Day 345 (Romans 14-16) - Year 6
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.

If you're doing our New Testament plan, today we finished our 11th book. And if you're doing the whole Bible, we finished book number 50. Yesterday, we finished up with Paul telling us what it looks like to love each other well. And today he opens by continuing that line of thought. He reminds us that there's room for a lot of different personal opinions and preferences in the body of Christ, and that we shouldn't give each other grief over those differences. Quarreling can provoke feelings of superiority and inferiority. It incites our flesh and promotes pride. It brings more division than unity.

When it comes to your own convictions, walk according to how the Spirit directs you. But trust the Spirit to guide other people in their convictions as well. They may be at a different part of the journey than you are, and that's okay. God is sovereign over their steps too. Verse 4 reminds us that God is the one who upholds us and sustains our obedience. Ultimately, when it comes to the non-essentials in life, even the religious aspects of life, Paul says it's better to agree to disagree than to argue and try to prove your point.

The time when we should be concerned with another believer's actions is when our actions are tripping them up. Serve your brothers and sisters well by your actions. If you have to lay down some rights and preferences for them, that's okay. Love is a good reason to pivot. We don't just expect peace to happen naturally. We have to actively pursue it, to disengage from the flesh and engage with the Spirit.

And he says to not only pursue peace, but mutual up-building. If this were a sliding scale, we could put division and quarreling as a negative number, and peace would be a zero or neutral. Then mutual up-building would be on the positive end of the scale. This isn't just peace, this is progress.

Verse 22 is often taken out of context by people who prefer to keep their faith on the DL. It says, Given what we read earlier in this letter from Paul about sharing the gospel, and given what we've read from Jesus and what we've seen both of them do with their days and their lives, do you think for a second that this verse means, your faith is private, don't talk about it? Of course not. The word keep here means hold firmly, not be quiet about.

Paul is telling them to hold firmly to their convictions from God, to live them out. It means let it show up in everything. It's the exact opposite of keeping things private. In chapter 15, Paul tells us why the Old Testament exists. He says,

The Hebrew Scriptures exist to instruct us, to encourage us, and to give us hope. Hope! Many of you who were with us during the Old Testament have testified to the fact that it did that very thing for you. You found hope in unexpected places, hope in the laws of Leviticus, hope in the slaughter of judges, hope even in the weird visions of Ezekiel. Who knew? It is stacked, Genesis to Malachi, with instruction, encouragement, and hope.

He reiterates this in verse 13, which says, The Holy Spirit brings us hope, too. And that all checks out because guess who wrote Scripture? The hope giver, the Holy Spirit.

He points out places in the Old Testament where God promises to save the Gentiles. This diversity in God's family has been his plan all along. Along with these reminders, Paul encourages them again to live in harmony with each other. Harmony means people are singing different notes, not the same note. A symphony is beautiful because people are playing different instruments and different parts, but in a way that works together to reveal the beauty of the song.

He says this harmony should be with each other and also with Christ. It's not good if we're unified with each other, but we're singing a different song than Jesus. He wants us to sing one song that points to the glory of God. And in order to do that, we have to welcome our fellow choir members, not try to lock them in the robe closet or pray they get laryngitis.

He even wants them to get to the place where they can peaceably learn to instruct each other. It's that mutual upbuilding again. That's what happens when we all aim to grow in wisdom and we surround ourselves with wise people. We can learn not only from what God is teaching us, but from what he's teaching other people as well. If you're doing the Bible recap with someone else, you're probably learning from what they're learning. I've heard lots of you say that even your children, 6, 7, 10, 12 years old, have pointed things out from that day's reading that astonished you.

And not just because, wow, they figured that out so young, but because, hey, I didn't even notice that myself. Surround yourself with people who are seeking God, who are singing the same song. This is what mutual upbuilding looks like. Paul begins to close out his letter to the church at Rome by letting them know he loves them and that he's heading to Jerusalem to deliver the financial support he's been collecting from the churches. But later, he hopes to come back and visit them on his way to Spain.

In chapter 16, we get some clues that Paul's letter is probably being delivered to the Roman church by a woman named Phoebe. He tells them to welcome her because she's a servant of the church. The word used for servant here is diakonos, the word used for deacon. So Phoebe was quite possibly a deacon in one of the churches near Athens.

We've linked to an article with more info in case you want to read more about what this might have meant in the first century church. By the way, first century travel was especially dangerous. Think of all Paul encountered in his travels. And then imagine a woman doing that in that day and culture. So Paul tells the church, give that woman whatever she needs. Yes, sir.

He goes on to list other men and women he wants them to greet, including A&P, whom he says risked their lives for him. This is almost certainly not hyperbole. They probably nearly died to help Paul advance the gospel, probably during the riots in Ephesus.

Then, just as his pen is about to run out of ink, he's like, here are some people I do not want you to greet. The people who deceive the hearts of the naive. This is just a quick line, but it points out that what we know informs our hearts. Knowledge can protect us from deception. That's huge, especially if we don't want to be misled about who God is. I'm so excited about my God shot. It's in 1620, which says, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

First of all, it's interesting that the God of peace is doing some crushing. In order to bring peace into any situation, you can't ignore the chaos. You have to address it. So God addresses the chaos of Satan and evil, and he crushes it.

Second, this verse shows us that we are participants in the battle God has won. God crushes Satan under our feet. He does the crushing under our feet. And if that's terrifying for you, the good news is that verse 25 says God is the one who strengthens us. He makes us strong, He moves our feet, and He crushes the enemy under them. Wow! He's where the joy is.

A new year often equals new beginnings. And maybe for you, this means wanting to study the Bible in a new or deeper way. And if you're looking for a group of people to do that with, we'd love for you to join us in DGroup. The D stands for discipleship. DGroup International is a partner ministry I started that's different from TBR, even though both are about the Bible. Here in TBR, we read through scripture and do broad stroke recaps of what we've read. In

In DGroup, we do in-depth studies of different parts of Scripture in six-week increments. We've built out a structure and format that's going to encourage you personally while preventing some of the chronic problems lots of you have experienced in Bible study groups before.

Some of our dGroups are connected to a local church, and others are made up of people from different churches. We even have dGroups that meet online. And yes, we also have men's dGroups. We start new studies every six weeks, and we'd love to have you join us when we launch our next session in the new year. Click the link in today's show notes for more info or visit mydgroup.org.