Category: Church Stream

Posted on

May 6

 

Romans 13-16

We are finishing the letter from the Apostle Paul to the Romans today. We are in the Living Bible translation this week.

 

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Rom. 13  is being written by a man who is going to be executed by the pathological government’s Caesar in a little over a decade.  If he can take this with an upstanding attitude, we can too. Paul does not want Christians to be known as the “rebels of the nations” everywhere they go. . . . We are a growing movement that is blessed so to redeem [not start skirmishes] everywhere we go. Cheerful obedience and civil behavior are powerful tools in starting a wave that has Christians being perceived, “gee, they are awfully nice and friendly and giving.people!”

We are urged anew by Paul to be content people, our main trait is that we are loving, and our heart is to be eagerly awaiting the Return of Our Lord.  This will be the trademark of a vast charitable “army” of people who will embody the largest movement the world has ever seen.
 
14 – Paul knew that as people came to Christ Jesus and joined in the Kingdom and joined church fellowships, and worshiped together, and dined together (Paul knew) that these people would be coming from numerous backgrounds and the natural tendency to unify would be jilted by prior habits and vows and commitments from former beliefs.  People dining together would encounter either the commitment to or revulsion of certain foods. People of Jewish descent had the kosher laws that were superseded once Peter had his vision in Acts 10:9-16.  Others had secular backgrounds and were oblivious to religions that were either sacred or profane. Others had cultic backgrounds and, now being a redeemed Believer, they would be sickened by how they once lived and did not want to eat anything that reminds them of their past. Well here they were together at “church potlucks” and some brought kosher “manna/matzoh” [ok, ok!], others brought pickled shrimp, others – vegan bread and/or (unkosher!)–> cheeseburgers, and … you could see the squabbles that erupted over diet rules to which there was no resolution except to love eachother more than their former laws, or vows, or regrets of the past. The Jewish Sabbath v.s. new Believers honoring Sunday as more important was another needless argument that needed to be put to rest too.. It was vital that they all NOT insist that everyone else adhere to / or live by their own personal preferences, hankerings, or idiosyncrasies. Christian community was more important.  That meant they were not to be criticizing others.
 
15 – The onus was upon the more mature Christians to be accepting and welcoming, nurturing and even to be gently tutoring younger/newer/less mature Christians.  They were to be exceedingly welcoming and warm to one another.  Paul also wants Jews and Gentiles to get along.  From 15:20, through chapter 16; to the end of the book, Paul is talking of preparations, further journeys and travels and his desire to keep the gospel spreading. He’ll be taking a trip through Jerusalem first before coming to see his Roman friends and Believers. Remember that being held back in Israel by the Sanhedrin and the Herod-family only caused the three years of anticipation to see Paul only become more pronounced. You can hear Paul’s impassioned concern that the church grow and grow in all ways everywhere.
 
16 – is a great listing of the people Paul wanted to remember. A case study dedicated to each of the names in this chapter is as entrancing as poring over the 58,000 names upon the Vietnam memorial wall. We should not become fickle and skip these over. Each one shined like a reflection of Christ in the first century church. Some of the names of these people can still be seen upon the homes and structures they occupied back when Paul came through ca. 1,965 years ago. Paul revered each of these.  We ought also revere and welcome and honor each who visit our fellowships today … as Paul has been urging us to do for a few chapters now.
 
The week has been a colorful one going through each of the seven streams of Scripture. The thread throughout we’ll call, “Be Attentive. God is Moving. Move With Him, and Let Yourself Be Instructed.”   After the Exodus, there was water-as-medicine that needed to be ingested, a new diet pattern (failproof food from the sky for 40 years!), Sabbath rules, battles to uphold, a “no whining” law and these would remain for the rest of YOUR lives – catch this!           In II Sam. we are going to regroup in Jerusalem with the Ark for the first time (don’t get too close Uzzah!), it’s time to worship (Michal!) and David would have done better to keep his mind on the war v.s. the girl next door, eh?!  Everyone would have been better off if they had moved with God wouldn’t they??           In Psalms, David is in pain from his sin and the results of it. God is moving him through it however and David learns from it. Come Psalm 40-41 he is finding relief in his God. David does right by his faith again.     Jeremiah laments that Israel/Judahs’ love for God has grown cold. She has become a “queen” of prostitutes in many ways. God moves over them with an offering of repentance. They should move with God’s offer . . . but sadly they don’t let themselves be instructed.  .         Hosea brings a second antithetical story in a row as Israel is vapid/stupid and idolatrous, wretched to the core and refuses to be attentive and learn from God. So God is going to move a vicious army in their direction.        Everything Jesus taught them in Mark this week were very moving and dramatic lessons loaded with vital instruction. Jesus used each “teachable moment” to the full and the disciples caught it eventually.          Paul’s instruction to the Roman church was straight from the Holy Spirit.  God was moving people from all ~walks of life and ~regions and ~refined faith and ~pagan faiths —> right into His Kingdom and the teaching he gave this week was a perfect application to help them understand the moving of God anew .  Let’s let ourselves be instructed by God’s Spirit also so we do not miss what He has for us.
Posted on

