I may or may not have mentioned this before. Our pastor is preaching a sermon series from the book of Romans this summer. Ten sermons, I think. Our Life Group decided we would also study Romans along with the sermon. But since a schedule of sermons wasn’t posted, we’re just going through it from beginning to end. That means we’ll probably take 25 to 30 weeks on it. This was our fourth week on it (having lost a couple of weeks when we didn’t meet), and we just got through Chapter 2.

It’s been an interesting study. In Chapter 1, Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” Why did he have to say this? What about the gospel would cause anyone to think you should be ashamed of it? Our pastor got into that this week, but he was preaching from Chapter 6. So I’ll leave the answer to that question for another post.

After that statement, Paul said that no one has an excuse for rejecting God, as what is known about him is obvious from creation. God made himself evident in creation.  That’s from Romans 1: 18-32, which also describes the progression into sin.

Romans 2:1-16 was about how sin is universal, so we should not pass judgment on those who sin, being guilty of the same things as them. These verses also showed that the sin isn’t a violation of the Jewish law. Those who never had the Jewish law still sin. And those who do right, even though they don’t have the Jewish law, are considered righteous.

So that comes to the lesson from today, Romans 2:17-29. The passage heading in my study Bible is “The Jews and the Law”. This wasn’t my week to teach, but still, since my co-teacher can be called out for veterinarian duties almost any Sunday, even when he’s not on call, I got up early Sunday morning to prepare. As I went through the scripture, I noted how, if you changed “Jew” to “Christian” and “the law” to “the Bible” in it, the passage was very applicable to the church today. You couldn’t say, “Well, I’m not a Jew, so this doesn’t apply to me.”

Normally, when I prepare a lesson but then don’t have to teach, I find my co-teacher will teach a different lesson than I would, even though it’s from the same exact scripture. This time, however, Marion had the same points as I had. He turned “Jewish” to “Christian”, and we discussed how this applied to the church. I guess great minds run together, or whatever the exact saying is.

It was a good lesson. We picked the scripture apart, first when discussing it at our individual tables, then as a full class. I should write more about it, and perhaps I’ll edit more discussion in, but for right now, suffice to say it was a great time. These few verses are packed full of wisdom and guidance. I’ll be reading them again soon.