Saturday 03 August 2013

Background

Paul writing to the young church in Rome paints a picture inRomans 8 of the prolonged labour of a whole new order of humanitycoming to birth on earth through Christ (verse 22). This new act ofcreation through Christ had been planned from the beginning of alltime. (verse 29). The labour was confusing, painful, with a mixtureof joy and suffering. Young Christian communities were persecutedand were discovering that learning how to live in the ways of Godtook lot of training and trial and error within the community.

In verses 28 Paul offers words of encouragement to the Christianchurch in Rome. They might live in confused times, and have to beara lot of suffering. However, they needed to see their stories onthe bigger picture of God's purposes coming to fruition through thewhole universe. In God's time, God's purposes could not be thwartedand all things would work out through the death and resurrection ofChrist which saved them.

In verse 39 Paul ends with the exhortation: "For I am convincedthat neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor thingspresent, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, noranything else in all creation will be able to separate us from thelove of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." These words have givenimmense encouragement to people in times of difficulty.

To Ponder

• Can you describe a time when there was a lot of pain andsuffering in your life, and as you look back now you can see thatGod was able to bring good transformation out of it for you andthose around you? What happened?

• Read the words of this passage slowly. What phrase stands out?And how does it speak into a situation you are in?