NIV Application Bible Podcas

• You belong. You matter. You are dearly loved and highly favored. You’re his favorite. Our God does play favorites and all of us are it. [Music] Hey y’all. Welcome back to the NIV Application Bible podcast. Haven’t this been fun? I have loved kind of just perusing some of the points along the way in this divine love story we call the Bible.
• Um we’ve gotten to one of my favorite tour stops along the way which is probably one of yours too and that is the book of Romans. Um a lot of scholars call Romans kind of the hub of Christian theology because so many of the foundational walls of Christian orthodoxy are found in the book of Romans. justification, sanctification, salvation by by faith alone through grace.
• You just find so many uh theological jewels, treasures in this book. Um I’ll tell you who helped me understand this book much better recently is one of the contributors to this uh NIV application Bible. That’s Dr. Scott Mcnite. And Dr. Mcnite encourages us to actually read the end of Romans before we read through the rest of it because the end of Romans gives you the context.
• Paul sends this letter to the believers in Rome because they are fussen. Remember the the Jewish Christians who lived in Rome and it’s believed that many of them came to Christ at that Pentecost where Peter preached. That’s where they heard the gospel. Then they went back to Rome. Well, they’re forced out of Rome for political reasons for a couple of years.
• And when they’re forced out of Rome, the Gentile Christians, they take over the church in Rome. When the Jewish Christians come back, they find that the Gentiles have jettisoned some of the rules that were so sacred to the Jewish Christians. And so, there’s all this infighting. The Jewish Christians are saying, “We’re the better Christians because we follow more rules.
• ” And the gentile Christians are saying, “We’re the better Christians because we understand liberty more.” Isn’t it crazy how the family of God is prone to division? So Paul sends them this letter. It has amazing theology in it. But don’t forget the the the underscoring theme of this letter is y’all need to get along.
• Y’all are the the the ambassadors of the gospel. You’re sharing back the good news of Jesus Christ. If all y’all doing is fussing among yourselves, among family, nobody’s want going to want to be in that family. I love that context of Romans. And of course, one of my favorite passages. Um well, I’ll tell you a story about my own family in a second.
• This is one of my favorite passages. Romans chapter 8 verse14. And if Romans is the hub of our theological wheel as Christians, Romans 8 is the very center of that hub of the wheel. Verse 14 says this, “For those who are led by the spirit of God are the children of God. The spirit you received does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again.