Found in Translation

Paul wasn't only making a passionate theological argument this whole time. It shows up in the nitty-gritty of actual cultural difference: power dynamics, deeply-held customs around food and idols and sex and strangers. And that's how he concludes his letter to the Jesus huddle in Rome.

We take this week as an opportunity to reflect on the entire flow of Romans that leads us to his final arguments, ponder about implications for today, and give this season's parting drop-kick to the ESV to the Apostle Junia.

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Read LIT online: www.litbible.net/romans-14

More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation: https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments

Support LIT & FIT: https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1

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Opportunity Walks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Romans has been a forceful ethical argument from the outset: arguing for a life beyond supremacism, exclusion, and domination that is made possible by God in Jesus Christ. A life together of peace.

And yet Paul still desires to complete his letter with explicit ethical guidance: how to be a people of this kind of peace.

Looming over it all is Rome. What of those who hope in the Pax Romana? Who control their known world? Here we encounter some of Paul's most widely abused language, Romans 13, concerning the power of the state and those who claim to wield violence for public good. Is he endorsing their exclusive claim to violence? Doesn't this give free reign to authoritarians?

Historic translations have bent Paul's words to suggest as much. We call bullshit. With the help of historians and political scientists, let's listen deeply for why this isn't a moment of Paul losing the plot. It's deeply subversive, and even a wee bit anarchistic.

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Read LIT online: www.litbible.net/romans-12

More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation: https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments

Support LIT & FIT: https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1

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Opportunity Walks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Translations and interpretations that make entire stretches of Romans incongruous seem to fundamentally be missing something. If your theory can't hold all the data, change the theory, not the data, right?

Can the Liberation & Inclusion Translation help us make better sense of Romans 9 through 11? Will it be part of a seamless letter? We believe it must. It must be heard within Paul's wider insistence that in Christ Jew and Gentile are woven together in one non-hierarchal holy belonging.

Along the way we'll address passages that historically are used to support predestination, God sending people to hell, and other wacky toxic shit.

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Read LIT online: www.litbible.net/romans-9

More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation: https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments

Support LIT & FIT: https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1

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Opportunity Walks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

We can't handle how excited this conversation got us. So many profound shifts come to bear as Paul brings the bulk of his arguments to a crescendo!

• more time exploring the oppressive legacy of sarx/flesh through a therapeutic lens;
• the full-hearted rebuke of accusation and judgement in those animated by Life-Breath;
• "everything collaborates for the benefit of those who love God" is leagues and miles better than "God works in all things for the good of those who love him;" and
• how this all ties together the letter's deeper community-related pleas.

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Read LIT online: www.litbible.net/romans-8

More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation: https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments

Support LIT & FIT: https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1

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Opportunity Walks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Reflections on how deviation/sin lives within our bodies, if at all, have been sources of tremendous shame, self-distrust, and sex-negativity for centuries. Are we unable to trust our bodily desires? How do we learn to live with them? Shouldn't cues from our body be helpful, not harmful? And might there be a word-play afoot here that speaks to how our group identities ("my flesh and blood") may also be places of antagonism and deviation?

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Read LIT online: www.litbible.net/romans-7

More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation: https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments

Support LIT & FIT: https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1

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Opportunity Walks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

You won't find "The Law" in the LIT Bible because a timeless, pristine moral law floating above and condemning all humanity has nothing to do with the early Christian mindset. What they were much more concerned with was what to do with Torah, the sacred writings of Jesus' own people.

Jewish folk outside of their homeland equated reading Torah together to being in the Temple itself! Its practice, memory, and presence were fundamental to their community identity. No wonder the early Christians had to spend so much time sorting out Torah's relationship to Jesus' death and their life together. Paul spent a lot of time trying to mine meaning from the mess, and along the way help the tiny communities across the empire grow in love and faithfulness.

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Read LIT online: www.litbible.net/romans-6

More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation: https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments

Support LIT & FIT: https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1

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Opportunity Walks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Paul uses courtroom imagery throughout Romans. We're on trial, and the Life-Breath is our defense attorney. But who is the prosecutor? Is it God, upholding God's perfect law? Is it Torah? Is it... Jesus?

Christ have mercy: too many theologies are built around God being the prosecutor. But... Satan's name is literally The Accuser. And in the wider argument of Romans, who is accusing us but the person fixated on obedience and cultural conformity as the conditions of belonging. It's one another who is the accuser, the prosecutor. It is us in our anger playing the role of the satan.

What a world of difference this makes! It is our own puny fearfulness that is satanic, not the Creator! No wonder in 5:9 we are liberated from our own anger, not saved from God's wrath.

Skeptical? Listen on, and let us know what you think!

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Read LIT online: www.litbible.net/romans-5

More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation: https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments

Support LIT & FIT: https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1

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Opportunity Walks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

If our argument is that Romans is an anti-supremacism pastoral letter, not a manual for how to go to heaven, then what is all this business in other translations about "faith vs works?" Protestantism is built on a mountain of sermons about salvation by faith alone – sermons that point to passages like Romans 4 with glee and anti-Catholic smugness. Their whole thing is about Romans being about "how to go to heaven," right?

As with the whole of Romans, we think this "faith vs works" stuff is actually way more about this life, way more about what determines one's belonging in a local Jesus huddle today than who'll be playing football with Jesus in a big big house in the clouds by and by.

There's so much here – and we haven't even scratched all the warped ways faith is contrasted to doubt, or how its battle with works is used to sidestep justice.

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Read LIT online: www.litbible.net/romans-4

More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation: https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments

Support LIT & FIT: https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1

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Opportunity Walks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Another week in Romans, another set of clobber passages to detangle from authoritarian and shame-based theologies. This time, we explore the wider context of that old "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" business. And wouldn't you know it – it's all about celebrating that we're all on a level playing field of God's love, and therefore particularity of divine encounter must never be grounds for judgement or supremacism.

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Read LIT online: www.litbible.net/romans-3

More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation: https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments

Support LIT & FIT: https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1

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Opportunity Walks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

"What determines our belonging" is the central question of Romans. We will always miss the mark if we think Paul's answer is about a cosmic 'LAW.' In truth he's discussing the place of Torah among the Jewish people, and the way that belonging-carrier now lives in the Jew-plus-Gentile community. He's arguing that cultural conformity and deep tradition ultimately excludes everyone, not issuing some grandiose decree about cosmic rule-breakers or cosmic rule-keepers.

This foundational distinction may seem arcane, but it will reap dividends chapter after chapter as we go through Romans. And it'll haunt us as we reflect on the terms of community belonging in our own times and places.

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Read LIT online: www.litbible.net/romans-2

More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation: https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments

Support LIT & FIT: https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1

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Opportunity Walks by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/