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Like last week’s reading from Romans 6:12-23, this week’s lesson from Romans 7: 15-25a features Paul’s teaching on the tension and struggle between life in the Spirit and life in the flesh. In Romans 6, (...)

This week’s passage is the third in a series of three arguments Paul makes, beginning in 9:30, in an effort to distinguish between the “works of the law” that Israel pursued (and thereby failed to (...)

A cursory reading of Romans might lead one to think that chapters 9-11 are a tangent or insertion unrelated to the rest of the letter. A more careful reading, however, leads to a different conclusion. (...)

This passage, part of the larger section of Romans 12-15, has traditionally been called the ethical outworking of Paul’s presentation of the gospel in Romans 1-11, or the paraenesis section. Unfortunately, this way of reading (...)

It is perhaps a conventional American aspiration to be debt-free in every way, because it marks autonomy and self-sufficiency. A measure of self-respect may come from living according to the twin principles, “owe nothing to (...)

Christmas is the Festival of the Incarnation. It celebrates the birth of the baby Jesus. The second lesson for today reminds us, however — as does the Gospel text — that the nativity is set (...)

The text begins abruptly, about half way through chapter 4 of Romans. Since the chapter carries on a discussion running throughout its twenty-five verses, the reader and listener are caught off guard. Starting at 4:13 (...)

It’s common to say we’re dead to sin in terms of our spiritual self, or that “when God looks at me, God sees Christ and not my sinful human self.” In reality we’re still sinners; (...)

The reason that this passage appears in the lectionary at this point is obvious. It is an epistolary text that speaks of the activities of the Holy Spirit. There are of course other passages that (...)

One might wonder at the selection of this text set in conversation with that of Job and the Markan text on divorce and “the little children.” Though connections might be made through Psalm 8 (it (...)