In the Bible, God tells us the story of everything culminating in the most important thing: the gospel of Jesus Christ. But walk into any group discussion among American Christians and listen for the conversation to shift to that central story. Can you hear it? Probably not.

We are too often tempted to sell our sonship for slavery. That’s where our heart leads when we forget the gospel.

Paul’s Judaism led him to persecute the church of God. What Paul was doing was an attack on the people he thought he was protecting: God’s elect. His desire for the purity of God’s word drove him to approve the killing of God’s people because he believed they were redefining the boundaries of Israel by following Jesus. He had no idea that Jesus had redefined the boundaries for them. It wasn’t their message. It was God’s. Paul just hadn’t heard it yet. When Paul did hear the gospel, he experienced a complete life change.

Paul closes his letter to the Romans with a list of greetings. In our Bible study with my brothers of Refuge Church a few weeks ago, we looked at this passage and fought to mine some usefulness out of it. What do you make of a list of names, most of which we know very little about outside of Paul's brief comments?

Paul puts the burden of building and maintaining gospel culture on the shoulders of the strong. He is not excusing the weak. He’s simply telling the strong that they set the tone.

We want to be sure the God we think of is the real God of the Bible, not the false god of our imagination. We want to relate to him rightly, and that happens when we get to know him. 

Foregoing judgment on non-primary issues is serving Christ because in doing so you are serving his people. We all have so many stumbling blocks in coming to the gospel. We trip over our own feet as we approach the altar. The more hindrances others place in front of us along the way, the harder it will be to get to Jesus.

I know what Jared means when he says, “when our vision is constantly occupied by small things, we are tempted to yawn at the glory of God.” Do you know what he means?

I cannot be ready until I am cleansed; but when I am cleansed, then I am ready. And I may come back for cleansing as many times as I need, on this basis.

"The focus of meditation is always the God-given external word, the inspired text of Scripture, not the innermost recesses of the human psyche."