Pope Francis is a counterculturist and that’s a good thing.  Given the dank depths to which the so-called mainstream culture has sunk, being countercultural is a breath of fresh air. 

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Be a Biblical Counterculturist–that’s the message the Apostle Paul tells us in today’s passage:

Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God– this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is– his good, pleasing and perfect will. 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

In a culture that exalts hedonism, excess, self-gratification, sexual aberrance, license, tolerance–indeed celebration–of what God calls sin, and a selfish, godless human existence with few to no moral limits, Scripture tells us to be countercultural.

Don’t conform to that culture! 

Take a stand against all that!

Well done, Pope Francis!  Well done, Christian counterculturist!

By way of contrast to our modern culture, Biblical Counterculturalism calls us to self-sacrifice, holiness, worship of God, thanksgiving for His mercy, spiritual renewal, reformation of our minds and our churches, and by the power of the Gospel, it calls us to humility.

How are you doing with being a Biblical Counterculturist?

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Give it up for Lent: Conformity with an immoral world

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For further study:

1. In what ways was Jesus countercultural?  Read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and identify ways in which Jesus preached a countercultural life for His disciples.
2. What pressures are placed against Pope Francis and other Christians to conform to what the world wants?
3. From where does a Christian derive his strength to stand tall and to resist conformity?  Name a few ways Christians can find encouragement.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!  “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”  “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?”  For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36, NIV)

Now that Paul has outlined the power of the Gospel and pointed to the mystery of how God saves both Jews and Gentiles within the family of faith, Paul cannot contain himself any longer.  He bursts forth in praise.

No matter how smart Paul is, he is overwhelmed by the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

The Gospel:

No human could have predicted it.

No one is beyond being answerable to it.

No human payment could secure it.

No one’s mind can fully comprehend it.

No book—including the Bible—has fully explained the mystery of it.

No one has conceived the full extent of it.

This is the primary reason I haven’t engaged in the salvation debates so far.  The truth is that none of us knows how God judges or the intricate mystery of how God saves.  We can’t figure out our own salvation let alone make determinations of how other people are saved or elected to salvation.  These things are too marvelous for us to know.

If we can’t comprehend it, what should be our response? 

Praise.  Unbridled praise.

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Give it up for Lent: Trying to be God’s mind-reader

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For further study:

1. Read again the words of today’s passage which is often labeled a doxology (a hymn of praise) and meditate on how far beyond our understanding are God’s workings.
2. Read Isaiah 40:6-31.  What about God merits our praise?
3. When is the last time you burst forth in unbridled praise of God?

The words “Time Out” have a couple of clear meanings to an American audience.  To parents, it’s a time when a child gets isolated, providing the child an opportunity for reflection upon the link between actions and consequences.  The other meaning comes from athletics: a “Time Out” is called so that a team’s coach can review strategy, articulate an upcoming play, give the players a breather or a pep talk, or to change the momentum of the game.

From the moment Paul began his Letter to the Romans, we’ve seen Paul’s outlining of the Gospel as first for the Jew and then for the Gentile (Romans 1:16-17).  It’s for everyone who believes.  But now, questions hang heavy in the air, particularly about Israel (e.g. national benefits, the Law, covenants, patriarchs, promises, etc).  Paul sees where their minds are going in Romans 11:1-11.

I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin (Romans 11:1)

What about Israel now?  Are we being replaced as God’s chosen people?

Paul calls a Time Out, Times Two.

First, Time Out, huddle up!  Let’s look at the sweep of salvation.  From the time Adam and Eve sinned, God’s plan was to rescue His image bearers.  While He couldn’t rescue all of them (because some would continually rebel against God’s love and grace), God could rescue some.  Some would respond with faith in God.  While there’s a mysterious interplay between faith and grace (Ephesians 2:8-10), no one’s being kicked off the team on account of national heritage.

Paul says, Look at me!  I’m a Jew and I’m still on the team!

But right now, there’s another Time Out.  Israel has been benched with four fouls in order to think about how God’s salvation has always been by grace, not by the Law, not national heritage, and not by works.

Four fouls, but by grace, you’re still in the game.  Think about the fundamentals: faith, not works!  This remnant exists today just as it did in Elijah’s day.  Maybe you’re benched now because God wants to extend salvation to other players too.

At the end of the game it’s not just the players on the court who are winners!  It’s the whole team!

God isn’t disposing of people groups.  It isn’t first for the Jew, then throw them away, and on to the Gentiles as the new chosen people.  No,  Jew and Gentile, we’re a team—the Gospel invites us all through faith in Christ to be the team of believers in God.

