The Gospel, Marathons, and Unexpected Wisdom: Unpacking Romans

Join Pastor Joe Liles and the TNC Podcast team for an in-depth exploration of Romans 1:16-17, a pivotal passage in Christian theology. 

In this episode, Pastor Joe shares about his 50-mile running journey and then they break down the apostle Paul's powerful declaration about the gospel's transformative power, diving into the nuanced meanings of righteousness, faith, and salvation. Learn about the early Christian experience in Rome, the challenges of interpreting ancient texts, and how these two verses connect to broader theological concepts.

The podcast offers a comprehensive look at:

• The historical background of Paul's letter to the Romans
• Greek language nuances and translation challenges
• The concept of righteousness through faith
• Practical implications of living a faith-centered life

Whether you're a biblical scholar, a church leader, or someone seeking deeper understanding of Christian theology, this episode provides rich, accessible insights into one of the most significant passages in the New Testament.

Transcript

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This. This is for the VISTA. So, you. Welcome to the TNC Podcast coming to you live in the worship center on the neighborhood church campus. Ooh, it sounds nice. I'm just gonna own it from now on and just say we're a campus and we're gonna work forward from it. I've been struggling with that identity, and now we're in. We're just in. We have enough rentals going on. Thanks, Roseanne, appreciate that. I have. I struggle with the campus thing a little bit too. Yeah, I think I've been calling it a campus longer than you have, you have, yeah, other people have been calling it a campus. And I'm just like, it's hard because we are a small but mighty church, and we have a lot going on. And so this is usually reflected in larger churches. And I think me, I bet, was a little resistant, because a lot of the churches that have, like, what they call a campus, yeah? Or, like, you know, non denominational, you know, non rooms, yeah? And a lot of them are, like, the bigger ones, and it kind of turns into, like, a McDonald's version of church. And there's been a few I've visited and like, oh, this, this is not a church McDonald's at all, right? It's like a McDonald's version of church. I'm like, This is not a church at all. And so I've been hesitant to call this a campus, yeah? I want to associate us with, yeah. I get you Yeah, some of that the McDonald's church is great benefits, uh huh. Jesus loving us, that'd be great. So with that, yeah, it was pretty good, right? Thank you, Roseanne. I appreciate that you didn't say anything, but your looks at it all. I appreciate you, Roseanne, we were judged. I love jingles, if we can. That's why we do. You do love jingles. I do love jingles. And, you know, I don't know what it is, but I've seen jingles for years. I have them all in the same speaking of a jingle, let's start off with our neighborhood jingle. Ready, 479-367-2285, neighborhood church, church. And you know who you can reach with that jingle, Roseanne. Me, that's right. Roseanne on a podcast host, you can reach her. Finally, on any number, call them all right. 479-367-2285, I think you have to use all those to make it work. 479-367-2321, right? Another one that's little neighbors, that's little neighbors. And then 479-367-2354, that that's my line. That's your line. But there you go. Now you have them all mine. Is it? When you said, anyway, said, Any, any of those numbers? I was like, I knew. I was like, I think you have to use all 10 to like, yeah, there's everybody. Yeah. We have a mobile seat number. We have any way you can reach us. Is what's happening? So complicated, yeah. So speaking of jingles, if we can just go back for a sec, I love jingles. What is your favorite jingle like? If I say jingle, what's the jingle that comes to your mind? I got absolutely nothing. You got nothing on any jingle, any jingle. It could be anything. Right now, Reading Rainbow right now, trying to think of that you see, like the Bruce Almighty movie when he's in the room with, you know, and it's just white, white, yeah, yeah. That's my head. That's your head, right now. Nothing. Okay, man, this topic died. It happened to me a lot. I was so excited for the jingle. Talk about, okay, Roseanne, what's your favorite jingle? I think Red Robin. Red Robin. Yum. That's like, that's a good one. Yeah, I got chilis. I sang Chili's for years. Chili, baby mag ribs. Chili, baby man ribs, barbecue sauce. I want my baby back ribs like it's so I love my head's a lot quieter place than yours, I think. And I worry if that's a problem or not. Did you just say your head is a lot quieter place than mine. Yeah, it goes on because you always got stuff going. I do. You don't have jingles to display through. No, I make. I mean, I'm what is the jingle that I did the other day during core team that people asked me about? Do you remember I was trying to get the computers all to work? It was Reading Rainbow. It was reading right now. But I don't remember the jingle. I remember that it was reading, no, is because I was trying to get all it started. Everyone was waiting, and all the things are happening at once. And when I get overloaded in my brain and I need to tell there's some kind of a positive reinforcement, it's like I can do anything I can hear, right? Yeah, I knew it was Reading Rainbow, yeah, but I know the tune doesn't stick in my head. Oh, yeah, no. So yeah, I sing that when I'm overloaded now that I can still accomplish the task without giving up on it. And I was like, here we go. Because I literally tried to lock it 10 times and it kept on. It was like a loop. It was like, and, you know, Brian's looking he's like, this is weird. And I'm like, I know it's weird, and I'm not gonna have to back in into this like, 10 different ways in order to get so our stuff has done that to me, where I log in and it just takes me right back to the login screen, and through with you. I'm more convinced it's user errors quieter than mine. I needed one bad I used to, I used to always assume that, yeah, until I the occasion, rare occasion I see you struggling. I'm like, I feel very like, you do feel firm. It's really say, though, yeah. But at least even in the last two months, you have exponentially grown in your ability to tech. I have grown I've come to the The Reluctant acceptance of the fact that I'm gonna have to learn to use some of this. That is the best way that you have ever put that, because as you sit down to learn it, that is my takeaway from looking at you, is you reluctantly or accepting the position like I want to be in it? Oh, fine, fine. I'm gonna do it. