the Good Question

"Love is a better 'standard of conduct,' because it is more comprehensive than the Law. Love will tell you what shouldn't be done, but even more so, it will tell you what should. It analyzes your motives and requires actual transformation, and it reflects the character and nature of God. It is at once both simple and deep: being one thing easily identifiable once you know it, and the one answer universally applicable to every question of action. There is nothing that is more practical, yet it is at the same time inexhaustibly rich, abstract, and profound. Every theologian, poet, and philosopher to ever live could waste themselves on fishing out its truths without successfully plumbing its depths, and every pragmatic man of simple action could find in it his final, universal principle of living and the ultimate how-to to every human interaction and question of morality.

"All the Law is summed up in this one thing: Love. Now that you are free from the Law and have the Spirit of God in you, it isn't important to spend your time analyzing your conduct for its compliance with a list of rules. It's not all about that. What is important is accepting the full weight of truth of God's love and letting it overflow out of yourself in every way that you relate to God, Humanity, and Creation."

"Some so-called Christians... sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations. But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you... You and I are Jews by birth, not 'sinners' like the Gentiles. Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law.... No one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.

"But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not! Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down. For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. My old self has been crucified with Christ.... I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die....

"Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?... But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, 'Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God's Book of the Law.' So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, 'It is through faith that a righteous person has life.' This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says, 'It is through obeying the law that a person has life.' ...

"Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.

"Dear brothers and sisters, here's an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or amend an irrevocable agreement, so it is in this case. God gave the promises to Abraham and his child. And notice that the Scripture doesn't say 'to his children,' as if it meant many descendants. Rather, it says 'to his child'—and that, of course, means Christ. This is what I am trying to say: The agreement God made with Abraham could not be canceled 430 years later when God gave the law to Moses. God would be breaking his promise. For if the inheritance could be received by keeping the law, then it would not be the result of accepting God's promise. But God graciously gave it to Abraham as a promise.

"Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised.... Is there a conflict, then, between God's law and God's promises? Absolutely not! If the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it. But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God's promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ. Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law.... And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian. For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus....

"Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set.

"And that's the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic 'spiritual principles' of this world. But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, 'Abba, Father.' Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir....

"So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world? You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years.... I plead with you to live as I do in freedom from these things, for I have become like you Gentiles—free from those laws....

"Tell me, you who want to live under the law, do you know what the law actually says? The Scriptures say that Abraham had two sons, one from his slave wife and one from his freeborn wife. The son of the slave wife was born in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise. But the son of the freeborn wife was born as God's own fulfillment of his promise. These two women serve as an illustration of God's two covenants.... And you, dear brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, just like Isaac. But you are now being persecuted by those who want you to keep the law, just as Ishmael, the child born by human effort, persecuted Isaac, the child born by the power of the Spirit.

"So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law.

"Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. I'll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses.

"But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.

"You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn't God, for he is the one who called you to freedom. This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough!...

"For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ...

"So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves.... When you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.... The Holy Spirit produces... love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

"Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives....

"Those who are trying to force you to be circumcised want to look good to others. They don't want to be persecuted for teaching that the cross of Christ alone can save. And even those who advocate circumcision don't keep the whole law themselves. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast about it and claim you as their disciples.

"As for me... my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world's interest in me has also died. It doesn't matter whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation. May God's peace and mercy be upon all who live by this principle; they are the new people of God."

If you like, read the next post, consisting of my comments on Paul's discussion here.

So, for every practical purpose, God doesn't love you for a reason. He loves you. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

He loves you, and not for any action or ability or quality that you can manipulate, formulate, postulate, propagate, or create. If there is indeed a reason we can know, it has more to do with your origin and the core makeup of your soul than anything you can quantify. And in that reason, even if it be solely a reflection of God's character and nature and nothing else, He loves you uniquely, but still not more or less than any other person—just as a father would love his children, and just as the God-figure in The Shack said "I'm especially fond of that one" and then said it of every one.