April 29

 

Romans 10-12

We are in the Church Stream today reading with the International Standard Version this week.

 

Lord, the issue today is salvation. We are grateful that you are mighty to save. Amen.

10 – Paul is continuing on the same thread of salvation and his longing for the Jews to understand the greater picture; that the salvation they have been hoping and “working” for for 1400 years and more is now here … and they are fighting it tooth and nail!  The middle of chapter 10 spells it out. We believe in our heart, and confess with our mouth and therein salvation is granted. This is what Abraham did and was counted righteous for. And Abraham (whom they revere) was “saved” 600 years before the Law was given to follow. This is proof positive that salvation comes by faith.  It’s strange, but this is all so obvious to the “old guard” within Judaism that it is staring them in the face – thus they can’t see it.  Paul’s quoting of Isaiah, and Moses, and David in Psalms, and the Prophet Joel is proof positive that what was going on now is what God has been planning for salvation to become and that be accessible to all nations. –> and It’s happening now – but the old school Jewish leadership is disturbed by it and vehemently against it.

 
11 –  Despite the Jews’ open rejection of the salvation that is now found in Jesus, God still loves his Chosen Ones. Granted, the Jewish rejection of Jesus was not universal. The original believers and converts were mostly Jews. The growing young church was majority Jewish is culture and its overtone.  It was the Jewish leadership that had rancor for the Christians, and their proselytes turned agitators were the ones who brought the most harassment to the burgeoning Church. But in this chapter [11], Paul talks of salvation for all the Jews.  The interplay of the Jewish and Gentile relationship has a tone of sibling rivalry as Paul describes it. The symbolism and illustrations of yeast and bread and the affect each has upon the other and the tree metaphor of the trunk and the branch gives such clarity to what Paul is so impassioned about. He REALLY wants these spiritual concepts to be understood. Paul closes by exclaiming the wonders of God’s processes by working out our salvation in a myriad of ways. It’s a marvelous and endless topic, isn’t it?
 
12 – This is a banner chapter about our life that is dedicated to God and transformed for living unto God and honoring Him with our service. This life is filled with grace and gifts and productive activity that blesses, spreads cheer, and love, and hope, and serves others so to spread that love.  The finale~ is exhortation that is vital for dealing with tension, deviance and deviant people. It is a paragraph that is unique to Christianity.  Interesting that the pagans and the other religions of the world refer to Christians as “the nice ones”, the “happy ones”, the “ones who share”.  My husband and I have been in over 70 countries and we’ve seen this first hand.  It is a marvel how Christians are everywhere and spreading Good News, even to those who currently despise Jesus and His followers.  And it is this ministry in the Holy Spirit that is resulting in millions of new Christians coming into the Kingdom of God each week!
 

The week walked us through much Preparation for Big Changes

~Moses relayed the plans for Passover, for leaving Egypt so to institute a new faith and how it would be lived.

~David is now king – this is a big change: he “farewells” Saul/Jonathan, though he is in Hebron, he names Jerusalem the new capitol and national worship will be instituted there. Worship will be done according to what David says – vibrant and energetic.

~In Psalms DAvid prays for deliverance [35] and then revels in his relationship with God. What better way to prepare for deliverance than to pray for deliverance?
~Isaiah is basically telling us to prepare for a whole new world and Jeremiah is told to prepare to follow the Call of God.
~in Hosea, we all wish he had something more pleasant to say but he, because of Israel’s behavior, he is saying, “you better prepare yourselves to be destroyed – the way you are carrying on…”
~Mark teaches, “here comes Jesus, prepare yourselves to be blessed.”
~Paul in Romans 10-12 is saying, “prepare to be saved. Jews first then Gentiles.  Wait, no Gentiles are more readily receiving him, so Gentiles more for now, then Jews will follow in because of envy.  Oh well, all of you are going to be saved!”
Posted on

April 22

 

Romans 7-9

We are in the Church Stream today reading from the Good News Translation.

