I'm posting this early here because I'll be on the road all day Saturday and won't be able to post at the usual time.

The major doctrinal elements are all too obvious in Romans. Let's not get bogged down chasing too many details and enjoy the broad sweep of what Paul teaches here.

After his introductory stuff, Paul jumps right in with the teaching that humanity at large has no excuse for not knowing God. It should be obvious he refers to the fundamental purpose of revelation: We are supposed to get to know God personally. All humans are equipped for this, so much so that there was actually no real need for a written record of Scripture. That's just extra mercy; everyone could have found God without it.

They knew Him but refused to give Him the praise due. Their minds got lost in their own selfish desires and their hearts became darkened -- they were committed to darkness. They became so lost from the truth that they worshiped just about anything and everything except God. The Lord honored their choice and turned them over to Satan to rule them through their fleshly natures. The human race has been self-destructive ever since.

Continuing into the next chapter, Paul shows us that our fleshly nature is inherently hypocritical. We see certain sins in others because those are our sins. Those who pursue peace with God will find a rich harvest. Everyone else will find the Devil's harvest. Knowing the Scriptures won't save you. It requires you obey them. Paul cites the example of Gentiles having never heard or seen the Word, and somehow managing to hear the divine call so that they find peace with God. Meanwhile, a great many in Israel knew the Word and did not find peace with God.

The Scripture is not the key, but a heart that answers the divine call. Thus, the false witness of Jews who rejected the call in their hearts resulted in diminishing God's reputation. Circumcision was just a ritual. Too many people had unclean souls and their circumcision meant nothing, especially compared to uncircumcised Gentiles who reached out to the God of Israel without even knowing His name. Paul establishes the principle that circumcision means nothing by itself.

A real Jew is someone whose heart has been purified by submission to God as Master. Those Israelis who ignored the opportunity to become friends with God aren't real Jews.

Continuing into the third chapter, Paul notes that God still used the Hebrew people, despite themselves. God's plan required entrusting His Word to someone, and Israel was chosen for that task. Their lack of faith did not frustrate His revelation. Once declared, accountability to His revelation was established.

Despite the arrogance of Jews, they are no better off than Gentiles. We are all born with a sin nature that makes us hostile to God's ways. Paul quotes several prophecies that declare it all too clearly. The law code simply clarified for Israel their need for redemption. There is nothing redemptive in the Law itself. It certainly didn't do Jews any good.

However, God has offered a final clarification of who He is and what He demands in the coming of His own Son. He is the New Covenant, open to all humanity. All the rituals have been fulfilled in His sacrifice. And the kind of faith commitment that He now requires wipes away the imaginary privilege of Jews, who honestly believe they have God over a barrel. It's not that faith voids the law code, but rather it validates the law. The law was the manifestation of that old covenant. The purpose of that Covenant was to identify Jesus as the Messiah.

Thus far, it's all quite pertinent to our focus on the continuity between the Old and New Covenants.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

   
The boondoggle of getting my ticket updated in Dallas took way too long. But the time I had my new ticket, it was getting rather late. Dealey Plaza was just a couple of blocks away, but it was getting dark before I got there, so the only shot I could make was this Old Red Museum before sunset. There are better pictures out there, but I was impressed by the way it looked.
   
Corpus Christi is seeing massive highway projects and some of them are awfully high in the air for no apparent reason.
   
We tried to get out to South Padre Island, but the traffic was backed up all the way into Port Isabel and beyond. We got far enough to check out a small park hidden in a little neighborhood. I didn't like the way this turned out, but it was the best I could do with my cell phone to capture the huge buildings out on South Padre.
   
Turning in the opposite direction from that same park, this shows some of the houses along the beach in Port Isabel. The water here is quite shallow; we saw a fisherman in waders standing in water just to his waist about 50 yards out from the park.
   
This was what the storms looked like rolling into San Benito.

We are putting Dad in hospice care in about a week. There are a number of reasons we're doing this, but a lot of it is due to his difficulty eating properly, which puts him at high risk of aspirational pneumonia, increasing kidney dysfunction, and his dementia and general cognitive decline. We'll be discontinuing a lot of meds and we won't hospitalize him for aggressive measures...his reaction to going and staying at the hospital range from cranky to aggressive displeasure, which is probably doing more harm than the hospitalization does good. We'll be essentially limiting to the "feel good" drugs. 

I guess I don't need to spell it out: he won't last much longer, I want to say a few more months at the most. My brother is going to fly up from Iowa this coming weekend to see him and our sisters, so I may as well do the same. He can really go at any time and I don't want really my last meeting with him to be from Mom's funeral in December.

