Sunday Morning Greek Blog

August 30, 2026

Unhypocritical Love (Romans 12:9–21)

Filed under: 1 Corinthians,Courage,Ecclesiology,Evangelism,Evil,Faith, Faithfulness,Prayer,Proverbs,Repentance,Righteousness,Romans,Soteriology,Tongues — Scott Stocking @ 4:25 pm
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I preached this message on August 30, 2026, at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, Nebraska. This is my last Sunday to preach on Romans for this year’s liturgical calendar. Romans 13 and 14 are on the calendar for the next couple weeks when I’m on a short road trip and out of the pulpit, but when I’m in the pulpit again, I’ll either be addressing Philippians 1 or a Gospel passage.

Good morning! The Lord be with you!

At first glance, when you hear or read this passage, I can imagine you have a thousand thoughts going through your mind. On the surface, it sounds like we’ve just read a whole list of commands, by my count 25 in all from verses 9–21. It’s easy to see then, how the pastor at my home church was able to take 12 weeks this summer to work through Romans 12. Each of the would-be commands are great subjects by themselves for sermons. But alas, I do not have 12 straight weeks to do that with you, nor would I want to “borrow” my pastor’s sermons to accomplish such a task. “Twelve on Romans Twelve”; that would make a nice sermon series title.

As I looked at the passage and began to ponder how I might be able to organize my thoughts, it seemed like the paragraph breaks in my version might do for a convenient and simple organizing structure. But as I’m wont to do, especially with a passage that’s a bit challenging, I looked into my Greek text to make sure the paragraph breaks were justified by the text, and I was not disappointed. So, here’s how I’ll approach the text this morning to respect the way Paul wrote it.

The text is divided into three main sections, each beginning with a direct statement that indicates the theme for each section. Beginning in verse 9, we have the statement about love and what that looks like. We might think that could be kind of squishy, but it’s not. We’ll look at the intensity of the concept when we get there.

The next section starts in verse 14, digs a little deeper into our souls, and challenges us to do some things that might be really difficult: “Bless those who persecute you.”[1] Kind of makes you want to squirm a little bit in your seat, right?

Finally, Paul cuts to the heart of the matter directly in verses 17: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.”[2] Paul gets pretty intense in that last section. So, let’s get started this morning and break this down.

The first three statements in verse 9 are actually summaries of what I’ve just described above, but Paul doesn’t lay them out in the same order. Let’s take a look under the hood here and break down what’s going on.

The lead-statement sets the tone of the rest of the passage. In the original language it is a simple, three-word sentence that makes a statement of fact:[3] “Love is unhypocritical.” This should be a straightforward translation in most cases, but our English translations have interpreted what follows as a series of short commands about things we should or shouldn’t do. [4] So they have transferred that understanding to this first phrase as well: “Let love be genuine” or “Let love be sincere” as some translations have it.

This is completely acceptable when it comes to Bible translation, because the goal is to make it understandable to average English reader. Also, sometimes we have a mindset as Christians that we just want God to tell us what we’re supposed to do and how we’re supposed to live. Then we can just check off the boxes and grade ourselves on how well we think we’re doing. But we also know that living for Christ isn’t just about checking off behavioral boxes and those with a passing grade get into heaven. In fact, it isn’t about checking off boxes at all, really, because we’ve already seen that when we’re “in Christ,” we already have the victory. Christ has checked off all the boxes, so to speak, and has imparted his righteousness to us.

Paul knows this as well, and I think in this case, especially with a mixed group of Jews and Gentiles, I would suggest that instead of giving us a checklist, he’s giving a definition of unhypocritical love. Again, the governing statement is “Love is genuine.” That is an absolute statement of truth. He’s setting a standard, much like he does in 1 Corinthians 13, but customized for the Corinthian culture and church. In fact, what he’s probably doing here in Romans is defining ἀγάπη (agapē) love for both Jews and Gentiles. What follows then is a description of actions that demonstrate what unhypocritical love looks like. So, in some respects it is still a checklist of sorts, but Paul doesn’t want you to see it as a checklist. He wants you to see love as a default setting for your heart and mind.