 

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

7 – Why is there The Law? Whether nonChristian religions want to admit it or not, something is wrong.  It is not a perfect world and there is especially something wrong with us. The deficit created between what we are are and what we ought to be is not caused by diet, lack of inner essence-ness, poor wifi with our mobile device. And more/enough money isn’t going to take our sin away. The world descended into sin since Genesis 3 occurred and a Savior is needed. We violated God’s Law and only a solution from God will remedy the matter. Without Law humanity remains oblivious that a Savior is needed and that there is a vast gap between where we are spiritually and where we ought to be.   God doesn’t want our reaction to a Savior to be, “Savior? I don’t need a Savior. That merely proves human oblivion.  We are helpless to save ourselves and God’s Law proves this to us.

Paul uses an illustration of marriage for us to help start the realization process. The fact of Law and what it reveals about us proves that we as humans come up short regardless. Our nature is divided. What we know, what we wish we did, and what we do, fails to line up again and again. We embody the conflict. We live the conflict. The conflict lives in us. Except for Jesus, and haleluia, we have Jesus…provided we let Jesus have us.
 
8 – In Jesus, we have Life abundant, full and free, in the Holy Spirit. Condemnation is overwith.  This Holy Spirit lives in us.  The Holy Spirit enables us to do and be and become all that God designed us for in this life. Our obligation now is not to an exhausting Law but to the Holy Spirit – to remain in Him and yielded to Him; to be listening to His promptings and not selfishness anymore. And Jesus, through the Holy Spirit in us, allows this to happen in us. What we truly crave in our soul is for Christ to reign in our lives and all that is explained in this chapter allows this to happen. The suffering that creation is under is universal suffering, but this hope in Christ carries us through to attach to the ultimate freedom that is coming. The Spirit is praying for us. We need never be in dismay or defeated for God can be trusted.  We have Christ. We will always have Christ. Christ Himself will not allow something to come between us. We are never separated from Him. Romans 8 is magnificent and has given comfort to Believers in the most bleak of settings for 19+ centuries.
 
9 – Paul, not one to duck from issues, brings up the pain he has over the fact that many of the Jewish people, for whom the promises of God were first granted, are not in the Covenant – and it is their rejecting God [not the vice versa] that is the problem. God did not reject the Jews so to discard them. God used the occasion of their smugness to Him and the New Covenant in Christ’s blood to open the invitation to the nations of the whole world. This all hinges on God’s mercy and grace. Remember that every false religion errs in the realm of grace. They mess it up. They do not understand it. This chapter is an exposition of another factor of God’s grace. He has opened the Kingdom of Himself to more people who do not deserve it.  He is just good.  That is the issue here.  It was foretold that the Kingdom of heaven and access to it would be opened to all people’s and not just “a door held open” for one race of people for all time.

The motif that came forward day after day this week was, “God is Sovereign. Will we accept this and trust Him?”

Pharaoh’s heart was hard as stone in the first 5 plagues.  God made sure Pharaoh remained so plagues 6ff. – so that all 10 plagues could be executed to testify to the world for all time.  God’s sovereignty is the only explanation for this.   David is going through a cauldron of events and stresses that could have shook His faith and had him question his destiny. He knew God enough to trust Him through it all.  Psalms this week was an alpine journey through frantic cries, through turbulence, thanksgiving, trust, and forgiveness. Trust in His Sovereignty is what sustains David – AGAIN. Isaiah prophesies of astounding things that are going to happen in Israel in the future. It is talk like this that will sustain Israel as they are going to walk through some painful things brought on by their rebellion. Understanding sovereignty is what helps us rise to see the big picture.  We see sovereignty in Hosea’s words, “I will abandon my people until they have suffered enough for their sins, and come looking for me …” God isn’t mean. He is sovereign and only He knows what is going to work.  We see God’s sovereignty in Jesus showing Lordship over the Sabbath, and demons, and illness and nature.  Paul describes a part of God’s sovereignty in His opening Himself to the world and the world to Him when, by default, Israel (especially leadership) rejects God.  This is enough different ways God has shown His graciousness and sovereignty for us to realize that His sovereignty will prove true in our lives as well.  For nothing can separate us from the love of God. Amen.