Your Father—the Source of your life—adores you and He'd have you crawl onto His lap and tug at His beard, if only you knew Him like that. A tragedy! To be loved so richly and think yourself a pauper! And then to deny His displays of affection, His attempts toward your good—to deny that you own whole galaxies worth of tenderhearted love in your Father's eyes and go on eating meat from dumpsters and cursing life! Ah, good thing it is He doesn't love for a reason!

Oh, but don't be condemned! There is no fear in love! Love doesn't carry forward last month's negative balance! If you remain dispirited because He loves you richly and you love Him poorly, you forget He doesn't love you for a reason! His love is completely without respect to your merit. Love, of this kind, is also called "grace" and forgiveness is a grace. And if it is a grace, then it cannot be earned; it is given. It doesn't need to be asked for—only, we usually need to ask for it before we will trust that we have it. God doesn't need reconciled to us. We need reconciled to Him.

Trust from the place you are. You cannot manufacture trust. God will win you to it. You will trust Him more when you know more how He loves you, and that comes when you know Him more, the way He really is. Your trust is exactly proportional to how convinced you are of His love, which itself is exactly proportional to how well you know Him. Be patient (but be passionate); He is patient. And He will win you to it.

Seek Him. Look everywhere for Him. —Except, that makes it sound like He is hiding. But He isn't. He is at times subtle, but usually it only seems that way because our senses are dulled to the ways He speaks to us and reveals Himself to us. One day He may woo you to Him by a pinecone or the reflection of light on a door handle just as He might on another day by a sermon or a book or a prayer. He speaks to us in people's scars and the stories they tell over dinners and late-night games of cards. He reveals Himself in epiphanies and gradual increments so intangible that months or years may pass before you even realize a significant change has occurred.

But know child: He is your Father—yes, your Papa and Daddy, more loving, affectionate, wise, and strong than any mud-and-clay parent could be. You are His darling. Hop into His lap. Cry, laugh, or complain, and nuzzle close, curl up into His arms and rest. He'll hold you, wipe your brow, and whisper you songs.

You may be an adult in relation to people of Earth. But in the same way you cannot be more than a small child to Him. So while it may seem very childish to talk like this about your relationship with "Papa," that is precisely why it is true. You are a child. So, you must in a sense be childish. After all, He is your Father and what else is there left for you to be?

When we come to the Cross, we shouldn't carry away from it the weight it was designed to relieve, the shame it was determined to destroy. We, as children of the King, shouldn't be consumed with thoughts of judgment and our unrighteousness, because the Cross settles these things. We should carry away from the Cross the absolute rest of knowing we are forgiven. The comforting freedom of knowing we are loved. The stubborn confidence of knowing that God accepts us as righteous. That what God believes of us is true of us in actuality—not just in theory.

We should not carry away from the Cross what we brought with us to the Cross.

My concept of the Cross was sick for a very long time. I felt as if it were a wound in my memory I was trying very hard to imagine was not a wound.

Let it be a jewel and not a wound.

And if it isn't for you, then change whatever you have to about what you believe to see that it is. Because whatever the Cross is or isn't, it must be your liberty from the old human and filth. It should be above all things the inauguration of your rest. It is a symbol of your freedom. Not a symbol of your failure. It should stand for God's love. Not for your inadequacy. It should remind you of your new humanity. Not of your "old man."

But this means that you must never, never conceive of the Cross apart from the Resurrection. They are not separate elements of your redemption.

The Cross is the dying of the twisted child squashing spiders in his self-made cell.* The Resurrection is the creation of a new kind of humanity—a child rejoicing in life and dancing in the light.

We are not just wiped-clean or cured versions of our old selves. We are brand new beings never dirtied or twisted. We are reborn. We are new creations. And, in the final resurrection, the remnants of our old selves, these bodies and minds, will slough off and be replaced with new ones, as the birthing that has begun will be completed.

Think about it.

*   See "A Letter to American Boys", a short story by George MacDonald. Read it online. Listen to the free audiobook. Review it.