That's all. Prayers at any time are appreciated, naturally.

I've reached the end of the last series and I'm not sure where to go at this point. I need to spend some time in prayer about this. Then again, Crez has been cranking it out, so it's not like anyone should suffer from spiritual withdrawal symptoms.

I thought I had already mentioned this, but can't find it here on the forum: I'll be traveling a bit this coming week. Tomorrow I leave on a bus for Harlingen, TX. I'll be there a few days with my Mom, then we will drive back in her car up here (me at the wheel). She'll be around here for a few days, then we reverse the process next Friday. I'll get back home late the next day.

I should be able to keep up my regular posting schedule, but you never know about Internet connections. I'm told the buses have wifi these days...

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

This is not so much a study as an outline of events. The Book of Acts yields no further doctrinal material. However, we cannot leave Paul in the royal quarters at Caesarea.

By now we are somewhere around AD 58. Paul faced the Sanhedrin in the presence of Felix. This governor was married to a Jewess, so he wasn't ignorant of Hebrew religion and culture. Felix realized that the Sanhedrin did not have a case, but wanted a bribe from Paul. It never came and after some unnerving discussions with Paul about sin and eternal destiny over a couple of years, he left Paul in custody as a small favor to the Jews when he was replaced by Festus.

Paul has been under mere house arrest, free to wander the Roman facility and to see any visitors, along with whatever gifts they might bring. Festus comes on the scene and visits the Roman facilities in Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin approach him about Paul, but it was a cover for getting Paul out in the open where they could ambush the Roman guards and kill Paul. Festus must have smelled something nasty was up and declined to make any moves until he first visited Caesarea, and he already had plans to go there in a few days. This brings us to around AD 60.

Festus was trying to offer an olive branch to reduce the tensions from the rising Jewish nationalism, and asked Paul if he would return to the Sanhedrin Court in Jerusalem. Paul appealed to Caesar. But lacking anything definitive to write about this prisoner, Festus took advantage of a visit from Herod Agrippa to see if there was anything of substance in the Sanhedrin's complaint.

Luke spends a whole chapter recounting Paul's speech. It summarizes pertinent parts of the Book of Acts itself. Festus interrupted when it got to be more than he could take. Paul turned back to Agrippa, but the king jokingly parried without saying anything of substance, and rose to signal his lack of interest in any further discussion. In a private conference between Agrippa and Festus, it was agreed there was no case, but Paul's appeal to Caesar forced them to send him to Rome.

They set sail at a bad time of year and Paul prophesied that the ship would be lost. Eventually it was, as harsh storms drove it into some shallow rocks near an island. But Paul had prayed for the lives of those aboard the ship and all were saved when the ship broke apart. Paul and his friends ministered and performed miracles on the island where they landed, staying three months while waiting another ship.

The weather became much milder and the ship made its way up the coast of Italy to its destination, and the entourage traveled overland the rest of the way. Paul met with both church leaders and those of the Jewish community. After some days, the latter group split as usual between those who believed and those who did not.

Meanwhile, Paul was granted leave to rent his own quarters and remain under house arrest in Rome. His influence saw many believers among Roman troops, the imperial palace staff and others who came to visit. He remained there another two years where Luke ends his narrative. The Roman Emperor was Nero, whose early reign was considered rather good.

We are quite certain Paul was released some time around AD 62. Piecing together hints and comments scattered among his letters and some contemporary stories from Christian writings, we believe Paul headed to Macedonia for a while. At some point he visited farther west along the Dalmatian Coast and eventually went to Spain. Somewhere in his travels Paul was arrested again, and we have no way of knowing if it was provoked by Jews or something directly offensive to Roman Law. Nero was becoming quite unstable by this time, and had already set fire to parts of the city and blaming Christians. Either way, in custody again around AD 66, Paul writes a few more letters and was eventually executed, as he expected.

Then came the revolt in Jerusalem in AD 70. The Apostles and their flocks left the city before the Roman siege. John makes his way to Ephesus, which soon became the new center of gravity for Christian religion. The other letters are written over the next two decades. John finally writes his Gospel in the early 90s, and his Revelation around AD 95. According to those he taught, he died around AD 98 or 99.

Walking to the bus stop today for work, God caught my attention with this. This was on the Tarentum Bridge, looking east (duh) through a chain-link fence, down the Allegheny River. The large building you see in the distance is an alloy mill for ATI, which makes a lot of parts for airplanes.

As I was going to down the walkway from the bridge to the bus stop, there was a fellow on the landing, also taking a photo. He told me he gets paid a few hundred dollars a week pet-sitting for people in the area.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.