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it's a much better way to jump. I won't, I won't enjoy it, but I'll get to where I can do it. We did come to the final process, though, that if you're frustrated by it, there's probably something wrong. Yeah, there's something. If you ever get frustrated, you've gone too far, although you may underestimate my tendency to get frustrated with tech. Nope, I 100% know your frustration with I also know you've got, you've had the ability to make some of that stuff simple enough for me to use it. Yes, 1,000% which is what I need, 1000 times over, 1000 times over. And yesterday, when I sat down and said, Hey, we can use scribe. It's a cool AI, like you go through everything, you click through it kind of does everything for you, tells you all the steps. And he said, No, I want pen and paper, and I want to write down every step. And I said, that's great. I will use scribe for me. And I said, you can use pen and paper for you. I would just get frustrated with trying to log in and find the stuff on scribe and get the logo. I just, yeah, okay, so now we've talked about jingles and we've talked about technology, but if I lose those notes, you'll have plenty of ammunition. Yeah, if you come back to me, like, what was step 17, and I'm like, yep, that's why we don't write it down. That's why we have scrappy notes. So this is great. Well, I just want to welcome you all thanks for joining us today. I did not preach on Sunday because I was gone. Got way, gone way. I was in Kansas City, little left to Kansas City. When I said left, I mean, West. Do you guys do that? You guys associate left with West and right with East. You don't do that. That's not how your brain works. You've never done that. I thought that was normal, no, because left could be north, south. I get that. That's why I'm saying it out loud. But, I mean, I thought it was normal people like I went left, which means West, like, I'm always facing north, so I go left to go west. Wow. No, you know, when I there's a little counselor. When I talked with my therapist the other day, I said, I need to understand how the world thinks, because I think a lot of things that I think are normal in my head. The world maybe doesn't see, but everybody does that. Everybody assumes what's in their own head is normal, is how people think, and that, and that's some of the problem when, you know, people make choices of stuff, oh, everybody's gonna love this, and they're like, What? Yeah, it was just, you know, just me. Okay, yeah. So I was in Lawrence, Kansas, which is out by Clinton, like, just west of Kansas City, about 45 minutes, and I ran 50 miles with nothing chasing you fit. Nothing chasing me, no other people doing this. Just the thought of my past self chasing me. That's a moment, yeah, that's part of the part of the growth on those journeys is like, Yo, my past self is chasing. Past self did not train for marathons around him anyway. Oh, I was so happy. I trained for this. I know you left past self. Oh, the race, yeah. Oh yeah. When I got to 25 miles right? Passed out. Was like, Please, I'm out. It's like, this is where I this, right? It's so funny, because I think about, like, the 13.1 miles when I passed out at half marathons, right? Running the pace that I was running over the mountains, right? And now I'm running that over mountains for 50 miles. And I'm like, Yeah, I definitely didn't drink because I could have done that 10 years ago, yeah, that would have been a whole different story, right? And I'm sorry, younger than I was, younger. Well, I was talking to a guy who was running with me, who's 53 right? And he's just trotting like, I am, right? We had two hours of conversation, right? We're just running next to each other trail, and he's we just put liquors. Like, why didn't we do this when we had the energy and had the body and had the goat to do it, that frontal lobe thing, yeah, it just didn't happen. Just that. So ran 50 miles. It was awesome. I was on my feet running for 13 hours, which is a difference, because I finished the first 25 miles in five hours and 15 minutes. So then you can see that the next one took me about two hours longer, right? So like, you just start. Yeah, that last 10 miles brutal. So it was actually just the last 10 miles. So like, the next 15 were really good, and then the last 10, I just had to power through. When you say power their last 10, the last there's like, a fundamental like issue with, yeah, like, I don't like sitting in my car for 13 hours. Yeah, this is true. This is true. You can't think about it, like 13 hours. Here was the brutal mistake that I did. Could you not though, yeah, it was, it's brutal. Like the last it was the last 10 miles. It was really 11 miles. But last 11 miles was a 4.5 mile section and a 6.5 mile section, and there's an aid station right in the middle the 4.5 mile section on the first 25 miles was the longest mind section. Like, I thought I should have finished before I finished. And so I kept on running through a finish line that wasn't there, that that's just annoying. Like it you just think that, like, obviously I went somewhere wrong, or I turned left on the trail and I shouldn't have right, and then you end up there, and your body's telling you it's, yeah, yeah. That's exactly what's happening. And so, so the last four and a half section, the brutal part is you think. About it, and you're like, Okay, four and a half miles. Well, I run an eight minute mile standard, like, like, if I can just go out and run, I'll run eight minutes. If I'm chill, I'll do a nine. That's fine, right? I can run as fast as a six, whatever. So in my head, I'm like, Cool. I got 24 minutes of running. Like, this is awesome. If you add in the previous 40 miles, it's no longer an eight minute mile. You're running at 16 to 18 minutes a mile over the mountains, and your hip pointers aren't working, and your calves are smoked, right? And so then you do the quick path, and you realize that four miles is an hour and 10 minutes. And you're like, oh, I have to run an hour just to get to the next aid station. You're like, and then there's a 6.5 mile section, which, the first time took you an hour now takes you two hours and 15 minutes, right? And you're like, Okay, we're in it. We are totally in it for the next three hours. So thinking about the length of the race is debilitating, right? Thinking about the next aid station is where you have to land. Like, I'm just running four miles to the next aid station. I just do that 10 times over and we're gonna rock it was so fun. I am out on so many levels, runner, yes, and I don't do that much math. Do you enjoy nature? I enjoy nature. Do you enjoy a walk outside with God? I do enjoy walk. Same thing as an ultimate as a matter of fact, on Sunday, my sister and I, for part of our Sabbath, went on a two mile