Dear Student of the Word,
Here is your last Bible study for 2012. I trust that you and yours are having a happy and blessed holiday season, and that you are not taking a break from God's word. I also hope you are giving some thought to what you can do in 2013 to become even more immersed in God's word. As we enter into one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, Romans 8, here are some comments I made about the prelude in Romans 7 in part one of this week's seven-part study, which you can download below:
Study Seven, Part One
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.
7:7 – As mentioned in an earlier study, the Law was the instrument that made you aware of what sin is and the Law gave your sin expression, so to speak. Let’s say that every day you take a shortcut to work by walking over some grass. It seems innocent enough. Then one day a sign goes up that says, “Keep Off the Grass.” You come to find out that this has always been private property and you were doing something wrong without knowing it.
But now you have a problem, for this grassy shortcut saves you a lot of time every day. You have now been informed that it is wrong, but you decide to continue to do it. Now you are “sinning,” but you did not know you were sinning until the sign went up.
Let’s go one step further. Let’s say you had a bad feeling every time you walked on the grass—your conscience bothered you. But the Law helped educate your conscience, which is not perfect or infallible, for you never really understood why you always felt bad when you walked on that grass. Now you really feel bad when you walk on that grass, but you still walk on it. Conscience can lead you to sense that you are doing something “wrong,” but conscience may not be able to indicate what it is exactly. Now you may choose to ignore you conscience and do what you know is wrong, that previously you sensed was wrong – but did not know why you felt that way.
7:8&9 – Paul used the example of covetousness. Until the command came along, you could covet everything your neighbor had, including his or her spouse. Now the command has told you that desire is wrong, but that command has no power to deal with and remove the covetous desire that was there all along. All the Law did was define what that desire was and tell you it was against God’s will.
7:10 – There is nothing wrong with the commandments of the Law. They are not the problem. Your sinful heart is the problem. The Law, which is from God, is good and was to keep man from sin and death. Instead it gave rise to his sinful nature and since the wages of sin are death, led man to realize that he was separate from God and unable to do His will. The Law let mankind know that it had a problem, but did not tell man how to solve that problem. That would come later in the Law of Christ.
As always, I welcome your comments to this week's study. For additional Bible studies, check out my website archive, which contains a complete collection of all my verse-by-verse New Testament studies, along with the unpublished volume of The Faith Files.
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NEW DAILY DEVOTIONAL: As I complete my 2012 daily devotional, What Would Jesus Ask You Today?, I will begin a new one on January 1 called Purpose Pearls. If you would like to receive this automatically every day, just subscribe on my blog site and make sure you pay attention to the confirmation email you will receive once you do subscribe.
PURPOSECOACH: On January 1, my program called PurposeCoach is coming back, bigger and better than ever. This time, it will all be online and digitized, and on sale for $99, half off the normal price of $198. If you are interested, let me know and I will send you some info and the link through which you can pay.
ISRAEL 2013: I am returning to Israel in September, 2013 and I am inviting you to come with me. The
brochure is attached, so read up and then let me know you are coming with me.
GIVE A GIFT TO AN ORPHAN: I have updated my website page that describes what I am doing in Kenya and how you can help. One of the new features is to give a gift of $35 to an orphan this holiday season, which will feed, clothe and care for an orphan like Obed (click to enlarge) for one month. Please check out the new page and then give generously to the cause through PayPal on that page or by sending a tax-deductible check to PurposeQuest, PO Box 8882, Pittsbugh, PA 15221-0882.
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