So Time Out, Times Two.  Game Plan: the Gospel is first for the Jew, then for the Gentiles.  Actions have consequences: let’s focus on fundamentals of faith and not just works, and we’ll come out as winners.

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Give it up for Lent: Thinking that the Jews have been replaced by the Church

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For further study:

1. How might Christians treat baptism, the sacraments, church attendance, confirmation or Bible study as a suitable replacement for faith?  Do we risk being benched for such an attitude?
2. Read the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19:1-18.  Elijah recounted actions he had been doing versus the Israelites, concluding with Elijah’s assumptions about being the only faithful one left.  What was God’s response to Elijah’s assertion?  In what ways do we act like we’re the only faithful ones left?
3. In the story of Elijah, we see that God has quiet hidden ways about His working.  How does our passage Romans 11:1-11 show that God is still working behind the scenes? See v 11 particularly.

There are few pictures more plaintive than God’s holding out His hands, desiring a relationship with Israel over the course of history and their rejecting Him.  They rejected Him as King and they got Saul.  They rejected Him as God and they got exile.  They rejected Him as Messiah and now they are stubbornly insisting on remaining outside, looking in through an open door and seeing Gentiles in relationship with the Father the way they had been once upon a time.

And Isaiah boldly says, “I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.” But concerning Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.” (Romans 10:20-21, NIV)

All of creation has been shouting God’s existence, indeed their voice has been proclaiming His message, “Come home to God your Father!”

In our passage today, Romans 10:14-21, Paul asserts that God, having held out His hands for all this time, is now calling them back into a relationship with Him.  Now the time had come in redemption history for God to take the matter of the good news into His own hands by sending Jesus.  In Him, God is inviting the Gentile world to faith, just as He had planned all along.  But He’s holding out His hands, calling His people–Israel–home.

In doing so, He is also using a different strategy to bring Israel home.  He’s making Israel envious.  He’s making them angry so that the chosen people come will back home because they see people—Gentiles to whom they’d considered themselves superior—coming to God in faith.  God is using human nature in order to bring His people—both Jew and Gentile—into the Kingdom.

The good news has been for Jew and Gentile all along.  God held out His hands to Israel in the call of Abraham and in the giving of the Law—all the privileges of the chosen people.  He extended His nail-pierced hands to Gentiles at the Cross.  He extends these same hands to the Jews at the Cross, through the witness of Christians, and by His Word to show us that the good news of the Gospel is God’s holding out His hands and inviting us home. 

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Give it up for Lent: Silently keeping God to ourselves

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For further study

1. Read Psalm 19—how does creation call out?
2. Read Isaiah’s prayer in Isaiah 63:7-64:12.  What does Isaiah want God to do?  In Isaiah 65:2 we have the pronouncement that God has held His hands out.  Read the rest of Isaiah 65.  What does this tell us about why God was displeased with the Israelites?  What does this say God plans to do about it?
3. Read Galatians 3:6-29—how does this inform our understanding of the Christians’ relationship to the Jews? 
4. How are we doing at preaching the good news for our Jewish friends to see and hear?

The end of the Law is nothing new.  Moses saw it coming.  Remember earlier I described the Law and the Prophets as God’s Sacred Space Maintainer?

In today’s passage, Romans 10:1-13, Christ is the end of the law, not because He did away with the concept of being law-abiding.  No, He is the end of the law because He filled that space perfectly and now—in Him and only in Him—we can too.

How do we get in line with what Jesus is doing?  Moses told us in Deuteronomy 30:1-20.  It’s all about loving and obeying God.

Deuteronomy 30: 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. 15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (NIV)

All people fall short of complete obedience, but there’s good news!  We can get in the boat.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

In Him is the end of the law. 

In Him is forgiveness and life. 

In Him is the righteousness that we cannot achieve on our own. 

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Jew or Gentile, the Mosaic Law preserved what was holy. 

The Messiah lived what is holy. 

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The good news is that for Jew or Gentile, we can get in the boat.

We can be found righteous, not by the law, but by being in Him.

Romans 10:12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

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Give it up for Lent: Refusing to get in the boat

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For further thought:

1. Why did Moses give the Israelites the Law if it wouldn’t save them?
2. Why does Paul take so much time to reiterate that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile and the Gospel is for all?
3. Why is it important today that we realize there are not many ways to God?  What role has syncretism played in our culture?  What about political correctness and religious tolerance?  What other influences are at work against the Gospel?

