Q. In your exposition about Rom. 1.18-32 I was surprised that while you rightly emphasized the critique of pagan idolatry, you said nothing about pagan
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Paul and Peter in conversation (Shutterstock)
It was some time last year that I began to have a major breakthrough in my personal understanding of the Apostle Paul. I think, like many of us, I became accustomed to him often not making sense; being willing to live as it were with the mysteries of God’s Word that I don’t understand. While this attitude sufficed for a long time, in the end, the nagging feeling of I-must-be-missing something big got hold of me.
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I will never forget the day I stood on the ruins of a third-century synagogue in Capernaum, just a stone’s throw from the beautiful blue waters of the Sea of Galilee. I was leading a tour of Christian pilgrims. Our guide called our attention to Matthew 23:3, a verse I had read hundreds of times but which now suddenly jumped off the page: “You must be careful to do everything [the teachers of the law and Pharisees] tell you.”
I was shocked. How could Jesus have recommended the teachings of the Pharisees when he warned against their hypocrisy in the same verse (“But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.”)? How could I have missed this recommendation during decades of serious Bible study?