Two Peas in A Pod

Thursday, July 04, 2013             Two Peas in A Pod

 “But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.”

Romans 7:6

The first century Christian church in Rome was primarily composed of Jews who had accepted Jesus as their Messiah. Because they were grounded in the theology of Old Testament Covenant law, the Apostle Paul labored hard in his letter to the church to distinguish between the Old and New Covenants.  Since most of us were not raised in a very legalistic religious setting, we may be tempted to dismiss Paul’s writings as not relevant to our lives. When Jews were striving to keep the Covenant law, they were working out the meaning of their lives. Their faithfulness to the law reinforced their belief that they were the people of God and thus affirmed their sense of well-being.

In our culture, we are taught to meet our needs for love, acceptance and self-worth through our own efforts, and our sense of well-being is affirmed through our achieving cultural standards, or measures of success. I believe we, and our first century brothers and sisters in Rome, are two peas in a pod, and thus Paul’s teaching on the basics of the Old Covenant relationship Israel had with God is as vital to us now as it was when Paul’s letter was first received in Rome. Paul wanted the church to know that God had been faithful to His part of the Covenant, and that God, out of an abundance of His mercy, fixed what was wrong, what was preventing Israel from keeping the Covenant. Paul wanted the church to see how God had established a New Covenant relationship with them. Paul believed that the church could not fully embrace the New Covenant without this knowledge. This knowledge would show the church that any effort by them to try and live by the Old Covenant would be futile. In the same way, any efforts on our part to work out the meaning of our life apart from God’s grace will be futile.

In Chapter 6, Paul described how a person enters into a New Covenant relationship with God. In Chapter 8, Paul will discuss the life in Christ of the New Covenant. Chapter 7 is a bridge, a transition between the two covenants and is summed up in Romans 7:6. My personal mission statement is “Seeking the Life in Christ as my way of life.” Using Paul’s words, I could say, “Seeking the new way of life in the Spirit as my way of life.”

(NOTE: In Romans 7:6, Paul introduces in one simple statement, the heart of the Christian’s life. A good resource for this is The Pressure’s Off, by Dr. Larry Crabb.)

Sē’lah 

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  In addition to this BLOG they are distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com. The Kindle version will follow soon.

·        The second edition First Think – Then Pray has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.