Thursday, August 24, 2023

Romans 2 for Today's Circumstances

Following up on one of my previous posts, there is a passage from Romans 2 which kept coming to my mind, but though it talks about Jews and the Law, what came to my mind with it is the application for professing Christians. Under an inspiration, I rewrote and paraphrased it for today and the equivalent parties today:

     “because it’s not those who hear the New Testament that are set right in the presence of God, but those who do what the New Testament says who will be proclaimed set right. Because when those who are not Christians and don’t possess the New Testament should naturally do the things which Jesus Christ taught, aren’t those who are not Christians making use of the Spirit of Christ regardless? Those who are demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit of Christ in what they say and do displaying their connection to the Head even without baptism or the trapping of Christianity?”
     “Yet if you are called a Christian, and rest upon the Gospel, and brag about God and are familiar with His will and test different things being instructed from the New Testament, having convinced yourself too to be a guide of the blind, a light for those in the darkness, a tutor for the mindless, a teacher of infants, having the embodiment of the knowledge and the truth within the New Testament… You who teach others, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach not to steal, do you steal? You who say not to cheat on your spouse, are you cheating on your spouse? You who abhor other religions, do you commit sacrilege? You who shout about the Gospel, are you dishonoring God through violating what Jesus taught? Because, “The name of God is blasphemed because of you among those who aren’t Christians.” Because baptism is on the one hand a benefit if you practice what Jesus taught; yet if you violate what Jesus taught, your baptism might as well be paganism. If then the non-Christian keeps the teachings of Jesus, doesn’t his unbaptized state count for baptism? And the non-Christian who lives as Jesus taught and walks as He walked will then decide about you, the one violating what Jesus taught even though being baptized and having the Gospel. Because it isn’t the person who is a visible or professing Christian nor the visible baptism of the flesh, but the person who follows what Jesus taught within the secret places of his soul, and the baptism with the Spirit of Christ not the written words, the recognition of whom as being one of His which comes not from other human beings, but from God.”
 

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