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The Pauline Epistles: Inductive Bible Study

-Notes (PDF)

-The Pauline Epistles, Part 1
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 2
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 3
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 4
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 5
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 6
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 7
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 8
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 9
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 10
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 11
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 12
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 13
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 14
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 15
-The Pauline Epistles, Part 16

6 Responses

  1. Dr. Snyder, warm greetings from Texas! Look forward to reading your new book. Just curious, have you interacted with Christopher Yuan and/or his book “Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God. A Broken Mother’s Search for Hope” (co-written with his mother Angela Yuan)? Like Jeff Chu, Yuan is also of Chinese descent. Yuan’s is mostly a biographical account of his transformation through Christ. His training in biblical exegesis, however, provides a solid grounding in helping one understand the important issue.

  2. sir did you know that gods word call two men having sex with each others rectal cavity sodomy but the devil calls it gay

  3. As I study biblical grace, I am happy to simply agree with Chu ‘If we as Christians “do not consider what [our faith] requires of us in
    terms of openness and hospitality, we’ll continue to alienate and shut
    off conversation when we should be doing the opposite. We can—really,
    must—be firm in our faith and yet kind and open. We must personify
    grace. We must recognize our limitations and leave to God what is
    God’s”’ without the ‘but.’ Because the calling into account is not trust to God what is God’s. It is clear to me that it has never been about ‘the rules’ with God. It’s not what He wants FROM us in terms of our behavior, but what he wants FOR us – a deep and satisfying relationship with Him and others – hence the ‘rules’ summarized by Jesus are love God, love others. If we feel it is our job to call to account, then, like trying to earn our way into God’s favor for salvation, we never know when we have done enough, well enough, often enough, to enough people, or for what sins. Grace has become a casualty in the church; rather than seeking to know God more fully – what a gracious invitation that is – we have under shot the mark at the point of origin by one degree, deciding to represent God as his little parole officers and hall monitors. One degree off at point of origin has caused us to miss the mark by miles. The world recongnizes us as hall monitors and they have come to despise the God whom we tell them assigned us that role. What if, instead, we introduce all people to Jesus, trusting Him to do what ONLY he can do – clean us all up. ‘Sin’ is really beyond our ability to deal with in ourselves and certainly in others. God went to some pretty extreme lengths to deal with it, and the only ones He was hard on when He showed up in the flesh were the ones who thought it was their job.

    1. Jay, was Paul a so-called “hall monitor”? Just curious. In Luther’s preface to the book of Romans–you know, what led to Wesley’s Aldersgate experience–Luther said of the issue of the law:

      “But to fulfill the law means to do its work eagerly, lovingly and freely, without the constraint of the law; it means to live well and in a manner pleasing to God, as though there were no law or punishment. It is the Holy Spirit, however, who puts such eagerness of unconstained love into the heart, as Paul says in chapter 5. But the Spirit is given only in, with, and through faith in Jesus Christ, as Paul says in his introduction.”

      Previously, he said, “Outwardly you keep the law with works out of fear of punishment or love of gain. Likewise you do everything without free desire and love of the law; you act out of aversion and force. You’d rather act otherwise if the law didn’t exist.”

      To me, that last sentence is the kicker. If the law didn’t exist–can we say also “if Jesus’ commands didn’t exist”?–this person or that person, me or you, would desire to do ______________. If I wasn’t afraid of going to hell, are there things that I would do that God says are the opposite of righteous and holy? And if we have those desires…are we not yet still slaves of sin, or can we honestly say the person with those things is regenerated, sanctified, and fully living for Christ?

      God says that homosexuality, amongst other things are the opposite of righteous and holy. In fact, those “sins” against the body are spoken of as Paul as kind of the snowball effect of sin; it takes a lot of disobedience of God and His commandments to get to that level of depravity to engage in such sins.

      Yes, we must engage homosexuals with the mind and love of Christ. Making cheap grace, however, and not having accountability within the body of Christ is not the way we do that.

      At the heart of the homosexuality/gender issue is a fundamental rejection of the Christian Worldview. The two are comprehensibly incompatible.

      You also seem to be saying that we’re to just leave people in the hands of God and to leave them no mind to any spiritual growth in Christ. While we certainly do not try to be Christ or to work in our own power, we, as disciples–and ambassadors–of Christ and disciplers have a calling to always be leading everybody closer and closer to Christ. This will, many times, necessitate sharing the truth about reality, holding strong to the inerrant truth of God’s Word, and gently helping others put on the mind of Christ. God says “be holy as I am holy” and he very much means it when he tells us to consecrate ourselves to him. There is absolutely no good that comes from being his witnesses to the world (salt & light) if we are unwilling to tell people the weighty truth of the Gospel; that salvation is the means to a greater end, and that as part of our commitment to receive Christ is to deny ourselves to the point of our own death to self, bearing the Cross of Christ, and being transformed. That transformation back into the restored image of God means that that which is being produced in us is not contradictory to those things that God explicitly says are the opposite of his ways, and are, in fact, the byproduct of a continual rejection of grace that leads to God giving one over to his depraved state.

      Lastly, you said “hence the ‘rules’ summarized by Jesus are love God, love others.” Jesus qualified what love is in John 14:21 when he said,

      “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” And so we’re right back at the very beginning. To love God means to keep his commandments.

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