Duncan Ryan rounds off the second study block on The integrity of Christian worship with this seminar.

What Paul has taught in the first 5 chapters of the letter invariably raises two important questions, each of which relates to the issue of sin in the lives of believers. In this session Jerry explains what those issues are and how Paul addresses each of them in turn. He shows how Paul addresses the first question (doesn't a gospel of pure grace give the green light to sin in our lives?) theologically (Rom.6); and then how Paul addresses the second question (if sin's power has been broken how come believers keep on sinning so easily and often?) from a much more pastoral perspective.

Having established that God’s salvation is a gift, consisting in a ‘righteousness’ which has been effected for us and given to us, in this next section of his letter Paul explains the way in which that gift of salvation is received – through the exercise of faith. Jerry works through Paul’s teaching and shows how Paul is careful to insist that this faith involves both believing the promise of God, and believing into the Person of Christ, thereby enjoying a whole new relationship with God.

In the first part of this session Jerry works through Paul’s masterful and comprehensive analysis of the human condition, in which the full gravity of our predicament before the holy God is seen for what it is; in the second part of the session, he shows how Paul’s concern in underlining the wretchedness of the human condition is to highlight the sheer wonder and complete sufficiency of God’s grace in Jesus.

Jerry works through the opening section of Romans and explains how Paul carefully sets out how the gospel is to be understood as a promise, a Person, and a people (vv.1-7); in the second part of the session, with reference to Jonathan Edwards' work, A Treatise on Religious Affections, he shows how Paul himself illustrates the powerful and significant ways in which the gospel affects an individual.

In this final session of the module, David expands further on the theme of desire from the previous session and sets it in the context of the element of mystery which is a key theme of the Bible’s ‘Wisdom Literature’: using the book of Job as his basic text he shows how an integral part of the wisdom we are to learn involves what he calls ‘a long journey to the right kind of ignorance’.

The ‘Wisdom Literature’ of the Bible provides crucial instruction on the important issue of desire. Working from Proverbs 5-7 and Song of Songs 1, with great pastoral sensitivity and with his customary practical application, David Gibson shows how the Bible’s ‘erotic’ literature differs so markedly from the world’s pornography, and how it highlights the way in which desire can become crippling if handled wrongly but life-enriching when handled rightly.

In this final study centred on the book of Ecclesiastes (sessions 6 and 7 focus on Song of Solomon and Job), David shows how the whole book is intent on helping us ‘learn to live by preparing to die’. In a session which for many may prove to be truly life-changing, with constant reference back to passages in Ecclesiastes he explains what it is to pursue joy in gratitude and to pursue life in relationship.

David explains how the book of Ecclesiastes teaches us to see that death is both a ‘surgeon’ and a ‘preacher’ (‘the coffin preaches better sermons than the cot’). He shows with great pastoral sensitivity how the book of Ecclesiastes is bookended by graphic portrayals of death, and how these brief poetic masterpieces encourage and enable us to live life to the full.

David continues to guide us through Wisdom Literature using the book of Ecclesiastes to look at time