Yes, I’m deliberately avoiding the theological debates associated with salvation in these devotionals.  It’s my goal at Seminary Gal to make the theological understandable and it’s better to do this in articles rather than devotionals.

Perhaps it’s best to start with the bottom line of Romans 9:19-33: God is free to do what He wants.  When we know that’s the bottom line, then Paul’s teaching technique (asking rhetorical questions) doesn’t paint God into a corner.

God is free to do what He wants, but He is not capricious, fickle, malicious, or arbitrary.  God is not mean, hateful, or unjust.

He has a plan which involves people, and He’s sticking with it.

Paul rejects our thinking we can hold God accountable for our actions.  We are not puppets on the Father’s hand, doing His bidding. 

Rather, there is a dynamic tension (like a rope anchored on both sides of a valley).  If only one side is anchored, then the rope is for rappelling not used for tightrope walking.

Who created?  God did.

Who is able to move me and is therefore, responsible for my actions? God is and yet I am.  Tension: God has His responsibilities (which He fulfilled in Jesus Christ) and yet, I’m responsible for what I do with what Jesus did.

So, read what Paul says in Romans 9: 30-33

 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the ‘stumbling stone.’ 33 As it is written: ‘See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’”

God’s plan was that the Gospel was for both Jews and Gentiles.  The Gospel is a matter of faith and something only God could purpose but we are responsible for trusting in Him.  Whether Jew or Gentile, Jesus is the rock of our salvation.  By faith we climb upon the solid rock of salvation, but for those who want to do it themselves, He is the rock that blocks the way.

Just as when the spies went into the Promised Land, Joshua and Caleb trusted God and He was their rock of salvation.  The other ten spies trusted only themselves and their works. God blocked their way and they died in the wilderness.

The path to the Promised Land involved dealing with the rock–either by faith in what God does,

or by rejecting Him.

For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

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Give it up for Lent: Do-it-yourself salvation

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For further study:

1. Throughout the recent Scriptures, Paul is showing us that there is a faithful remnant from within the national Jewish group.  These are the faithful spiritual Jews.  Read Numbers 13-14, the story of the spies sent into the Promised Land, and meditate on the role of faith.
2. In the passage from Numbers (above) why do you think that God stresses that those adults who saw His glory but rebelled would not enter the Promised Land? How does this show God’s freedom to let some of the Israelites die for their unbelief?
3.  Yet, in Numbers 14:31, God says that the children of those who were unfaithful would still have opportunity to enter the Promised Land.  How does this demonstrate God’s grace?

We have a dog named Harley.  Oftentimes, he’ll walk right in front of me, looking back for cues, and try to anticipate where I’m going.  It’s annoying since he doesn’t know what I’m doing or where I’m headed. 

How can he possibly lead the way? 

I wonder if God gets frustrated with us like that.  We try to anticipate God’s movement when God alone knows the plan.

Yesterday, we saw Paul’s broken heart for Israel and today in Romans 9:9-18, he continues a theme reiterating that the Gospel—in order to be Good News—must be so for both Jew and Gentile.  It’s been God’s plan all along.

Jew and Gentile: we’re on equal ground as sinners, in our need for salvation, and in our inability to earn it, barter for it, or deserve it.

Now Paul expands that thought by showing we cannot anticipate God.  God chose (in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) the Jewish heritage for bringing the Messiah.  Being Jewish was important for fulfilling Scripture, but that’s where it ends. Gentiles were being brought into the Kingdom, but the Jews needed the Gospel too.

• Salvation is not about lineage—Ishmael teaches us that.
• It’s not about priority rights of birth order—Esau teaches us that.
• It’s not about any works we can do or even faith we ourselves try to muster.  Rebecca’s twins demonstrate that it is God’s purpose alone that is important for salvation history.

Twins have the same mother and the same father—the exact same lineage—but they were not born at the same time.  There was a birth order.  Now, consider this: the Messiah couldn’t come from two men’s lineages.  So God chose one.  Rather than have us watching all the firstborns anticipating Messianic potential like it’s the NFL draft, God chose to bring His Messiah in His way, upending the whole birth order idea saying,

The older will serve the younger.” (Romans 9:12)

Traditions of men establish priority of the firstborn.  God says that it’s not that simple or formulaic.  We don’t know where He is going, so we should let Him lead.  In bringing our Messiah in an unexpected way, God demonstrated His power, His plan, His grace, His mercy, and He alone knows where He’s going in the sovereign sweep of history.