I'm a Visionary-Advocate personality type (MBTI), and true to form, I have these dreams that I want to pursue ("visionary"), and I badly wish to help other people catch those dreams ("advocate"). But there's the rub. It is such a struggle for me to not draw my identity and sense of worth from my dreams... but rather draw my identity from who God has proclaimed me to be in His love, and to allow the motivation for whatever serving I do for Him to come out of the overflow of my heart, not out of my seeking for self-validation through any personal standard of "success."

My identity has issued from my dreams and my power (or lack thereof) to "micromanage" the Kingdom to conform to the idea I have in my mind of the way it ought to be. And if things are going poorly by my estimation, then I get depressed because my security rests in my ability to meet some performance-based criteria. If things are going well by my estimation, then I feel temporarily fulfilled. But the satisfaction is empty, like trying to pull water out of a dry well.

It's the same misstep as the one God spoke of by Jeremiah. Jeremiah recorded these words:

For my people have done two evil things:
They have abandoned me—

the fountain of living water.

And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns

that can hold no water at all! (Jeremiah 2:13 NLT)

Father said something similar in Isaiah's prophecy:

Come, all of you who are thirsty.

Come and drink the water I offer to you.

You who do not have any money, come.

Buy and eat the grain I give you.

Come and buy wine and milk.

You will not have to pay anything for it.

Why spend money on what is not food?

Why work for what does not satisfy you?

Listen carefully to me.

Then you will eat what is good.

You will enjoy the richest food there is. (Isaiah 55:1-2 NIrV)

I'm talking about a shifting of my heart's pursuit. From pursuing validation (and security, identity, satisfaction...) through a realized dream, to pursuing a persistent nearness to the God who doesn't care whether I accomplish my dreams if I never learn to live in the overwhelming acceptance I have in His grace. After all, "Grace is God's acceptance of us. Faith is our acceptance of God's acceptance of us" (Adrian Rogers, from Freedom from the Performance Trap).

One of the most freeing things someone ever told me was something I heard in one of The God Journey podcasts with Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings. Wayne said, if I may recite it from my poor memory, "I don't care if you don't do anything for a year, if you learn to walk in Father's affection."

When I heard that, it really sank deep in my soul: God isn't looking for me to produce for Him; He is looking for me to rest in Him.

Now, let me tell you: that's hard to swallow for someone who has done almost everything for twenty-five years with performance-based, works-righteous motives! That's difficult to step out of. That's a deep mire of ingrained religious caca. And I'm sick of it. I've felt like an employee in God's production plant for all my life. And all I want is a real-life relationship!

But now—wouldn't you know—I'm finding that I'm relationally-challenged, having worked with machines for so long. But thank you, Papa! You are showing me the ropes of this relationship with You!

And my reader friend, whoever you are, I want you to know that there is rest in our Father. There is complete rest. He is our eternal Sabbath (Hebrews 4). He is our permanent Vacation. And when you are all caught up in the DOs, know that as far as He is concerned, there is only DONE. "You are trying to earn points with someone who is no longer keeping score" (Wayne Jacobsen).

It is finished. (John 19:30)

What the law could not do... God did. (Romans 8:3 CSB)

Upon reading Romans 14, one will discover that Paul is not using the term "faith" in the sense of "saving faith" in this passage at all. He is discussing sins of the conscience and referring to personal convictions. Verse 23 and the two preceding verses read as follows:

• It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
  (Romans 14:21-23 ESV)

The New Living Translation, Second Edition, renders the same passage in this way:

• It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else if it might cause another believer to stumble. You may believe there's nothing wrong with what you are doing, but keep it between yourself and God. Blessed are those who don't feel guilty for doing something they have decided is right. But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.
  (Romans 14:21-23)

Remember that "faith" (pistis) in the New Testament can refer to intellectual belief, moral conviction, reliance, trust, or a system of belief (only with the direct article "the"). Ouk ek pisteos (οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως) is often rendered "not from faith" and is functionally equivalent to "from doubt." Therefore, pan de ho ouk ek pisteos hamartia estin (πᾶν δὲ ὃ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως ἁμαρτία ἐστίν) can be translated, "furthermore, all which is from doubt is sin." The phrase ouk ek (οὐκ ἐκ) ("not from" or "not out of") can also mean "against." The Greek word pistis can be translated any one of the following English words, depending on the context: faith, reliance, assurance, belief, or conviction, among others. In other words, Paul is saying, "everything that is done against moral conviction is sin" or "everything you do that is against what you believe is sin."