walk. Yes, that's beautiful. It was, it was, and by the end of it, poor thing she was, I mean, sweat porn, yes. And I'm like, you want to go some more? Yeah? No, she's done. She's done. That's great. So that's where my ultra marathon started. It's two miles. So now you guys are going to get on your way to ultra marathons? Yeah, no, which, wait, no, so, so anyways, Ultra, front porch, sitting Ultra, but I won't make it for 13 hours. That's right. That's right. So gone. Tom, you led you're up on Sunday sharing in for a new Romans message, which is great. So, Tom, can you guide us through, really, the identity the series was tied into life groups, right? And time, yeah. Can you walk us through that? Like, what are life groups going through? Where did you lean in on Sunday to and what is the series that we're starting? So part of it is kind of try to reclaim an emphasis of Bible study and life groups a little bit. And I'm trying to kind of shift stuff towards first at least a season. And so context matters so much, and trying to interpret anything you're reading the Bible and and we're so far disconnected from first century Rome that I picked the book a week in the life of Rome. James L papandres, it's a historical fiction. So it is historical, but it is also fiction. So we have to kind of draw lines, and it just kind of gets us embedded in the personal lives of the characters in the first century Rome. You know, with, you know fictional, you know conversation narrative, but around known historical circumstances. And so as a reading through that, that book, I'm putting studies up in the Bible out for each week that hits different points for more information, for stuff, if people are word nerds in there, like how we got our our days of the week come from Norse, Germanic pagan gods inspired by Roman pagan gods. Yeah, right, which most people are like, what? Yes, that's how we got that. And so for the word nerds, stuff like that. But then also pointing out places in the book that I think the authors own. You know, he's Roman Catholic, so his own, some of the church, just tradition that's not necessarily rooted in biblical reality or in, you know, extra biblical known documentation, and just kind of name that to level the field, you know, so that they get a good understanding of what we know, what's tradition, what is known, what is Unknown. Like, hey, this is all. This is your part, just fictional. No basis. Hey, this part has basis. If you want to read it on that, read it Acts, Acts chapter 15, yeah, which I've already gotten feedback on, because somebody who's read it but not read it in the context of thinking about it in the reality of Roman, yeah, we're like, Oh, I was not aware of all that going on, yeah. And so that's what we're trying to do with the life groups and so, paralleling a sermon series through the book of Romans, hitting just like four high themes, because you can't do it in four weeks, yep, sure. And part of the that is just to kind of get the whole church asking questions. Maybe the whole church going into the Bible app studies that the life groups are doing, maybe encourage more people into the life groups, hopefully. And if nothing else, you know, I asked them all to submit questions as they're doing the reading. If they want to know more about send me some information. We'll see if anybody does it. If you're listening, please do that way. When we do an in depth Bible study with life groups in the spring, I can answer all those questions that come up. Yeah, that's really great. And so that's just that, that kind of hope to get the whole congregation pushing towards that, that study in the spring, because Paul's letter to the Romans is unique. And it's the only letter that we have that he wrote to some place or a religious group, a church group, or it's not really a church was kind of group, you know, home churches, but to a group of Christians that he did not found himself, yeah, correct very it's that's the only one. And because he's trying to to give his kind of credentials and of what the gospel really is, because obviously he's gotten word we don't have, we don't have the letter that spurred him on to write the letter, if there was a letter, or if it was word of mouth. But we know there were things he was addressing. And so he really sent kind of a first century systematic theology, breakdown of theology, of what the gospel message actually is and what it means for Christians. And so you can use Paul's letter to the Romans to kind of interpret the rest of Paul's writings in the New Testament, and to really to kind of explain a lot of what was going on in the gospel. So it's a great lens to use to try to interpret everything else going on in the New Testament. Yeah, that's great. We're not Jewish people. Some were, some weren't. There's a mix. Because when this was written, we know from from Caesarea in the wintertime between the year 56 and 5780 and so any Senate with Phoebe to to Rome. We're pretty confident in that. And in 54 when you know, Claudius, in in 49 had kicked the Jews out of Rome, but in 54 he died, and they started coming back. And that is one of the theories, and I think the strongest one, as to why there were issues going on in these Roman churches. And that's probably what spurred Paul to write this letter to try to kind of straighten some stuff out, you know, you obviously got some between the Jewish tradition and the Christianity and then the Gentile, the Gentile, yeah, because, and part of that ties that, that information going out from the Jerusalem Council, that you didn't have to become Jewish to become Christian. And there's probably still some Jews that went back that might not have been aware of that, you know, information travels slow. They didn't have news outlets and stuff, and so just making sure that they're all on track with what the council in Jerusalem has decided and and that they're, you know, preaching a true gospel. Because every anytime you have the beginning of this religion, some place in the world, there's a tendency to want to cross with the local, already ongoing customs. And so there's, there's Gentiles that are used to worshiping pagan gods, and now they're having to kind of learn how to do this new and they've lost all their leadership base and all the people that would have understand what, what they had a scripture at the time in the Old Testament. And so it's really good for us to even go through and refresh in our own contexts, because Paul is the the closest known writer to the Gospels where we know who wrote it. We don't always know with a lot like on the Gospels, we have theories, but we don't, we don't really know, and they detail what happened in events, but Paul's really explaining the crux of the gospel. And the, the kind of thesis part of