It is important to note, then, that many of the things that follow this statement are descriptions of other-centered behaviors. Several of the key words in this list are words that are rarely found in the NT, in a few cases only once or twice, so these are worth noting. I won’t go into detail on each one; as the pastor of my home church demonstrated, each one of the concepts is worthy of its own sermon.

I want to save the last two phrases in verse 9 for a little later, so let’s look at verse 10. “Be devoted to one another in love” is how the NIV translates it. Our reading has “love one another with mutual affection.”[5] First of all, the word for “mutual affection” here (“love” in the NIV) is not agapē, but φιλαδελφία (philadelphia)[6], that’s right, “brotherly love.” This of course refers to real love and mutual affection, not the kind of “love” you might get from a Philadelphia Eagles fans, who’ve been known to boo Santa Claus.[7]

The word for “love” in our bulletin reading (“devoted” in the NIV) is a compound of two words that mean two different kinds of love in Greek (φιλόστοργος philostorgos). The first part of the compound is the same as the φιλία (philia) in Philadelphia; the second part of the compound is a word that C.S. Lewis describes as familial love, especially that kind of love a mother and child share.[8] It’s easy to see, then, how the concepts of devotion from the NIV and mutual affection from the NRSV are appropriate for this passage. We’re called to love our brothers and sisters in Christ like we love our own families. If we do that, then the rest of the items in that first paragraph—zeal, spiritual fervor, honor, hope, patience, etc.—fall into place. That’s why “love your neighbor as yourself” is the second greatest command in Scripture.

I want to return to the second phrase in vs. 9, “Hate what is evil.” I must point out that this is first phrase Paul uses to describe unhypocritical love. Love doesn’t overlook evil. Love doesn’t tolerate evil. This verse would seem to tie into verses 17–21, since “evil” seems to be a prominent theme there, although it is a different Greek word [κακός (kakos)] that emphasizes evil deeds and actions specifically. In verse 9, “evil” refers to an evil thing, not an evil person as it does in the Lord’s prayer.[9]

The word for “hate” is another one of those words that only appears once in the New Testament. It is not based on the typical word for “hate” that is used in the New Testament. It derives from the root of our modern English word “stigma.” The Greek word has a prefix added to it that implies your hatred of evil should be so strong that you run away from, much like Paul often warns his audiences to flee sexual immorality, idolatry, and greed.

While physically removing yourselves from situations that could cause you to stumble greatly, the practicality of that may not always be expedient. If you see someone in danger, for example, you might be inclined to help, up to and including self defense if necessary. That would be a noble act as well, especially if you can avoid returning evil for evil as verse 17 says. You may have training in conflict resolution or deescalation of a situation that would prove beneficial for all involved. So, it’s not just about fleeing evil things, but about figuring out how you can do the right thing, the good thing, to overcome evil when it comes your way. Unhypocritical love overcomes evil.

The exhortations here are again positive: Do what is right, live at peace if you can, don’t take revenge. So again, Paul is speaking to our mindset, encouraging us to develop default behaviors. It’s all about practice and training, getting that “muscle memory” firmly ensconced in us. Doing the right thing speaks volumes in our culture that increasingly, as I said last week, sees violence as an acceptable solution. Certain Proverbs come to mind here:

12:25: Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.[10]

15:1: A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.[11]

16:14: A king’s wrath is a messenger of death, but the wise will appease it.[12]

20:3: It is to one’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.[13]

I’ll close by looking at the third phrase in verse 9: “Hold fast to what is good.” The word for “hold fast” there is another rare word in the New Testament. It’s used to describe the sexual relationship between a man and a woman, in the opposite contexts of marriage and prostitution. Peter uses the word in Acts 10 when he speaks of his call to go share the Gospel (and a meal) at the Gentile Cornelius’s home. Like the other descriptions throughout our passage today, the focus is other-centered, even when the “other” is one who is persecuting you.