Robertson agrees: "Faith (pistis) here is subjective, one's strong conviction in the light of his relation to Christ and his enlightened conscience." The Contemporary English Version (CEV) has it, "anything you do against your beliefs is sin." And Eugene Peterson paraphrases it, "If the way you live isn't consistent with what you believe, then it's wrong."

John Calvin even commented on Romans 14:23:

• The word faith is to be taken here for a fixed persuasion of the mind, or, so to speak, for a firm assurance, and not that of any kind, but what is derived from the truth of God.
  (John Calvin, "Commentary on Romans", source)

A good summary of what Paul is saying might be: "In these morally-ambiguous sort of issues, follow your conscience. If you believe it is wrong according to God to eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols, then don't, because though it may not actually be sin, you are sinning by your intention to commit what you do believe is sin."

While Bethlehem Baptist's statement indicates that "faith" in Romans 14:23 is referring to "a heart humbly relying on God's grace," the context doesn't support that interpretation. The points Piper and Bethlehem Baptist are trying to make could be true, but we would never know from this passage. Interpreting Romans 14:23 in this way is going beyond Paul's authorial intent—something of which we've all been guilty with one scripture or another.

Another man attempted to take Piper's first point using this text and take it to a logical conclusion. He wrote,

• Romans 14:23 says, "Whatever is not from faith is sin." If you are not a believer in Christ, everything you do is sin. Going to church is sin, being kind to your room mate is sin, being honest is sin, coming to Campus Crusade for Christ is sin, its all sin! Everything is sin!
  (Dustin Shramek, "The Supremacy of God in the Depravity of Man", source)

Is that true? Is everything sin? Is being honest sin? No. That statement is exactly the opposite of the Ninth Commandment. Isn't that silly? Now, you can have a motive that is wrong while telling the truth (such as, hoping for another's unjust downfall), but the honesty itself is not wrong, your heart is. Jesus settled this in the Gospels. The heart is indeed deceitfully wicked. But there are worlds separating the idea that every deed is a sin for the unconverted and the idea that any action could be done with a sinful motive.

I tell you, it takes just one sin to garner the full and just wrath of Almighty God! Every sin is "exceedingly sinful," and an everything-is-sin theology of sin is unnecessary to a complete theology of salvation and unsubstantiated.

Honesty doesn't have to be sin in order for everyone to deserve Hell—"all men are liars" (Romans 3:4) and "all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone" (Revelation 21:8). That's both succinct and complete. If you are a liar, you are bound for Hell. And everyone is a liar. (It's just that Jesus has provided a way for them to be rescued from their "part.")

I'm not saying that there aren't often unrighteous motives underlying good actions. I'm not even saying that it's not likely that most good deeds are in fact done out of impure motives. I wouldn't argue with that. I'm saying, let's not call the actions sins if they aren't sins. That's not sending the right message. It's not pointing out the deeper problem.

Blame the marionetter. The heart pulls the strings.

^*  I agree with John's point that "depravity is our condition in relation to God primarily, and only secondarily in relation to man," but Romans 14:23 doesn't speak to this point.

When Greek-speaking people heard the word “baptizo,” they didn’t think immediately of “a religious water ceremony.” They thought of “an envelopment or immersion.” You could “baptizo” your hands into a washbasin. You could be “baptizo-ed” (swallowed up) by death—which is one way they really did use the word. You could be “baptizo-ed” into a culture. You could “baptizo” a spoon into a dish of Jell-O. It was a regular word—one that they could, in turn, use in a theological context if they wanted. So, when they heard the word, it didn’t always refer to the same event, only the same type of event. The context and the intention of the speaker indicated what they understood the word to mean in each occurrence. So, when they heard that John “baptizo-ed” people in the Jordan River, they knew basically what that meant (even if they didn't yet understand the religious significance) before anyone gave them a Strong’s Concordance, a Life Application Study Bible, or a Sunday School lesson on flannelgraph.