that, I think, is that Romans chapter one, verses 16 and 17, Mm, hmm. And a lot of people kind of said the same thing. This is the, you know, the the heart and soul of what the gospel message is that Paul teaches about all throughout the whole book. And Paul was a convert? Yes, he was a reluctant convert. That reluctant word comes, yeah. I mean, he started off trying to wipe Christianity off the face of the earth, and then he became one of the most well known heralds of Christianity in history. Great, a great place to start if you're wanting to get into studying the Bible. Yeah, is Romans. It's a great place to start and and get your foundation there. And I'm kind of hoping we can kind of build off of that, and the all the other studies that come maybe even do, like an abbreviated, like a summer study, yeah, over some smaller pieces, because, yeah, there's just so much there. Yeah, the whole the whole book of Romans, Christian faith and life and living, right? Those are different things that take on. And there's so much nuance in there with stuff that that you have to put in the right place in history, yeah, to interpret. Like right now, people have a lot of rub with Paul saying, subject yourself to the governing authorities. But at that point in time, the Christians weren't experiencing real persecution from the Romans. Yeah, true. And so you got to play stuff in in context. And so there'll be a lot of stuff through the book of stuff through the book of Romans that will probably challenge people's assumptions they go into it with when they learn to read this letter through an accurate historical context. Yeah, I think that's the interesting part about this historical fiction, is the real situations that these people are in, like showing up late because they have sacrificed to the gods and and they can't eat that meat. But then meat wasn't all that prevalent, or, as you said, that pork was one of the cheaper meats for the poor, less fortunate in Rome, and so they had to kind of figure all that out, yeah, and if that become Jewish first, that would have been a big stumbling block for that, you know. So that Jerusalem. Council really brought another layer of good news that made it easier for Christians or for Gentiles to actually be part of at the time, it wasn't called Christianity yet that didn't come around for they were way followers. Yeah, I can't remember. It didn't come around for almost another 100 years. Yeah, correct. Yeah. It was just followers of of the way, when Jesus the WAY and the TRUTH and the LIFE, and it was very foreign, because it was okay to have a different God in Rome, as long as, yeah, as long as you still worship theirs. So they wouldn't have an issue with that. Except in Christianity, you can worship, you know, there are no other gods. Have no other gods before me. And that kind of became, made them social outcasts, right? And we'll see that as it goes throughout the book, of them being seen as dissidents and as untrustworthy and all the problems. Well, that's why they separate the civil like, submit yourself to governing authorities, right? Versus, like, our faith life, yeah? Is because people were indistinguishing. Like, there was no distinction being made between a governing authority and our Yeah, our godly authority. You had to worship them as Gods Exactly. And so that distinction that was made, and this was true when Jesus walked also, I mean, Jesus paid respects at the same time. And so you start to take that language forward, and you realize, oh, that's transferable to today. Like that context that we're seeing says, Okay, not that we have to shy away from it, but, matter of fact, lean into it, right to say, like, hey, now we understand that we still submit under a governing authority, right? We're still under laws that are civil right to keep our society in order, right? And that's okay, right? That's great. But we also have a faith that is bigger than that, but also in distinguishable from that. Yeah, the higher, the higher. Exactly. It goes back to Jesus, saying, you know, given to Caesar, what is Caesar's and given to God? What is God's? Absolutely, absolutely. So this Romans, 116, and 17, foundational for the book of Romans. Yep, good place for us to begin at to kind of break down Romans and break down the message from Sunday Roseanne. Would you mind taking us through Romans? 116 and 17? I will read that the power of the gospel, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek, for in it, the righteousness of God is revealed through faith. For faith, as it is written, the one who is righteous will live by faith. You read that so passionately. I just love the power in your voice, which is great. I mean, you read it with authority, which was, you know, it goes back to Nate from Bach or brick seminary. Oh, yeah, yeah. Said that if you're gonna read scripture, you read it with authority, like you read Scripture as if, like you own these words that are coming out, yeah? Absolutely right. That's your gospel message going it's gonna kind of make it sound real, yeah, yeah. Tom, what is your takeaway? So you said these are foundational words for Romans, right? It's a big couple verses a lot, and for two verses in verse 16, it is one that, you know, I spent probably an hour thinking about verse 16, yeah, because it says it's the power of God for salvation to other owned house faith. So not saying that it doesn't say it shows the power, right? Or it tells people of the power, but that it is, it is the power. And so, you know, the we talk about the Gospels is like the gospel narratives. You know, the Gospel according to which is just means, like, what so and so said about the gospel? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, yep. But the gospel is that good news, message of forgiveness of sins and eternal life because of faith in Jesus, a faith given us through the by the grace of God, that that, that is the power of God, you know, given and shown to us and imparted on us. And part of this, I remember, in systematic theology, we talked about this a little bit, because that part, it's part of the identity of Jesus, as, you know, we say the Son of God, which is a good way for us to think about it, because it's the, you know, the the humanity aspect of it, and understanding that. And it ties to Old Testament calling, talking about the the Son of man, yeah, God in the form of a man. But deeper than that is Jesus is the Word of God present in in human form, made flesh. Yeah, right, God made flesh. So in the beginning, when God said, Let there be light, and there was, that was the Word of God. So, I mean, that's, that's Jesus in creation, yep. So Jesus spoke, or God spoke things into being. And when God spoke things into being, that word that brought things into being was