The word for “persecute” (διώκω diōkō) here is interesting because it is the same Greek word that is translated as “pursue” in the previous verse in reference to hospitality. In other words, the word has the positive meaning of pursuing good things for others but the negative meaning of pursuing someone for whom you intend harm. The latter negative meaning is made obvious in the context when Paul emphasizes blessing the persecutors, not cursing them. In Paul’s context, a curse was a various serious thing, essentially wishing death on the one cursed.

Verses 14–16 also have a strong undertone of humility as well. Know your place; know your limits. Live together in harmony. That may be easier to do when you’re all of the same mindset. But remember Paul is addressing a mixed group here of Jews and Gentile Romans. I’m sure they had to put forth significant effort to make things work in their ethnically diverse house churches.

Romans 12 is certainly a strong contender for the best chapter on love in the New Testament. In some areas, it seems to cover a little more ground as far as the dos and don’ts of love in the Christian setting. But again, the cultural differences between Rome and Corinth can’t be ignored. Paul had to deal extensively with the speaking in tongues issue in Corinth, but there wasn’t a word about that in Paul’s gift list in the first part of Romans 12. On the other hand, Paul doesn’t deal very much with evil in 1 Corinthians 12–14, while in Romans 12, we see a great deal about that. Corinthians deals more with church order and practice, while Romans seems to focus on some larger cultural and societal issues that impacted the Roman churches.

We won’t settle the “best chapter on love” debate here, but I think we can all agree that, when we practice loving our neighbor as ourselves and loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, we are doing our part to advance the kingdom of God and bring about that great day of redemption and reward, when sin finally will be defeated. May the peace of God go with today and the rest of the week. Amen.

My opinions are my own.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

To read and hear the previous week’s message on the first half of Romans 12: Life as a “Living Sacrifice”: Finding Your Gifts (Romans 12:1–8) | Sunday Morning Greek Blog.

[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] Formally known as indicative voice; in this case the “to be” copulative verb “is” is implied, as is often the case with simple Greek copulative sentences.

[4] In the Greek text, what follows is a series of participial phrases through the end of verse 13. Participles typically take on the aspect of the main verb, which in this case would be the implied copulative. If the translators think the implied copulative is imperative, then translators would interpret all the participles linked to that main verb as imperative, as seems to be the case in modern translations. As you will see, I am taking a different approach.

[5] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[6] Swanson, James. 1997. In Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament), electronic ed. Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

[7] Ranking the Nicest (to the Nastiest) NFL Fanbases – The Quick Report

[8] C.S. Lewis: Four Loves – 1. Storge (Affection)

[9] In the Lord’s Prayer, the adjective πονηρός (ponēros) is masculine. Here in Romans 12, it is neuter.

[10] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[11] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[12] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[13] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

August 19, 2026

“God’s Gifts and His Call Are Irrevocable”: Romans 9–11

Filed under: Christology,Deuteronomy,Ecclesiology,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Leviticus,Righteousness,Romans,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 10:58 pm
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I preached this message at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE, on August 16, 2026. The preachers from the previous two weeks had not covered Romans 9 & 10 from the lectionary, so I did a brief overview of those two chapters before tackling chapter 11. Message was captured in audio (here) and video (Rumble) formats.I preached this message at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE, on August 16, 2026. The preachers from the previous two weeks had not covered Romans 9 & 10 from the lectionary, so I did a brief overview of those two chapters before tackling chapter 11. Message was captured in audio (here) and video (Rumble) formats.

Good morning! The Lord be with you!

I’m continuing on through Romans today. While the first eight chapters were pretty heavy on doctrine, the nature and role of faith and faithfulness, and the “how” of life—both here and beyond—in the Spirit, Paul hasn’t really dealt with the social and cultural dynamics of the mix of Gentiles and Jews in the Roman churches. That’s where chapters 9 through 11 fit in.