The same goes for many other terms. “To save” is an example.

• And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, 'Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.' (Acts 11:13-14 ESV)
• By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. (Hebrews 11:7)

Does the writer of Hebrews mean to tell us that Noah was able to barter with God for the eternal salvation of his family by consenting to accomplish this construction project for Him? No. But it sure sounds like it if you assume “to save” always means “to save spiritually.”

“To justify” is another example. Just as we use the term today, Greek speakers sometimes meant “to make righteous” and other times meant “to show to be righteous.” That really is a big difference, and the context is the clue.

Read the following three passages very carefully:

• What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.... Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 4:1-5, 5:1-2)
• Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? (James 2:21-25)
• We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:15-16)

Remember that Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others by the time I finish my song?”

What’s the problem with these three verses? If you read those chapters in assumption-mode, one of them seems to contradict the others. Certainly this is not true. So, what is the problem? There isn't one. Two different writers are trying to make two different points, using similar terminology but meaning different things by them. Just because I use a term in one way doesn’t mean that my friend who believes just as I do necessarily uses the term in the exact sense. Read Romans 4. Paul leaves no room for justification by works at all. Read Galatians 2. Paul again leaves no room for it. Read James 2. Read it like you’ve never heard the term “to justify” used in any theological sense.

What do you suppose I would mean if I were to say, “Quit justifying yourself!” In a normal conversation you would never assume I’m telling you to quit trying to make yourself innocent! You would assume I’m telling you to quit trying to prove that you are already innocent. When you are justified in a court of law, the judge weighs the evidence and declares that you were innocent the entire time.

Greek scholar A.T. Robertson, commenting on James 2:24 concurs: “Present passive indicative of dikaioō, here not ‘is made righteous,’ but ‘is shown to be righteous.’ James is discussing the proof of faith, not the initial act of being set right with God.”

This is why Paul can say “a person is not justified by works” and James can say “a person is justified by works” and they both be right. These two phrases sound contradictory when we cut them out of their books and paste them next to each other, but they’re not meant to be treated that way. It's like quoting "he said, 'I love pintos'" and "he told them, 'I can't stand pintos,'" when not only is one quoted from a book on the life of George Washington (the president) and the other from a book on the life of George Washington Carver (the botanist), but "pintos" is referring to a breed of horse in the first quote and a kind of bean in the second. Paul and James are not even talking about the same thing. They didn’t hold a conference to discuss which words they would use for what purposes . They aren’t coauthoring a book or even writing to the same group of believers. Paul and James are trying to make two very different points with everyday words. Their vocabularies overlap, but their usages do not. Paul is trying to explain how a person is made righteous in the first place (by grace through faith). James is trying to explain how a person is shown to be righteous in daily life (by obedience out of faith).

But more than that, remember that the word “faith” is also used in different ways in the New Testament? When Paul says “a person is... justified by faith in Christ” and James says “a person is justified... not by faith alone,” they are not using the term “faith” synonymously either. Paul is talking about “saving faith”—genuine, complete, and humble trust in Christ. James is talking about mere “belief”—intellectual assent. The Believer’s Bible Commentary remarks, “Faith apart from works is head belief, and therefore dead belief” (italics mine).

We can get ourselves in trouble when we approach the Bible like it’s not written by—get this—forty different authors... in sixty-six different books... with their own purposes... and messages... in multiple genres... and various literary styles... over the span of more than 1,500 years. And we can get ourselves in trouble when we approach the Bible assuming certain too-rigid terminologies. There is no substitute for the application of logical Bible study methods.

Part 2 will finish up this article by explaining Romans 14:23 and questioning a popular interpretation. What was John Piper thinking? All this and more after the commercial break.