kingdomready.org

Here is the link: http://www.timberlandbiblechurch.org/audio/dustin’s%20personal%20mp3s/romansaudio5.mp3

Again, please don’t comment unless you listened to the teaching. Enjoy! 

Summary

4:1-8 - Abraham’s faith - believing the promise.

4:9-15 - Not by circumcision and not by Torah.

4:16-17 - The whole family, according to the promise.

4:18-25 - God gives life to the dead and the meaning of Christian faith.

Chapter 4

Should be read in the same argument with 3:21-31. It should be taken as a single argument. Notice how chapter 4 will ultimately answer what 3:21 begins to ask:

“But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets”

A while back (a year ago, in fact) there was a long debate on this site about the Trinity, starting with the posting of a debate between Brant Bosserman and Sean Finnegan at the One God Conference.  The comments continued for a couple of months, and the thread was picked up again a few times since then, the most recent being February of this year.  One of the better arguments brought up by the Trinitarians was that Jesus said in John 2:19, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”  This is taken by Trinitarians to mean that Jesus raised himself from the dead.

Sorry that the file is in .wma. Feel free to convert it if you wish (long story).

http://www.timberlandbiblechurch.org/audio/dustin’s%20personal%20mp3s/romansaudio4.wma

Here are the notes:

Summary

3:1-8 - Questions which are raised based on what Paul has just said about being Jewish and having circumcision. 

3:9-20 - Citations from the OT concerning the witness within Torah that Jews are just a guilty as everyone else (due to their faithlessness).

3:21-31 - Christ reveals God’s faithfulness

(PLEASE NOTE THAT THE NIV HORRIBLY TRANSLATES THE GREEK IN THIS CHAPTER, I RECOMMEND THE NASB)

5 Questions are raised by Paul

3:1 What is the point of being a Jew? (9:1-5)

3:3 Has Israel’s failure nullified God’s covenant purposes? (9:6-13)

A new player on the biblical unitarian field is a man who calls himself “Servetus the Evangelical.” Michael Servetus, was the incredibly brilliant medical doctor who discovered pulmonary circulation and the remarkably talented theologian who wrote De Trinitatis Erroribus (On the Errors of the Trinity) in 1531 and Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity) in 1553. He was immediately banished from Spain after his first book was published and he changed his name from Miguel Serveto to Michel de Villeneuve. After a time he began correspondence with the famous French reformer John Calvin who was running Geneva, Switzerland as his own utopian project. Calvin sent Servetus his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion, which Servetus promptly read and filled its margins with annotations and corrections before sending it back to Calvin. Naturally, Calvin was enraged and actually cooperated with the Catholic authorities (whom he despised) to get Servetus arrested. Fortunately, Servetus successfully escaped but then found himself on the run.

Here is the link: http://www.timberlandbiblechurch.org/audio/dustin’s%20personal%20mp3s/romansaudio3.mp3

Here are the notes:

2:1-16
-Judgment scene
-God’s impartial judgment leaves no room for moral superiority
Remember the role of the judge:
-God will judge evil (2:1-4)

-He will do it impartially (2:6-11)

 2:6
Judgment according to deeds/works
-Quoting Psalm 62:12 and Prov. 24:12.
-This principle was embraced no less by the early Christians (Matt. 16:27, 2 Cor. 5:10, Col. 3:25, 2 Tim. 4:14, 1 Peter 1:17, Rev. 2:23).
-Good works were intended to be understood as THE way of maintaining the covenant status which was instituted by nothing other than grace (Old Covenant was through election of race, New Covenant is through faith in gospel).

Yesterday, I was brainstorming in the car with a friend of mine and we were trying to come up with a list of criteria which can be used to determine which of two doctrines is biblically correct. Below is the list we came up with. I was also thinking that we could assign a value to each of the following which would enable us to tally up a score for each doctrinal position. I really think that methodology is important. If we just make our doctrinal decisions based on tradition, or because we are anti-tradition, or based on intuition, then there is too much room for error. Perhaps if we had a solid methodology, a check list if you will, we’d at least be able to argue better when sharpening our respective biblical understandings.

Here is the link, hope you enjoy:  http://www.timberlandbiblechurch.org/audio/dustin’s%20personal%20mp3s/romansaudio2.mp3

Romans 1:18-32 summary:

-Idolatry and dehumanizing behavior resulting in God’s wrath.

-Remember that the covenant was there to ultimately deal with the sin of Adam (and the world).

1:17 and 18 - 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.“

 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

(The result from God for man’s unfaithfulness)

vs. 19-21 –

-God is evident

-This has been so ever since creation

-No excuse (cf. 2:1)

After Cornelius and his group became Christians, a fresh set of questions emerged about whether or not Gentiles needed to keep the Law in order to be included in the people of God. The apostles correctly decided in the famous Jerusalem council not to put a yoke on the Gentiles that they themselves could not bear (Acts 15). Before long it became apparent that Jesus’ death had ratified the new covenant, which meant that even Jews had been freed from the letter of the Law.

I’ve often thought that the “incarnation” excuse of trinitarians is totally absurd. A “fully God” AND “fully man” Jesus just wouldn’t be temptable.  One of the givens about God that we know from Scripture is that he is NOT capable of being tempted (James 1:13).

Therefore if Jesus is God, then Satan has got be a total moron. Trying to tempt God (who cannot be tempted) would be a total waste of time. And I for one don’t think that if Satan is capable of deceiving the entire world (Rev 12:9), he would be stupid enough to even try to tempt God Himself.  Therefore if Satan really did tempt Jesus (and that’s what our Bibles tell us) then it would seem to me that ol’ “serpent of old” knows something the trinitarians don’t know.

After studying the New Perspective on Paul as well as a good deal of 2nd Temple Judaism, I agree with many scholars who are now complaining that the “old” reading of Romans really misreads the data. The problem has been that Christians traditionally have come to Romans with their own questions and they force Paul to answer them. Instead they should allow Paul and the Judaism(s) of his day to dictate their own questions to us while we eagerly listen.

Here is a link to the class that was taught on the Introduction to Romans and looking at 1:1-17

Here are the notes that I gave to the class: