Bible Study With Jairus

The first paragraph (verses 1-16) of Romans 2 discusses Paul’s criticism of self-righteous people. For example, verse 1 says, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things” (NIV). While paragraph 2 (verses 17-29) discusses Paul’s criticism of Jews who boast in the law. For example, verse 17 (NIV) says, “Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God,” but in verse 23 (NIV), Paul also criticized them as “someone who brags in the law but has dishonored God by breaking the law.”

Leviticus 17 talks about Jehovah’s command against consuming blood. Our discussion focuses on why God does not allow blood to be consumed. Of course, in addition to health and hygiene considerations, there are also spiritual considerations.

In chapters 13 and 14 God gave Moses detailed instructions on how leprosy should be handled by the priests.  I was puzzled reading these chapters wondering why God spent so much time discussing the details of this disease.  What spiritual significance do these chapters hold for us today?

In chapter 11, Paul focuses on how salvation came to the Gentiles because of the Israelites unbelief.  He discussed how God’s salvation would come to the Jews again, and all Israel will be saved when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.  A man in our study questioned Romans 11:32, “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.”  Why did consigning us to disobedience instead become God’s mercy?

Romans 9 talks about the Israelites being temporarily abandoned by God. The Gentiles—who did not pursue righteousness—were instead justified by faith (Romans 9:30). Meanwhile, the Israelites who were pursuing a law that would lead to righteousness failed to reach that law (Romans 9:31). Why? And what warning does this have for Christians today?

The subject of Romans 6 is about being united with Christ, including the experience of death and resurrection with Christ (Romans 6:1-5).  Paul specifically mentioned that our old man was crucified with Christ.  The sinful flesh has already been annulled (Romans 6:6-16), so we should consider ourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11).   Although many Christians know this truth, they often find that their old man and flesh are still very active in their experience. How do we make sense of this? Paul's explanation in verses 12-23 says that we should offer our bodies to God as instruments for righteousness and not offer them to sin as instruments for unrighteousness (Romans 6:13).  In other words, as Paul said in Romans 8, "Setting our mind on the Spirit is life and peace, but setting the mind on the flesh is death." (ESV, Romans 8:6).

Romans 4 continues the theme of justification by faith, which Paul introduced in Romans 1:17: "The righteous shall live by faith." (ESV) Romans 5 builds on the concepts of justification by faith which are discussed in chapter 4. Romans 5 begins, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:1 ESV) Clearly, the theme of Romans 4 is “justification by faith.”

When we first read Romans 3, we felt that there was some confusion in the logic.  For example, Paul   asked a question in the first verse: "What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision?" (Romans 3:1, NIV).  Then he answered this question in the second verse.  He said: "Much in every way!  First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God."  Logically speaking, we would then expect Paul to say: "second or third" later, but we couldn’t find the second or third in chapter 3, nor in chapters 4 or 5.  When I searched online, I saw that it's not until Romans 9:4-5 before Paul talked about other advantages of the Jews.  So it's not that Paul's logic is unclear.  It's just that we don't understand his reasoning, making it difficult to properly interpret this chapter.

The man who led our Bible study on Leviticus 16 asked a good question.  When the high priest stood before God and used the blood to make atonement, did the Israelites still have sin (verses 14-15)?  Clearly, the sprinkling of blood only covered sin temporarily.  It didn't take the sin away forever.  In the New Testament, our sin was cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus.  Why do we still sin then?  In the Old Testament, Balaam prophesied that Israel was blameless in his sight (Numbers 23:21).  The New Testament also says that the church is holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:27).  How can we look at the Israelites and ourselves as blameless when we know that the Israelites were full of apostasy and sin, and we in the New Testament church also still sin?  How can these two seemingly contradictory truths be explained? This led to a lively discussion.

Have you ever been in a situation where you faced a tough decision? How did you deal with the ambiguity and uncertainty? Often, when we don’t know what to do, we search for a dogmatic command from God to eliminate all uncertainty. However, God wants us to get to know him personally and accept his unique guidance in each specific circumstance of our lives.