{"id":515,"date":"2007-10-03T06:25:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-03T06:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2007\/10\/03\/on-our-second-message-in-romans\/"},"modified":"2007-10-03T06:25:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-03T06:25:00","slug":"on-our-second-message-in-romans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2007\/10\/03\/on-our-second-message-in-romans\/","title":{"rendered":"on our second message in Romans"},"content":{"rendered":"
As I study the book of Romans, I am confronted with a dilemma: too much information, too little time. My usual response to this dilemma is to move very slowly through verse by verse exposition. I am a little worried about this in Romans since, of all the books in the New Testament, this may be the one written up the most.<\/p>\n
This Sunday we came to the first phrase (after last Sunday in the first word). The phrase is ‘a slave of Jesus Christ’. The concept is so vital to understanding Paul’s ministry that it begs us to pause and truly consider the implications of its meaing. Our message was entitled Mastered by Christ<\/a><\/i>. I explored a bit of the background of slavery, both in Jewish thinking and in Greek\/Roman society of the day. To apply the term to one’s self is quite striking when you consider that the Rabbi’s would excommunicate a man from the synagogue for calling another man a slave. But the important part of the phrase is not the condition of the one who uttered it, but the name of the master to whom he is attached. Our proposition developed this thought: The gospel begins in a life when the self-serving rebel submits his soul to the mastery of Jesus Christ. The bottom line for us is this – who masters you?<\/p>\n