Pauline Epistles (23)
  1. We profess belief in the virgin birth of Jesus as not only part of the Christmas story, but a true part of the total story of redemption.
  2. Our reading presents for its readers both the anticipation of God’s Messiah and advent of God’s Messiah: Promises made and promises fulfilled.
  3. The will of the triune God is we are thankful for the goodness, grace, mercy, love, peace, and truth that flow from His works of creation and redemption.
  4. Jesus is situated at the center of world history, a history which is going somewhere, from an Alpha point to the Omega point, and it pivots on the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ.
  5. The Holy Spirit is no skeptic. He asserts Christ has been raised from the dead.
  6. Faith trusts that the Lord is as His Word and His Word is as His person and nature.
  7. Get back to the truth about Christ’s resurrection and glorious return and you will not have to sink into the funk of depression or the errors of speculation.
  8. No slogan encapsulates biblical Reformation theology as well as the one drawn from this verse. It is justification by faith apart from works and if apart from works, then the justification of the sinner is by faith alone, sola fide.
  9. Paul had no credit because the Law could not atone for his sin. It could not render him positively righteous before the face of God, even though it gave him boasting rights before the Law.
  10. We do not want to live by the law of the jungle. We want to live as human beings in an ordered, properly functioning society.
  11. Jesus has led a far greater exodus, one that includes Jews and Gentiles, indeed, an exodus achieved by a Passover Lamb never to be eclipsed, whose blood established an everlasting new covenant.