BIAY - Gospel for All
Romans 1-3, Proverbs 20:1-15
Welcome to the Bible in a Year for 2025. Intro to this series and resource links available here, plus here’s how I’m approaching this year.
Scriptures for Today:
Reflection:
Paul’s Letter to the Romans has been one of most influential of the New Testament writings from early in the church’s history. Many have come to faith or experienced significant renewal by reading and studying it. It includes vivid imagery, dense theology, deep comfort, and practical guidance. Those in the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition, like me, recall that John Wesley’s profound experience of faith at Aldersgate Street came in a meeting as someone was reading Martin Luther’s preface to his commentary on Romans in which he was describing the change that God works in the heart through faith in Christ. This greatly impacted Wesley: “I felt my heart strangely warmed.” That palpable experience as a respond to the insight of Luther’s teaching on Romans set afire the leader of the Methodist movement.
While we’ll only skim the surface, I look forward to reading Romans this week together.
Not ashamed of the Gospel (1:16-17) - Most of Paul’s letters are written to churches or people whom he has met or visited personally, or even helped start. He has not yet been to Rome when this letter is written (verse 15), although he will make it there eventually (Acts 28). He is not ashamed to preach the gospel (“good news”) of Jesus to them. Why? “[B]ecause it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.” It isn’t merely a proposition or a philosophy—it is power! Importantly, the good news is also that this power that brings salvation is available to “everyone who believes,” whether Jew or Gentile.
Circumcision of the heart (2:28-29) - Circumcision was the outward physical mark that indicated someone was a member of the covenant people of God. Paul confronts the notion that having the mark of the covenant (circumcision) is enough—one must live by the covenant as well. The mark is a signifier of a deeper, living truth, not an end unto itself. So it’s not enough for someone’s body to display a mark indicating they are covenant people—the heart must do so.
Righteousness given through faith in Christ (3:21-24) - Righteousness was a right standing before God as someone faithful to the covenant (the law). But now the righteousness of God is given through faith in Jesus, not through observance of the law. Furthermore, this is true for everyone—Jew and Gentile alike, and here’s the line you may know already that explains why: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and the next part that you should know too—“and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” As the Wesleyan-Arminian synopsis goes, “all must be saved” and “all may be saved” because of Jesus.
Proverbs 20:9 fits right in with Romans today - “Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin’?”
Questions:
Do you ever feel shy about the good news of the gospel of Jesus? What triggers that?
When have you had an inward experience of grace or transformation?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for making your powerful grace available to me through Jesus. Transform me from the inside-out. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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