And Canadian children, if we moved back here when she was starting school at age 4 or 5, could very likely refer to her as German or though she is Canadian. This could be the situation in Acts 6. It certainly is one explanation for the Hellenists. They speak, appear, and live in the Greek (Gentile) world but they may in fact actually be ethnic Jews rather than Greeks (Gentiles).

JEWISH PROSELYTES

Referring to the first question in our bulletins then, This might explain how the author of Acts could refer to people as Hellenist/Greek/ Gentile believers in Chapter 6 and still have Chapter 10 be, as is commonly thought, the first time that the Gospel is brought to the Gentiles. But there is, however, still the question of an “Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury;” (Acts 8:27), mentioned 2 chapters earlier, in Chapter 8; was this person a Jew? The fact that “he had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, [and] he was reading the prophet Isaiah,” as recorded in Acts 8:27-28, would indicate that he was at least of the Jewish faith, a proselyte if not fully of the Jewish race.[3] At least one of those mentioned in Chapter 6 – Nicolaus -is probably a proselyte (Acts 6:5).

Who can tell me here what is referred to as a proselyte? (a Gentile convert to the Israelite religion) And what did we say a Grecian/ Hellenist probably is? (A Judean, a Jew, and Israelite born abroad). So like the Grecian/Hellenists are mostly probably Jews born abroad (they knew God but had not met Jesus yet); the proselyte was likely someone who wasn't born a Jew but converted to the faith, like the Ethiopian.

So how are these Grecian/Hellenist Jewish-Christians of Chapter 6 and the proselyte Jewish-Christian of Chapter 8 any different from the Gentile Christians of Acts 10? The main difference is that before the Hellenists of Chapter 6 became Christians, they were Jews (they were Jews born abroad); before the foreign-born proselyte of Chapter 8 accepted Christ, he had probably already converted to the religion of the Jews. So then Chapter 10 here with Cornelius would be considered the first time the Gospel was brought to the 'pure' Gentiles because he was not born a Jew and he probably had not fully converted to Judaism but instead he may have gone straight from not fully following the LORD at all to fully accepting Jesus as Lord. He certainly would have been among the first who became a Christian without first fully becoming a Jew. Does this make sense?

WAS CORNELIUS A JEWISH PROSELYTE?

Another logical question does arise though and that is: was Centurion Cornelius himself a proselyte rather than a Gentile? As he was not a full member of the Jewish community, (cf. Acts 10:22, 28) and “although Luke attaches considerable importance to the God-fearing Gentiles in Acts, we have no standard definition or precise classification of ‘God-fearing’ from the ancient world,”[4] it would seem that he was what we would consider an ‘adherent’ in today’s vernacular. That would be like in The Salvation Army today the difference between a soldier and an adherent. A solider here doesn't drink or smoke and is allowed to wear a uniform but an adherent isn't. A Jewish proselyte, a convert, likewise would be circumcised but an adherent wouldn't. Does that make sense? So then accepting that the Ethiopian eunuch of Chapter 8 was a proselyte, the very fact that Luke did not portray Philip as having the same aversion to the Ethiopian as ‘unclean’ as Peter did to the Roman Centurion leads to the conclusion that Cornelius falls into that altogether separate category from that of the Ethiopian. He was probably at most an adherent.

So then does this pericope, Acts 10, recall the first time that the Gospel (Good News of Christianity) is brought to the Gentiles (who have not already converted to the Israelites religion)? Probably, yes.

Thank you for indulging me in a little bit of academia today, with this first question. The next few questions we look at won't be presented nearly as complex, I promise.

2) Do Gentiles who accept Christ need to follow Jewish rules?

