19 May 2009

Stewardship, not Advantages

You have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself . . . (Rom 2:1)

Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. (Rom 2:27).

Paul mentions condemning (katakrino) twice in Rom 2. The first tells the moral man/Jew not to judge others, since he does the same things; the second goes even further, declaring that the outsider/gentile will be the very one who does the condemning. The point: God's pleasure over our lives, founded ultimately on Christ, rests not in the advantages we are given at birth but in what we do with whatever God does give us. In fact, inherited social and religious advantages can be positively blinding (2:17-23).

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