Psalm 103:13-22 - Praise the Lord

This is one of the instances in the Old Testament where God likens Himself to a Father, and Jesus was continually telling the people that God was like a Father. The Lord has compassion upon those who fear Him. There is a condition here. This is not to say that we earn His compassion, but that unless we fear Him we cannot know this compassion. This does not mean God does not love everyone, but love is a two way relationship, and the way that love develops, and the way that it shows itself and can be demonstrated is dependent upon both parties.

So why does God have compassion? It is because He knows how we are formed, He knows that we are mere mortals. Our life is short and delicate. However, the love of the Lord is everlasting. He is with those who fear Him. Again we see the conditions, we need to fear Him, and keep His commands. It is a relationship. Someone might object why should we have to obey Him for this relationship to work? This really is a stupid question. Consider who God is, the creator of all that is seen and unseen, the one on whom all creation is dependent every minute of the day for its very existence. Then consider who you are, someone who had no say whatsoever about being born.

The Lord has authority over everything, seen and unseen. So everything, angels, all of creation, and most of all my soul, should praise the Lord.

Psalm 103:6-12 - The mercy of God

The first few verses focused on the personal benefits of knowing God and what He does for us, now we get the wider goodness of God.

He works righteousness and brings justice for the oppressed. On the cross, through Christ, God worked righteousness for all who believe. He also has a deep concern for the oppressed and the poor. The whole of human society is corrupted by sin, and this shows itself in all sorts of terrible ways. God is concerned for the oppressed, and works to bring justice for them. 

The Psalmist then turns to Moses. Why does he do this? It is because Israel was oppressed in slavery in Egypt, cruelly mistreated. God worked to bring freedom for the nation. In the Law Israel is often reminded that she herself was once an alien in a foreign land, was once under slavery, so she must have concern for the aliens and the oppressed. In rescuing Israel God was not just showing His favour or Israel. He was demonstrating His character and heart to them, so they should then have shown this same heart to others. In the same way, God has not just saved you or me so that we can have a nice time, but so that salvation can then continue to spread out from us to others. 

We then get a great statement of the love and mercy of God. He is slow to anger, He does not always accuse, He does not treat us as our sins deserve. His love for us is beyond measure, and He has removed our sins far from us. All this was achieved through the death and resurrection of Christ.

Psalm 103:1-5 - Love and Compassion

Unlike the last Psalm (and many others), this one gets straight into the worship! He commands his soul to praise the Lord. Our inmost being is to praise God. We were created to praise the Lord. And a good part of the reason we do this is for all the good things God does for. Sometimes people talk about praising God for who He is, not for what He does for us. This sounds very pious, but is actually unbiblical nonsense. The Bible is full of commands and instances of people praising God for what He has done for us. In fact God reveals who He is often by what He does for us.

We then get some of the benefits. First He forgives our sins. We saw in Romans how absolutely crucial and foundational this is. He heals our diseases. There is also a link between our forgiveness and healing. Now we are wrong if we try to draw an absolute law between all sickness and sin, but there is undoubtedly a link.

He redeems our life from the pit, and instead gives us love and compassion. He gives us good things and renews out strength. This applies now, as well as after Christ's return. We should look to know and enjoy God's love and compassion today. Sometimes circumstances make this difficult, but whatever the situation we should be looking for where God's love and compassion are, we should expect things to be different.

Psalm 102 - Greatness of God

Back to Psalms for a few days, and yet another one where the Psalmist starts by calling out of his distress. It is a common characteristic that most cries to God are a result of our being in distress or some sort or other.

From verses 3-5 it seems that he was suffering from sort of severe illness. For all his suffering he received little sympathy, and many taunted him. He even thinks that God is judging him in some way (verse 10).

So what does he do? He turns his focus first to the greatness of God (v12). Our first reaction should be to take the attention off ourselves and look to God.

He sees the ruins of Jerusalem as sign that God's mercy and compassion cannot be far away. He knows that one day God will rescue and restore Israel.

Even if it is not his generation that sees this, he still wants it written down so that some future generation will know that God is faithful.

In the midst of all his troubles he still focuses on the greatness of God.

Romans 16:17-27 - Final Words

Every church and every age has people who cause division. Now Paul is not saying we should accept any and every view no matter how wacky it is, but if we look at reality we see that most divisions in churches are caused by human sin, by personal ambition, by people of a divisive nature. Theological differences are often just used as an excuse. Paul then says warns against those who put obstacles in our way, and defines this as people who teach things contrary to the apostolic teaching. 

As Paul says, such people are serving their own appetites, their own egos and pride. We are to keep away from such people. They use smooth talk and flattery and so deceive the mins of naive people. We are to be experts in doing and knowing what is good, but innocent about evil, ie having nothing to do with it.

Verse 20 is a reference to Gen 3:15. Our victory over Satan is assured.

Paul then sends some final greetings from his fellow travellers.

Paul's final words give the glory to God and proclaim the power of the gospel.

Romans 16:1-16 - Greetings

Paul is sometimes wrongly accused of being a misogynist (hating women). Such accusations only demonstrate the myopia of those who make them. Apart from his words in Galatians (Gal 3:28), a look at his life as recorded in Acts and the personal remarks such as we find here at the end of Romans give the lie to these silly assessments of Paul. 

He starts off in his personal greetings by commending a female deacon, and there are several more women mentioned in the list of greetings.

Some of the names mentioned we do know of, such as Priscilla and Aquila, but most of them are not mentioned elsewhere. This list shows the importance of other people in Paul's ministry, and his appreciation of them. Jesus said that anyone who gives a prophet a cup of water will receive a prophet's reward. There will be people who are at the forefront of Christian ministry, ie are publicly well known, but behind these people are countless others who provide invaluable and essential support. And it makes no difference if we our own role is prominent or hidden. If we are prominent then do not shrink from the position God has put you in. Remember also that you are absolutely reliant on the support of many others, remember also that it is the secret things that we do that often determine our true effectiveness. The prayers in secret, the little acts of kindness to "ordinary" people. If we are working behind the scenes, never resent that position. Let us serve faithfully, for we are serving the Lord and He sees all that we do.

Romans 15:23-33 - Helping the church in Jerusalem

Paul had preached the gospel in many of the lands, between Israel and Rome, and so now planned to go to Rome. This shows that Paul was not the only missionary, for clearly others had founded the church in Rome. Paul was now looking further afield and intended to go to Spain, and would visit Rome on the way. Of course, this never actually came to pass, though Paul did go to Rome, albeit as a prisoner. 

In the meantime Paul was going to Jerusalem. This was to take the offering to help the Jerusalem church, and this visit would end up in his arrest.

Paul mentions the financial help given to the Jerusalem church by Christians from Macedonia and Achaia. Paul here is emphasising the link between the Jerusalem church and the rest of Christianity. He gave the theological grounds for this in chapters 9-11, now we have the practical outworking of this. Spiritual and material blessings go together. Now money is a fraught matter, and there are too many examples of "Christians" exploiting others for money. Ie using the gospel as a means of making money. We are absolutely right to be wary of this, but even so the spiritual and material go together. Notice here that the money collected for the Jerusalem church was to help them out of poverty. In the Bible giving is predominantly either for the work of the church (or temple in the Old Testament) or for helping the poor. Today we need to give a lot more than we do, but this giving should be for the direct advancement of the work of the gospel or for helping the poor, not for making individuals rich.

Paul knew the dangers he would face in Jerusalem, and asks the Roman Christians to help him by praying for his mission.