Jesus. And that's when book of beginning of John, In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. And so it's this ability for God to speak reality into existence, or speak things into existence, and the fact that that this power of God, JESUS, THE POWER OF GOD personified, that has brought this into reality for us. And it's, it's that epic excuse that actually using a test once in elementary school, I was going to private Catholic school of because God said, so, oh, which is always the right answer, yeah, yeah, you know. But it's that the Gospel is the power of God, and that's part of the reason we have to read it here. Uh, you know, as what it is to give it, give it, it's, it's true, you know, place and honor, and that's why it has to continue to be preached, because it's continuing to echo that throughout history and to all, to all the people out there. So it's just, it's literally God speaking something into existence, yeah, and we that continues on through the Scriptures, through the office of preaching, and to people's study of the Bible, which is why I think, you know, we have to take these things so, you know, treat you. Treat like the Bible. We treat different than any other book. It is sacred. Is sacred because the power of God is present in this for us, if we will devote our time to it. It's interesting how to overuse the word powerful. This text is right, because it brings you through a lot of different relationships, especially in 16, right? As you get into 17, for I am not ashamed, right? So like, right away we have the the person of Paul saying, I'm not ashamed, right, which is also character building, right? It's respect building, right? It's owning where he's come from, right? It's saying, Hey, here's where I stand on because he's speaking to a people group that he's not planted, right? So this is an authority moment where he says, Hey, here's where I put that ashamed word in the Greek means to not be singled out. It means I have not identified wrongly, right? So he's basically saying, Hey, I'm planting on the gospel like this. I have not identified wrongly. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not I'm not singled out because I I'm over here doing the wrong thing, right? This is where I find myself and then, but immediately removes that authority, then from himself, and gives power back to God, right? So it is because of the power of God that brings salvation, right? Because that's the part of that. One of the issues was false teachers, correct? Yeah, and people trying to claim that glory for themselves, and knowing that, you know, that's the hold the glory to God alone, you know, given the glory to God alone said it's God, which is going to the three points. It's God doing the work, not us. We're just being used in that, in that effort. And I love it, yeah, I mean, the the power of God when it comes through in the sense of exactly what you just talked about, right? That there's false teachers out there, right? He's removing authority from the false teachers then too, but not saying it specifically, right? Yeah, well, because they don't know him yet, right? Correct, yeah. And so he's trying to establish, in a way, because he's planning on going there, correct? So he's kind of preparing for his, like, his resume, before he gets there, to get started. And it also, to me, I mean, that removes some of the, the fear responsibility from us, because, like, we look at the Great Commission, you know, go and make disciples of all nations. And I still argue that that's a poor translation, because the word for make isn't in there, correct, yeah, but it's God that does the work. You know, we have we've been given assignments to do, yeah, but we've not been assigned with accomplishing the task, just on doing the deed, yeah, and then God will accomplish the task with that. We're doing that to lay the groundwork, because God has told us to, but it's God doing the work like none of us. You know, I've seen some traditions talk about, well, how many souls have you saved? Well, I don't have the ability to save souls, yeah, correct, or to make people be Christians. My soul job is to care for God's people and to preach the gospel, yeah. And then God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can save their souls, make them believers through them, hearing me preach that through them, reading the gospels, but I'm not the one doing it. I'm just Well, I mean, that's the next part of the statement, right? Is that the power of God brings salvation, which is then now against the pagan identity, right? So like in this one verse, Oh yeah. Claimed authority, removed authority, given authority to God, right? And then removed all the authority from other gods, and said, Our God brings salvation, especially since the pagan view of gods, the gods the way they portrayed the pagan Pantheon, not good characters, no like, not trustworthy, like most of what they did was out of fear, trying to keep them from just, I mean, look, I mean, look at the the mythology of the background, yeah, not, not good people, not not, you know, nothing to to, you know, endear anybody to. I mean, it's like a, you know, a toddler wielding a sword, kind of, I mean, yeah, it was very, very negative. And the old idea that, you know, you would pray to all the gods, just in case, you know, or just to not make them mad. And it was just complete 180 from what people would have heard of the god of of Abraham, yep, you know. And then when they mess up, they get to blame the gods. Well, the gods were mad at me, yeah. Or that completely absolves them of responsibility for their actions, yeah. Or the gods are fighting with each other, and they were just accidental fodder, you know, so different character of their understanding of that. But Paul is establishing God is God of the universe, and I think that's where we get into like that. Next statement of the righteousness of a God is revealed through the gospel, right? Like, and this, this Good News of Jesus Christ, and what's and so eternity, yes, with God eternity. So you can get drawing it all the way through from the universe and creation, right? And saying, Hey, here's the pagan identity. Now we're distinct from that. And now he's saying, Okay, now here is the righteousness of God. The right relationship with God if you want to be in that for those who believe, very important statement. So he's still saying, Hey, if you want to believe, right, we're monotheistic. We have one God, which means that if you do have a pagan identity, this is for those who believe in our Triune God, but three in one. And so now he's removing the pagan identity, saying you do have to make a choice like, live under Roman authority, but at the same time, we have a monotheistic reality here, right? So we believe in one God, and then that righteousness through that Israel and through the gospel. So he's saying, and if you want to know how to get there, it's through Jesus Christ, right? 