Now, in Acts 10:10-16 it is recorded that Peter saw in his vision that “the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners” (Acts 10:11) and in the sheet were all kinds of unclean animals; Peter was commanded, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” (Acts 10:13). There are a number of things that are notable about this section. One is that God commands Peter to get up, kill, and eat. Jews are not supposed to eat those things and “the dietary laws are not a matter of etiquette or peculiar culinary habits. They are a matter of survival and identity for Jews. And yet can it be that these laws are being supplanted by some other basis for survival and identity,”[5] particularly since “the relation between the Jews and the Gentiles must have been very much in his mind with the expansion of the church.”[6]

          Peter’s dream is how “God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean” (Acts 10:28). It has been interpreted as the great revelation to Peter that the Gentiles are to be brought into community. It was decided, following this event and after much discussion, that the Gentiles do not need to follow all of the Jewish practices (Acts 15:7-10): “After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, ‘My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear.’”  James, with stipulations, concurred “…we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood” (Acts 15:19-20). So do Gentiles who accept Christ need to follow Jewish rules? No.

3) Do Christian Jews need to follow Jewish rules?

There are questions though about whether the Jewish believer was now entitled to eat what was previously known as ‘unclean’ food. Prior to even Peter’s vision, the food laws, themselves, were abolished by Jesus. “No doubt he [Peter] was present when his Master, in a debate with the Pharisees and scribes, insisted that it is not what goes into someone’s stomach that conveys defilement, but what comes out of one’s heart;”[7] “he declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19). Therefore it would appear that Peter accepted Jesus’ teaching on clean and unclean foods well before the incident related in Acts 10:10-16 and was deserving of the rebuke he received much later from Paul as recorded in the book of Galatians. So then do Christian Jews need to follow Jewish rules? The New Testament seems to be very clear that they do not.

Let's review what we have been reminded of today.

1)      Does this pericope, Acts 10, recall the first time that the Gospel (Good News of Christianity) is brought to the Gentiles (who have not already converted to the Israelites religion)? Yes and No. It is however apparently the first time that Gentiles became Christians without also first becoming Jews.

2)      Do Gentiles who accept Christ need to follow Jewish rules? No.

3)      Do Jews who accept Christ need to follow Jewish rules? No.

4) What does this all mean to us today?

Of primary significance to this passage in Acts then seems to be “God’s plan to allow uncircumcised but repentant Gentiles to experience the blessing of Israel’s salvation (cf. 10:44; 11:15-18; 15:8-11) and define the terms of Paul’s future mission to the Gentiles.”[8]  God dealt directly with Peter, a Jew, and Cornelius, a Gentile. The Good News is to be brought to the Gentiles and, as Peter states, “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are” (Acts 15:11) for “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35).

            So what does this all mean for us today? Last week when looking at Acts 15, we noted that the Holy Spirit is available to everyone and so we asked ourselves, are we (available to everyone)?

            Today, I think we need to also ask ourselves, are any of our actions, traditions, customs, and rules, like those of some of the early Jewish Christians, standing in the way of people coming to the Lord? There is an old expression about succeeding in life that I think applies to Salvation in general; re. experiencing eternal life: It is not what you know that matters; it is who you know. Along those lines I ask us this week, are there any of our own traditions that are more important to us than other people's salvation?  As holy people, I hope not. Acts 11:17 says that if we do indeed we are opposing God. Let us pray.

www.sheepspeak.com

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[1] Will Durant, Caesar and Christ. (TSC 3: New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1944), p. 522.

[2] John T. Squires, “Acts.” in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible. (ed. by James D.G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson. Grand Rapids, Michigan; William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), p. 1235.

[3] Robert W. Wall, ‘Acts’ The New Interpreter’s Bible 10, (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2002), p. 162.

[4] Robert W. Wall, ‘Acts’ The New Interpreter’s Bible 10, (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2002), p. 162.

[5] William H. William, ‘Acts’, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Atlanta, Georgia: John Knox Press, 1988), p. 96.

[6] William Neil, The Acts of the Apostles. (TNBC: Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981), p. 138.

[7] Fredrick Frye Bruce, The Book of Acts. (TNICNT: Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), 206

[8] Robert W. Wall, ‘Acts’ The New Interpreter’s Bible 10, (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2002), p. 160.