Love & Believe

This is the body of Jesus. This is my church. My family. My home. It is composed of people who need God’s grace, just like me. It will be friendly if I am. It will do great work if I join in the work. It will make generous gifts to many causes if I am generous. It will bring others into the family if I bring them. The seats will be full if I fill them. It will be a church of loyalty, love, faith, honesty, joy, and service if I who make it what it is, am filled with these. Therefore, with God’s help, I dedicate myself to the task of being all these things I want my church to be.

Paul has never met the Roman church, far less the greater population of Rome. So in what sense is he in debt to them? It is illustrative to think about how I can be in debt to you. First, you may have lent me $100—and I am in debt to you until I pay it back. But second, someone else may have given me $100 to pass on to you—and I am in debt to you until I hand it on. It is in this second sense that Paul is “obligated” to everyone, everywhere. God has shared the gospel with him. But God has also commissioned him to declare it to others. So Paul owes people the gospel.

Tim Keller

The gospel is not just the ABCs but the A to Z of the Christian life. It is inaccurate to think the gospel is what saves non-Christians, and then Christians mature by trying hard to live according to biblical principles. It is more accurate to say that we are saved by believing the gospel, and then we are transformed in every part of our minds, hearts, and lives by believing the gospel more and more deeply as life goes on.

Tim Keller

As he mounted a field pulpit, thousands of people left the player’s booths to hear Whitfield’s performance. The angry entertainers followed them, not to listen, but to accost the itinerant. Soon a hail of “stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and pieces of dead cats” pelted the preacher. A clown climbed upon a man’s shoulders and tried to slash Whitefield with a whip. Every time he swung at Whitefield, however, the clown tumbled down instead of hitting his target. Another clown climbed a tree close to Whitefield’s pulpit and “shamefully exposed his nakedness before all the people,” eliciting a chorus of hoots and laughter. Every attempt to silence Whitfield failed, and he went on preaching, praying and singing for 3 hours!

The gospel is a speech-act, in that it not only announces the way of salvation, but actualizes the salvation in those who hear it with faith. . . . The gospel manifests God’s death-defeating, curse-reversing, evil-vanquishing, devil-crushing, sin cleansing, lifeliving, love-forming, people-uniting, super-über-mega-grace power that results in salvation.

Michael Bird