111, verse, yeah, it just said, Amen. And then walk, you know, like, That's it, and you get assigned his letter. And then, right? That's it. But there's 16 chapters with like, 30 verses, yeah? Like, oh, we're gonna be here, we're gonna be in it. Be here, we're gonna be in it, yeah, yeah. And the hard part was it, you know, it's, it's one thing to pick, to decide, you know, that you're gonna pick a pagan god because you It's tradition, or you like it, or whatever, but then to come to the point of the realization of the true identity of the true God, yeah. But now puts you in a position where, yeah, you can be subject to Roman law, and then subject, you know, subject to God's commandments, but then whether or not Roman law is going to treat the Christian the same, yeah? And then you get into a lot of people having to endure a lot of persecution eventually because of how they started viewing, you know, Christians, because they wouldn't, you know, they people fear people who are different, and because they weren't not worshiping the pagan gods, then they started worrying that they were, you know, a threat. So what do you what do you take away from this word, like, righteousness, like we're getting into, like, these deeper root like, right? So for breaking down a Bible study, I mean, we have some big words in here, right? Righteousness by faith for those who believe right through the gospel, right? Like, all of a sudden we're taking these larger theological kind of diatribes right that exist in our faith, and we're starting to break them down. And Paul's bringing them in hot he's just laying them all down in one verse. So it's like, what are we taking? So what do these mean? And like, where should we start to think? So? Like, righteousness is, it's like being judged as being correct to being correctly, or in the footnote, even in here, it says to meet all the conditions, which is why you can't be righteous to the law, because there's all those conditions that we can't meet Correct. Whereas the New Covenant is, is just faith, yeah? And it's not even a faith we're responsible for. It's a faith that we were given, and it's like you just have to get one question, right, and we're going to give you the answer, yeah, and we're going to do all the work for you, and we just want you to be grateful, yeah, you know. And, and if that is indeed true, that you you possess, that you didn't refuse it, you didn't answer wrong on purpose, just out of spite or whatever causes you to turn away. Then you realize the value of this, and that's what inspires people into Christian living, because he you don't get anything out of it. You do it as a response because you've already, you've already, you've already gotten it. And that was so different in this society, where you that nothing was for free. Everything had to be paid for, you know, a bribe, a fee, or whatever. That this idea is something that is just given freely, is it was just that? Was just absurd, you know, to the new concept, yeah, so that righteousness is because you've made all you fit all the requirements. You've, you've, you've met the measure. You you know you are judged. You know, you know judged as sufficient. And we can't make that standard in the law, right? Only Jesus could fulfill that, that requirement, that righteousness of the of the law. So am I wrong with this statement? Righteous men. Righteousness means choosing God. Follow God. It's, I think it's part of it. So part of the, one of the things that Luther wrote about was us, alien righteousness. Which alien? Like Ancient Aliens. It was an episode on that, yeah, I'm just sure. That, yeah, I'm just like the aliens, yeah, you know, yeah, you got so many questions right now, the title of this podcast episode is now going to be alien, right? So that the idea of alien just being different, right? Yeah, the righteousness of another. And so the righteousness that we have in Christ is that we can't meet the requirements of the law, but Jesus did on behalf of us, and we get to be judged by Him. It's like cheating on the most important test in all the universe. And Jesus did give us the answers. He went took the test for us, and we get the benefit from it. So we're kind of inheriting Jesus fulfilling the measure of the law where no other human being could, could do that. Now we have the New Covenant, the new expectation of the cup of the covenant and faith, you know, this is my my blood give, you know, shed for you the and so now the the measurement for righteousness is just faith, and it's something that is flat out, even given to us. So the belief. In God is evidence of that faith, you know, of following God, trying to follow God's word, follow God's commandments, and be obedient to God is evidence of the of the faith we've been given, but our response is living the Christian life, yeah, and choosing that every day, every day, even though we're going to screw it up, we're going to miss the mark. We know, yeah, we're going to, we're going to miss the mark. But it's, it's not so much that we achieve the righteousness, it's that we strive for it, right? Right? Yeah, that we try to go that direction the best we can, well. And then you start to get the there's a distinction. So we're talking about righteousness, faith and belief, right? And there's a distinction, right? And then we're going to get to verse 17, which talk about righteousness and faith. So righteousness and faith. But in verse 16, it said, righteousness, therefore all who believe, right, which is also pissed us, which is faith, right? So it's a very it kind of muddies the waters a little bit. But if you think through faith and belief, right, faith as an action and a response, right, but also given to us, right, belief is an identity of understanding in God, right? So knowledge to belief, right to we move through this wisdom narrative, right that comes through. So when we turn to verse 17, it says, For in righteousness, right? For in right relationship with God, like that's, if you hear righteousness, just talk about right relationship with God, right? So, for in righteousness of God that is revealed through faith for faith, which is a very interesting paradoxical statement, right? Through faith for faith, right? So basically, it's through your faith that the righteousness of God is revealed for your faith, so you're in it, right? Yeah, and yeah. And there's multiple ways of breaking that down, you know, because the the righteousness of God is also showing the complete perfectness of God, the lack of error in God. You know, the the righteousness of God, the the omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience of God. The the everything is absolutely right, nothing wrong about God is you know that righteousness of God and revealed through faith, for faith is through, is revealed through the faith of Christ, that Jesus showed and for faith, the faith has given also. And there's like, three different ways of trying to break that down. And none of us are really sure, until we get to ask Paul, like, exactly, what did you mean by Yeah, exactly. And the most common one that all agree on is that we can, we can definitely say that that phrase for faith through faith, for faith, meaning that that it's all encompassing in faith. It begins with faith. It ends in faith. And it begins with the faith of of Christ, in the righteousness of God, which, I mean, you think, Oh, well, that's expected. I mean, it's, it's that is God, right? And then given for us, given to us. You know that that faith, I think there's an important distinction, though. I mean, if we're breaking this down a little bit, like I were to dig a little bit deeper in here, like in 1717, a to 17 B, right, yeah, because you had a shift. It's almost there's a shift two verses, yeah. So here's the important shift, right? So it says, For in it the righteousness of God. So I like perfectness of God, okay, so righteousness of God, right? Right? Relationship with God, the righteousness of God. So, perfect relationship with God. I think there's important distinction that you made, like through faith, that's the faith of Jesus Christ. We have this triune narrative, right, the trinity of God, where we see faith from Jesus, right, towards God, even though we're three in one, right? As an example narrative, but also as an obedience narrative, to say, hey, here's my relationship that I have to go modeling, that it's a model. It's beautiful now that through faith and for faith, if we look at verse 16 for righteousness with God, I love it, because I look at it like a circle that we're just in, right? Like through faith for faith, through faith for faith, great. It's through the faith that we have, for the faith that we have. So we're just, we're just in this personal relationship with God at this point, right? Yeah, because part of his, Jesus's faith, modeled to the disciples, has inspired that faith. And because that's the power of the gospel, right? I mean, they're the gospel is their their eyewitness testimony of what they saw in Jesus, yeah, true, very true. And so it just kind of this, it's, it's cyclical. So imagine that once you find this moment, right, you're in this relationship with God through faith for faith, through faith for faith, right? It's beautiful. And that's a very personal relationship to God because of the righteousness of God, because of who God, it takes all the achievement out of it does like it's just presence. Now, there's a 17 B that happens now, this is really cool, right? This was, I love this. So look at watch the switch as it is written. So now we've been talking about righteousness of God through faith. For faith, very important distinction. Now he says, Paul, the one who is righteous will live by faith. Now, the one who is righteous now we're flipped out of that scenario. Now the one who is righteous will live by faith. Well, now that's not just a personal relationship to God anymore. Now that's saying, Hey, your extension to the world. Now if you want to be righteous is to live by that faith. So it says God is who God is, because God has faith and belief, right? At the same time, God has faith for all of us, right? We're given that faith. Now, if we want to be righteous the one who is righteous, then we have to live by faith. And it extends it outside of the circle with God, and says, Hey, you can be in a relationship with God as people, and it's just. Wisdom narrative that I preached like two weeks ago. You can come to church all you want and study about God. That's beautiful. It doesn't mean you're living as a Christian, right, because Satan believed in Jesus. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no. And, and here says, as it's written, that's Habakkuk or Habakkuk, two, four. But wait, hold on, Habakkuk. Habakkuk. Habakkuk. You said this. Like, have I been saying it wrong for all? Because, like, I used to, I used to call it Habakkuk, yes, that's what I until I took Hebrew, two semesters of Hebrew, it's Habakkuk, I would agree with that, yeah, like, just based on the phonetic, but yeah, or Yeah, or in this case, it's Hebrew true, yeah. But the other side is it doesn't matter. It doesn't who cares. You can put the innovation issue. You can put the emphasis on whatever syllable you want. But the other thing about this 17 B is I went through and I broke down the Greek in this and because word order. And I talked about this a little bit, and have a great example. It was kind of on the fly. I should have prepped that little better ahead of time, but word order doesn't matter in Greek like it does in English. Yeah, correct now. Mind you, you spoke that really well in your message on Sunday. Did it come out? Okay? You went through like, four different sentences so fast, with such clarity. I was like, I would have muffled that all day long. And you're like, because you just switched all the work. And I was like, and every sentence made a little bit of sense, right? And you weren't sure, but you weren't sure. And I was like, Oh, that was clean afterwards. I was like, Oh, that was so muddy. Oh, no sense because you just switched all the words. You're like, yeah, it could have different meanings this way, switching, yeah, the words, but in this case, it doesn't. So there's, there's split camps on this, because all translation, and I didn't come up with this, somebody else, great scholar, came up. All translation is interpretation, right? Unless the grammar is the same and it's just word difference. All grammar is interpretation, which is how we get such distinct differences. And the camp is split because, just specifically Greek grammar, when you break it down, the the nominative, accusative case, the direct object, and all those, those parts of the grammar, it could be the one who is righteous will live by faith, or the one who is righteous by faith will live because of the way the grammar is set up, that by faith could be either way, it could be the one who's righteous by faith, and the reality is based on verse 16, if we're going to be righteous, the only way for us as Christians to be righteous is by faith, and then we will live by faith, which goes back to that salvation for everyone who has faith. Oh, no, sorry, next one down revealed through faith, for faith, for for faith. And I don't know that that duality was intentional with Paul or for just reading too much into it, but with this, a perfectly