Remember that the Roman church was a healthy mix of Jews and Gentiles, with Gentiles in the majority, especially after the banishment of Jews from Rome ended and the Jews had begun to return. There are hints later in Romans of some of the tensions that may have arisen when the Jews returned, most notably involving the diet restrictions that Jews followed but Gentiles did not. That would have caused no small kerfuffle at their fellowship meals, to be sure.

It would seem from Paul’s comments in chapters 9–10 especially that each group felt they had one-up on the other. The Gentiles, after all, had kept the churches alive and growing in the absence of the Jews, while the Jews had the rightful claim of being the religious and ethnic “home,” if you will, of the Messiah. Paul attempts to balance that tension by using the metaphor of the olive tree.

Sure, the Jews represent the original olive tree, the foundation from which Christianity arose through the Messiah. But Gentiles had some bragging rights as well, having been welcomed, or in Paul’s terms, “grafted,” into the new Christian “sect” of Judaism where they had previously been deemed as second-class humans, or worse, as dogs, by traditional Judaism. I’m sure it must have been difficult for life-long Jews who had converted to Christianity to get over some of these biases about Gentiles.

What Paul is doing in chapters 9–11 is trying to convince the Jews that their standing, as well as the Gentiles’ standing, with God isn’t based on their ethnicity alone. It is based on what they believe about God, their faithfulness to his commands, and the state of their hearts. The Jewish Christians aren’t more saved or more blessed than the Gentile Christians simply because of their ethnicity. By the same token, the Gentiles aren’t more saved because they are inherently free of the constraints of the law that was deeply etched in the Jewish mindset. That doesn’t mean the Gentiles aren’t responsible for the moral behaviors reflected in the law; they just don’t have the kind of bias against a Jew that a traditional Jew might have against Gentiles.

We see this in Chapter 9 with a couple notable passages. Verse 14–16 state:

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,

and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” r

16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.[1]

In other words, God will bring about salvation for Jews and Gentiles in his own way.

Then in verses 27–28, Paul quotes Isaiah’s warning from chapter 10 of his prophecy:

27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,

only the remnant will be saved.

28 For the Lord will carry out

his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”[2]

God’s “sentence on earth” is like a reference to the warnings in the Torah about disobedience, especially Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. These warnings speak directly to why some of the Israelites were considered the branches cut out of the olive tree. What’s interesting about these warnings about disobedience are much longer than the promises for obedience that precede them in each of these chapters.

Here’s a sampling of Leviticus 28:14, 16–17.

14 “ ‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands… 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.[3]

Leviticus goes on with a series of paragraphs that take us down the infamous slippery slope by introducing subsequent sections with the sentiment: “If you don’t listen to me and turn back after all this, here’s what else is coming” with list of even more painful and in some cases gruesome consequences.

Deuteronomy isn’t any more pleasant (28:15–19):

15 However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.[4]

They can’t run and they can’t hide from the consequences. But it is because of God’s mercy that he didn’t wipe them out completely.

Chapter 10 (verses 8–10) makes it clear what our next step should be to escape this. I’m sure many of you have heard this before as part of the Romans Road:

8 But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” [Deuteronomy 30:14] that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.[5]

This brings us then to our passage this morning from Romans 11. We’ve only read the first and last part of the chapter, but they are the opening and closing summaries of the heart of the passage. Paul is proud of his Jewish heritage, just as he enumerated the blessings the Jews have from their history at the beginning of chapter 9. He speaks of “the remnant [of Israel] chosen by grace,” that is, those who reaped the rewards of obedience from the first verses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Their salvation is a completely free gift of God. There’s no application to fill out, no extensive background check, no references to check, because God already knows that. All he needs to see is that circumcised heart, represented by your confession that Jesus is Lord.

