4/30/10 – Scheduling Error
Well I guess not too many people are following our schedule. A week has gone by since there has been a mistake in our guide and no one has notified me. I have just been following what I believed was a chapter day through Romans until about today. Well, when I looked today I noticed that chapters 4 and 6 were missing altogether. Since today we were to read Romans 15 my plan to catch up will be by doing two or three chapters a day. Since yesterday through to this coming Wednesday we are to be doing two chapters a day anyway. Looking ahead at the schedule there are many days coming with two or three chapters listed for the daily reading. I have looked ahead and I will be making a new schedule because there are some other chapters missing also. Beginning tomorrow there will be only two full months left for our first reading of the New Testament during this calendar year.
4/30/10 Romans 10 & 11
Zeal, But
(Ro 10:2)2For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.
Romans 10 and 11 weave together the thoughts that Israel, Paul’s countrymen, are not permanently cast away from God, but it is only for a season and it is only partial (Rom 11:25). Romans 10 shows us that it was not God that rejected Israel, but rather Israel that has rejected God. Specifically they have rejected righteousness by faith and have attempted to create righteousness of their own works or by keeping the law. Romans 11 introduces us to the historical and present fact that God has reserved some Israelites that have believed by faith, rather than trusting in works or the law. This is evidenced historically with the mentioning of Elijah and the divine response that came to him in 1 King 19:18.
Paul goes on to explain in chapter 11 the mystery of the abundance of Gentiles who have respond by faith and why so few Jews. He uses an analogy of a cultivated olive tree. This olive tree has had some of its natural branches (Jews) cut off and replaced and graphed in wild branches (Gentiles). This chapter speaks poignantly about God’s sovereign grace.
The phrase that arrested my attention this time was “but not in accordance with knowledge.” The gospel is something to be understood. What Paul is stating of his fellow countrymen here is that they are unconverted, because they do not have accurate knowledge of God’s purposes, plans, and ways. They are fervent in their belief in God and requirement of others to follow their laws, but the problem is that their laws have exceeded or ignored what God has required. In Romans 10:3 it states that they have tried to establish a righteousness of their own and they were unwilling to submit to God’s righteousness.
Even as believers we can be zealous for God and even attempt great things for God, but when this is done apart from knowledge and more specifically apart from His will it is only sin, in fact it is idolatry. On the other extreme, I believe there are those believers who are guilty of “cerebral” Christianity where they love batting around knotty theological issues, yet they hardly ever move away from their fortified book rooms and into the back rooms of real lives, this too is idolatry. By way of personal confession I have been guilty on accounts.
Prayer: Father I ask for accurate knowledge of your righteousness and your will that I may produce fruit for your honor and glory. For from You and through You and to You are all things. To You be the glory forever. Amen.