• Originals

    Romans 9-11, Part 8

    Romans 11:1-10 Delimiting the Text 1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? 3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” 4 But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5 So too…

  • Originals

    Romans 9-11, Part 7

    Romans 10:14-21 Delimiting the Text 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. 18 But I ask, have they…

  • Originals

    Romans 9-11, Part 6

    Romans 10:5-13 Delimiting the Text 5 For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. 6 But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord…

  • Originals

    Romans 9-11, Part 5

    Romans 9:30-10:4 Delimiting the Text 30 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. 32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33 as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” (Rom 9:30-33) 1 Brothers, my…

  • Originals

    Romans 9-11, Part 4

    Romans 9:24-29 Delimiting the Text 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? 25 As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’” ​ 26 “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’” 27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, 29 for…

  • The Matter

    EV Training – Jesus

    Today is Good Friday. This day is observed in remembrance of Christ’s death on the cross. Sunday is Easter and signifies Christ’s resurrection from the dead. I totally did not plan for this day and my blog post to line up, but I’m going to be writing about Jesus as the next lesson from my church’s evangelism training. The lesson focused on two primary questions about Jesus: “Who is Jesus?” and “What has Jesus done?” (Also, Jesus and Christ are synonymous if you didn’t already know that) First of all Jesus is God. I think the Bible does the best job in testifying Christ’s deity. The Bible gives accounts of…

  • Respire

    The “Good” Friday

    Today is Good Friday. On this day, Jesus Christ our Savior, pays the ultimate price for our sins as he is sentenced to death by crucifixion. Humanity’s evil in full display as the Lord of all creation is nailed to a cross of wood by our own hands to suffer and die a long, painful death. So how is this good? Good Friday has lately become one of the days of the year where I do the most reflection on my spiritual walk. I always knew the gravity behind what Good Friday signified, but I think it’s one of those things where the “head knowledge” didn’t completely translate to “heart…

  • The Matter

    EV Training – Man

    This is the third post in the series of posts about the gospel. The first post talked about the motivation for sharing the gospel, and the second post talked about God as one of the main points in the gospel. Today, I’ll be talking about another main point: Man. Today is March 27, 2020. As of today, more of man’s tendencies have been revealed because of COVID-19. It has been about two weeks since California has issued a statewide quarantine other than “essential” companies. During this time, there have been a lot of good things happening around the state and the country, but there have also been a lot of…

  • The Matter

    EV Training – God

    A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the motivation for evangelizing. As a refresher, evangelism is sharing the good news of the gospel. For the next month or two, I’ll be summarizing the following lessons since it outlines the key points of the gospel.  If you’re a Christian, then you may be wondering, “Why do I need to know the gospel again to share it better?” Good question! Has this happened to you before? You’re trying to share the gospel with someone, and then they ask a question like “Why do Christians have to go to church on Sunday?” or some other question that’s important, but not really relevant…

  • The Matter

    EV Training – Motivation

    For the past few weeks, I have been attending an evangelism training class at my church. Evangelism is the act of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and to evangelize is to share the good news. Some people call it “EV” for short. While I was in college, my Christian fellowship had weekly outreach events that people would call “random EV”. It was called that, because we would walk around campus and talk to random people and try to share the gospel with them. It’s intimidating to say the least. I’m an engineer, and I’m really bad at pitching anything to people. I get nervous sharing my personal interests…