In 11:28, Paul calls the disobedient Jews “enemies” to the Gentiles when it comes to the gospel, but because the Jews are God’s chosen people, they are still considered “elect” and God’s love never fails for them. The promise of vs. 29, that “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable”[6] is as applicable to Israel as it is for the Gentiles. That promise to include the Gentiles goes all the way back to Isaiah, at least. Verse 32 about Jews and Gentiles being bound for disobedience comes across as a sticky wicket of sorts, until you realize Paul is just restating what he said way back in Romans 3:10–11: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.”[7] We can never be saved by the works of the law; we can never be declared righteous by following any law. That only comes from the mercy and the declaration of God because of what Christ has done for us.

Paul realizes he’s laid on the theology and doctrine rather heavily in these first 11 chapters. But he ties it up in a neat little bundle here, at least by implication, by returning to his opening concept from chapter 1 of the “obedience of faithfulness” in contrast with all of us being bound over to disobedience. Romans 1–11 give us great promises of salvation: resurrection, new and eternal life, life in the Spirit, and even a corporate fellowship among those who used to be enemies. It is a beautiful picture of salvation based solely on grace and not on any ethnic connection. I’m looking forward to next week when I tackle Romans 12 and get into some of the real-life issues we face as believers, especially around the call to love our neighbors. The principles of the first 11 chapters show up often in the last 5 chapters of Romans, so we’ll see how all Paul’s theology and doctrine play out in real life.

The benediction at the end of 11 is as profound as it is encouraging, and I close with that:

33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable his judgments,

and his paths beyond tracing out!

34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?” b

35 “Who has ever given to God,

that God should repay them?” c

36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.

To him be the glory forever! Amen.[8]

[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[4] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[5] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[6] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[7] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[8] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

My views are my own.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

August 3, 2026

Podcast Episode: Faithfulness And Righteousness in Christ (Romans Podcast Part 3)

Filed under: Christology,Christology,Ecclesiology,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Greek,Matthew Gospel of,Righteousness,Romans — Scott Stocking @ 9:40 pm
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Pip: Sunday Morning Greek Blog, where the word “therefore” is never just a transition — it’s a theological event horizon.

Mara: Scott Stocking brings us two sermons this episode, both circling the same gravitational center: how Christ’s faithfulness, not just our own, is what justification actually rests on. We move from Romans 5 to the temptation in the desert and back again.

Pip: Let’s start with what Paul is actually arguing in Romans 5 and why the word “faith” might be doing double duty.

Justified by Christ’s Faithfulness

Mara: The post works through Romans 5:1–12 as part of a longer Romans study, and the central question it raises is whether “faith” in Paul’s letters refers only to our belief — or also to Christ’s own faithfulness to his mission.

Pip: And the answer, apparently, is both, which changes the weight of the whole argument considerably. The post frames it this way, reading from Romans 1:17: “For in the gospel the Righteousness of God is revealed — from faithfulness into faithfulness, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faithfulness.'”

Mara: What this means in practice is that the “Righteousness of God” Paul invokes isn’t an abstract moral standard — it refers to Jesus himself. Jesus is the Righteousness of God, and his faithfulness to the cross is what makes our justification possible in the first place.

Pip: So when Paul writes “justified through faith” in 5:1 and then pivots to “justified by his blood” in 5:9, he isn’t contradicting himself — he’s showing the two sides of one coin. Christ’s faithfulness is the foundation; our trust is the response.

Mara: The post also tracks a structural shift in Romans that’s easy to miss as a casual reader. In chapters 1 through 4, Paul uses words for faith or faithfulness 27 times and words for life only twice. In chapters 5 through 8, those numbers nearly reverse — 25 occurrences of life and live, and only 2 for faith.

Pip: That’s a deliberate rhetorical gear change, not an accident.

Mara: Exactly — and it lands hardest in verse 8, which the post calls “somewhat profound”: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” No prior cleanup required.

