Bryan Richardson

Imagine

Re:Verse reading–Romans 9:1-8, Romans 10:1-21 (day three)

“It is not as though God’s word had failed.” We think we know how events must happen if they’re going to happen; otherwise, they aren’t happening. We’ve thought that way for a long time: Moses striking the rock instead of speaking to it; Saul offering the sacrifice instead of Samuel; Nicodemus asking how these things can be. When the particular anticipated moment they had imagined never came, often the people became afraid that God had failed or bitter that he had failed to act. So when we feel the same way, we join a long line of small thinkers. God is much greater than we can imagine, though, Paul says elsewhere. What if God does something in a different way than you thought it needed to happen? Has God failed–or are you about to learn something?

Liberate

Re:Verse reading–Romans 8:18-39 (day three)

“The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay.” God has placed creation at the mercy of man (“subjected it to futility” is how Paul puts it). We are to steward this creation. We have the power to do so, and that power is indeed great. We begin to see how great when we read that all of creation–all of it–is in the throes of decay. That’s our doing. In our sinfulness, we corrupt everything we touch. The sheer scale of the ruin we have visited on this universe–ruin of spirit, body, society, nature–is staggering. But God has given a hope-filled promise concerning all of creation–that he will liberate it as he makes all things new. Do you treat spirit, body, society, and nature as if you are now part of God’s liberation?

Fitness

Re:Verse reading–Romans 8:1-17 (day three)

“If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Left to its own power supply, the human body will eventually become completely drained of all energy and die. This is the damning detail of the fall of man: We ceased to draw our source of energy–of life–from the spiritual realm, in particular from God himself. There is no reason these bodies God created should not last forever, provided they remain joined to the source of their power. Did you know your body was that well-made? Any program of physical conditioning must include a submission of your body to the leadership of Jesus Christ, or the care of your body is ultimately in vain. Are you willing to let Jesus teach you how to live in your body?

Physical

Re: Verse reading–Romans 6 (day three)

“Do not let sin reign in your mortal body.” Sin is not just in your mind. It’s in your body. Yes, sin–that dimension of evil that we associate with secret desires and private thoughts and internal struggles–is also a very physical reality. The body is not just a marionette operating helplessly at the end of the strings that the mind controls. It has appetites and habits and ways that require little to no thought from your mind or direction from your will. The Lord not only intends to save your spirit; he intends to save your body as well. That’s what resurrection is all about. The old hymn says, “Take my hands…take my feet…take my voice…take my lips….” Will you confess the Lord as Lord of your body?

Because

Re:Verse reading–Romans 5:1-11 (day three)

“Hope does not put us to shame.” Sometimes, a person’s thinking about the future is rooted in naiveté, not reality: The child who counts on the arrival of a parent who has in fact abandoned her, for instance. But sometimes, a person’s vision of the future isn’t rooted in what should happen, but it is instead rooted in what must happen. This is the place where the prophets stood. They presented not what should happen, or even merely what was going to happen. They presented what must happen, because thus saith the Lord. Paul stands in that same place. He says our assurance of salvation is rooted in nothing less than God’s glory–His character, goodness, and His being. Therefore, hope is is not a wish or a dream. It is our knowledge of what must be. Because God.

Questions

Re: Verse reading–Romans 4:1-25 (day three)

“Abraham believed God.” Paul was conversant enough with the intellectual traditions of the ancient world that he undoubtedly knew the questions that had vexed thinkers for centuries: What is the good life? How does one become a truly good person? Paul would have asked those questions this way: What enables a man to live like God does–loving, pure, true, good, giving, and whole (in short, righteous)? In answering that question, Paul recalls Genesis 15, and points out that living like God lives starts with faith. It starts with believing what God says. Until we do that, nothing else will help us.

True

Re:Verse reading–Romans 3:21-31 (day three)

“We uphold the law.” The law of God sums up, in terms human minds can understand, the way the universe actually works, physically and spiritually. The universe still works in the same way, and the law is still God’s word about those workings, Paul says. It has not stopped being true. It enabled the formation of a people–the nation of Israel–but the law was never going to be scalable to the kind of future God designed for the human race. Through Christ, who came from that nation, God subjected himself to his own law–and lived where all others would have died. God spoke to Israel through his law, and it is the truth. God has now spoken to Israel and to the whole world through Jesus Christ, and he is the truth. Hear him. Believe him.

Immaterial

Re: Verse reading–Romans 2:1-29 (day three)

“As it is written: ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.'” That the character and behavior of Christians would invite the larger society to conclude God doesn’t really matter much is quite a serious charge. And yet, Paul declares, that’s exactly the circumstance we find ourselves in when what we say becomes disconnected from how we live. If we claim devotion to Christ, do we then organize our daily lives in the same way he did? Paul says earlier in Romans that a person can come to know of God’s existence by considering the physical realm. What can a person come to know of God’s personality by considering the way you live?

Dots

Re:Verse reading–Romans 1:18-32 (day three)

“…being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” The mind is capable, Paul declares, of figuring out that the universe had a beginning, because physical existence is non-self-creating. Therefore, a non-physical force must be responsible for that beginning. A non-physical force is, by definition, spiritual. Any critical examination of that reality will yield the realization–the revelation, if you will–that God exists, that God is the Creator, and that God has set the universe to function in one particular way. The mind can connect these dots. There is no validity, then, for us to claim that we could not possibly have known of God. The question is, now that we know, what are we going to do?

Pleasantries

Re: Verse reading—Romans 1:1–17 (day three)

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Sometimes when you read an email, the more that people use pleasantries up front–“Hope you’re having a great day”, “I pray you’re well”, “How have you been?”, etc., the more you anticipate unpleasantness. What sales pitch will you hear? What favor will you get asked to do? What will the writer try to convince you to give up? You know the drill. Paul, though, was blessing his readers, not buttering them up. Would they read things in his letters that they wouldn’t like–things that would be hard to accept? Absolutely. But Paul prayed for them that grace and peace would operate in their souls so that they could receive the revelation of reality. May we use such words in the same way.