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Give it up for Lent: Trying to anticipate what God will do

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 For further study:

1. Joseph was Jacob’s (Israel’s) favorite son (Genesis 37:3), but he is not in the lineage of Christ.  Judah, Israel’s firstborn, is.  How does this apply to how God works?
2. Read the genealogy and birth narrative of Jesus from Matthew 1.  Identify God’s unpredictable ways.
3. Pray about ways in which you’re trying to predict where God is going and lead Him there.  Repent of that and trust God to lead you.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all– how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died– more than that, who was raised to life– is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 8:31-39, NIV)

Recently, I traveled on a domestic flight out of Chicago O’Hare airport.  With “the sequester” in progress in the US, we thought we’d be standing in long lines for airport security.  Surprisingly, there was hardly any wait at all.

Of course there was the usual process: identification check, ticket check, shoes off, computer out, no belt, no metal, no weapons, quart-sized zippered plastic bag of miniscule amounts of liquids, gels, etc., and the inevitable luggage x-ray.  Then there’s the full body scanner and a possible pat down…all in the name of security.

Yes, it’s inconvenient, and a lot to go through, but it’s nice having a sense of security.

Even so, when we got to our destination, we heard news reports of the failures of the safety protocol and people getting through airport security with bombs in their pants.  Good grief, I don’t even want to think about what comes next for the law-abiding among us.

I was thinking about security because today’s passage (Romans 8:31-39  also above) talks about it.  You see, we’re all under a death sentence because of sin.  We’re not faced with mere terrorism—humanity is faced with total annihilation.

And yet, we can have security from this enemy.  It doesn’t require quart sized bags and scanners.

Our greatest security measure is nothing less than God Himself.

Look at the laundry list of enemies in the verses above!

Yet God’s security measure is His love shown to us in Jesus Christ. 

He took our sins. 

He conquered death. 

In Him, we have the same victory.  Now that’s security!

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Give it up for Lent: Fear that something will separate you from God

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For further study:

1. In 65 verses of the Bible (in the NIV translation), it reads “Do not be afraid.”  Why do you think God takes such pains to remind us…indeed He commands us…not to fear? 
2. What does fear suggest about our view of God’s security?
3. Read 1 Peter 3:8-22.  Does freedom from fear equal freedom from persecution or trouble?  What does Jesus say about that in John 16:33?

What can you have but never hold?  

What can you possess while it is invisible, but once you see it, it’s gone?

It sounds like a riddle, but it’s hope.

The hope of salvation is something we can possess but we do not see it, except by faith.  Hope sustains us between our first believing until we possess it fully.  Paul tells us that we do not hope for what we already hold in our hands.  Once hope has been realized, it’s no longer hope.

Hope is the hidden faith bridge between possession and realization.

Likewise, our passage today (Romans 8:24-30) teaches that the Holy Spirit provides a similar kind of sustaining power of the unseen.  We cannot see the Holy Spirit, but He testifies to our salvation and He is powerfully at work on our behalf behind the scenes. He bridges for us between saving faith and final redemption.

Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified (NIV).

We try to pray and the Holy Spirit takes the believers’ prayers and prays for us in accordance with God’s will.  It’s reassuring to know that when God’s will isn’t exactly clear to me, yet I can pray the will of God because the Holy Spirit is the sustaining power of the unseen, hard at work, all the time on behalf of believers!

I’d prefer to finish with that encouraging word, but in good conscience, I cannot leave this passage of Scripture without pointing out that theologians try to use verses 28-30 to force the visible upon the unseen on two theological points.  They try to take what we clearly have and try to make it something we can hold.  I will address the issues of (1) God’s working things for good and (2) the idea of predestination in a separate article.  They’re important topics even if they generate far more heat than light in theological discussions.

We can be encouraged that sometimes things can simply remain a mystery and stay hidden to our eyes.  Mystery is a beautiful thing because when we force the visible upon the unseen, we lose something valuable.  We lose hope and the sustaining power of the unseen.

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Give it up for Lent: My need to resolve all mysteries

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For further study:

1. Take a moment to ponder the unseen.  Rainbows’ ends, gravity, wind, love, hope…why do you think people desire to hold onto what is unseen?  Why are we tempted to harness it?  What are we doing when we harness something?
2. Why might humans want to quantify salvation?  What would we gain if we know who is saved and who isn’t?  What would we lose?
3. Read John 3:1-18.  How does this apply to the idea of the unseen?  Is it unseen to Jesus if it is to our eyes?  What is required of us if Jesus can see it and we cannot?