accurate translation is the one who is righteous by faith will live because faith in Jesus is what imparts on us the promise of resurrection and eternal life. And if we truly have faith, the sim, the sign of that, the test of that, is living by faith, correct. Yep, right. And so it's like both, and you know, at the exact same time. So, or you could just say the one who is righteous by faith will live by faith. Yeah, I think that's perfectly that. Now that's more of an interpretation than a translation, but that was just something like that. So freaking cool. So it boils down to a vertical relationship with God will fill you so much that you have to have a horizontal relationship with others. Yeah, it's like, share that good news, the big arrow eternity. Yes, what you see is the big arrow coming down on the top of our heads and little arrows going out, right, right? That's right, going out to be around. But if no little arrows are going out, we're like, No, we're good, like putting that umbrella over our heads, whereas, if we're if that's coming into our we don't have to ask for it. We don't have to earn it. We don't have to make, you know, I decided statements there what it is. There's a realization of what's going on, and then we respond to that realization. All we have to do is accept, yeah. It's just, just Yeah. Accept you as my God, my personal savior. And then I want to share that. And then you share and you treat people you know they will know you. They will know you by your by your works, you know, by your actions. And trying to have a discussion with somebody about about this versus the Calvinist view, and back and forth. And the best example I could give is like, if you're like, gone on a trip, and you wake up and you're like, Oh, this is not my room. Where am I? Yeah, imagine, like waking up and you're in this beautiful, perfect palace, and that's heaven, but you're not there yet, but that's that's faith, right? Yeah, you wake up and you realize you're there. Well, you got two choices, stay or leave. Why? You would leave, I have no idea, yeah, but that's really the choice we have. We don't go walk into it. We don't say yes. We want to accept the invitation. We just realize that we're there, yeah, but unfortunately, you know, there's a door, yeah? You know which is one of any? There's so many. You know, if you want to get into history, there's a whole argument that that, once you've experienced that, you can't believe you would never want to, but why would anyone want to? I don't know why you'd want to. That's why we don't get visited from souls from heaven. They're like, No, I'm good. Like, if somebody came back to life, they would come and they were like, a Christian, they'd be mad. Like, really, you brought me back? Yeah, right. Seriously. Been living my whole life to get to this place you ruined. You ruined my little death. Yeah, that's great, yeah. I mean, for two verses, okay, that's what I was gonna say. There is just, this is two verses, and we've talked for 45 minutes on two verses, right? I mean, I mean after the jingle talk and after the tech, yeah? So, I mean, really, probably about 35 minutes, but, yeah, but yeah, I mean the Troy, Troy trough group, and yeah, I had his scholar professor at Warburg, published multiple books, published widely. I had a full semester advanced New Testament course, just in the book of Romans, with a lot of translation stuff. We read the entire thing, lots of papers. And he's like, Yeah, we're only gonna be able to hit the highlights, guys. And that was a full semester, semester, three credit hours a week for however many weeks in a semester, you know, three contact hours, plus all the stuff outside of it, and and even then, he's like, Yeah, we can't hit all of it. Do you remember when he led the ACT study here? We did it for five churches, right? So I love listening to him talk about acts, and I would love to bring that back. You know why I loved it? I didn't lead it. I mean, it was probably, oh, I sat in and just took in seminary professor, Bible study. That was good. He's one of my favorite. We should bring that back. He was Michael, do like a seminar Professor Bible study, and open it up to people, put him on the big screen in the worship center, right? He's a, he's a great teacher. Great Teacher. Yeah, awesome, phenomenal. So that's two verses. Tom, tell us what's next in the series. I'll be preaching on it this Sunday. Yeah? So, dying with Christ, yeah, yeah, dying and dying. Me the dying. There's multiple parts there. Well, I was gonna leave the good parts for you. Okay, thank you. And rising, dying, rising with Christ. You know, I'm the hope person right here. And I'm like, let's talk about, yeah. So we're getting, we're jumping to chapter three, because there is chapter two is like, the the righteous judgment of God, which gives them the fact that, you know, it's not part of pointing out the guilt aspect. But he covers a lot of it in chapter three too. A lot of this you'll see in the reading, it won't come up as much in the preaching, is trying to reconcile the difference between Jew and Gentile. Yeah. And he gets it over and over and over so many times, if you do the the weekly reading plan, or the for the for the series, the reading plan that's in that the Bible app should be in every week of the sermon series. In the Bible app, you'll see that a lot, and a lot of that, that turmoil still exists in a lot of churches true and there's a whole other series just you could do just easily on that is so deep. But we're jumping ahead to chapter three and verses, I believe it's 19 through 20 something. I remember, yeah, way broken. It'll somewhere in there. Depends on which one, where you choose to to highlight and land. But it's basically that, that rising and dying with Christ, yup, which is beautiful. It's our baptismal identity, right? I mean, it was we come through into this. So we're going to continue that. We're going to walk through all the book of Romans, which is great life groups had their great kick off with their party, and they're full in swing, and they're going to which is going to be great. And so, yeah, this is gonna be a really good four week study on Romans. I'm really looking forward to, looking forward to studying Romans, deep dive into Romans through that lens of this historical fiction. Yeah? And I thought one through four was the first week, yeah, Chapter Three of some my other message. The same thing on Sunday. I did five through chapters, five through eight. Yeah, you just let it go. Chapters finally, the same conversation you had on Sunday. So, so you know, by Sunday you need to have chapters 123, and four. Read that's basically in there. Be great so that you can get into chapter five through eight with Joe for this coming Sunday.