Pip: The historical context sharpens that. Paul is writing to a Roman congregation where Jewish believers had been expelled and were only now returning to find Gentile house churches still thriving — so the unity argument isn’t abstract theology, it’s pastoral triage.

Mara: And perseverance under that pressure is precisely what builds the character and hope Paul describes in verses 3 through 5. That thread connects directly to what Jesus himself modeled when his own faithfulness was put to the test.

Walking in Jesus’s Righteousness

Mara: The second sermon takes up Matthew 4:1–11 alongside Romans 5:12–19, and the framing question is pointed: where Adam failed under temptation, what did Jesus actually do differently, and what does that mean for everyone who comes after?

Pip: The post opens with a comparison most sermons wouldn’t lead with — that Satanism is an oxymoron — but it earns the setup, because the whole argument depends on understanding what Satan is actually after.

Mara: The key move comes in Romans 5:19, quoted directly: “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”

Pip: So the upshot is that Jesus’s obedience isn’t just a moral example — it’s the structural reversal of Adam’s failure. One act of faithful obedience undoes what one act of disobedience broke.

Mara: The post draws a careful parallel: Satan used the same three categories against Jesus in the desert — appetite, spectacle, and power — that he used against Eve in the garden. Jesus refused each one by knowing exactly what God had actually promised, not the distorted version Satan offered.

Pip: And the post makes the point that what made the crucifixion uniquely effective wasn’t only perfect legal obedience to the Law — it was love. Bulls and goats couldn’t love anyone. Jesus could and did.

Mara: Which is why the post lands where it does: believers are “in Christ” in a concrete sense, baptized into his death, freed from the law’s demands, and called to walk in the righteousness he earned and extends to them.

Pip: Two sermons, one through-line — Christ’s faithfulness is prior to ours, and that sequence matters for everything that follows.

Mara: Romans keeps pulling the thread. There’s still the second half of Romans 6 ahead, so this conversation isn’t finished.

Pip: Neither, apparently, is Paul’s.

August 2, 2026

Podcast Episode: Faithfulness In Romans (Part 2)

Filed under: Christology,Ecclesiology,Faith, Faithfulness,forgiveness,Grace,Greek,Righteousness,Romans,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 3:28 pm
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Part 1 of the Romans podcast series may be found here.

Pip: Welcome to Sunday Morning Greek Blog, where the coffee is hot and the participles are passive — and sometimes that’s the whole point.

Mara: Scott Stocking is our guide this episode, working through Romans with a close eye on the Greek text — what words like pistis and dikaiosyne actually mean, and why the translation choices matter for how we understand salvation.

Pip: Let’s start with the Romans Road and what happens when you read it in the original language.

Romans 3:23–24 and the Faithfulness That Saves

Pip: The post on Romans 3:23–24 opens a question most readers skip right past: when Paul says we are justified by faith, whose faith is he actually talking about — ours, or Christ’s?

Mara: The post frames it this way: “For all who are being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came through Messiah Jesus sinned and are lacking the glory of God.” That rearrangement of word order is deliberate — the participle dikaioumenoi, meaning “who are being justified,” attaches directly to “all,” making justification an ongoing process, not a completed event.

Pip: So the grammar itself is doing theological work. Being justified is present tense, active right now, not a box you checked at conversion.

Mara: Exactly. And that present-tense framing connects to a comparison with Ephesians 2:8, where the parallel construction swaps “through the redemption in Christ Jesus” for “through faithfulness, and this not from yourselves.” The argument is that the faithfulness in view is Christ’s — his obedience to the cross — not a quantity of belief we have to produce on our own.

Pip: Which dissolves a question that has quietly tormented a lot of Christians: do I have enough faith to be saved? If the faithfulness is Christ’s, the answer is structurally irrelevant to us.

Mara: The post makes that point directly. If salvation rests on our faith, it becomes relative — how much is enough? But if it rests on Christ’s faithfulness, the statement becomes absolute. Our own trust in Jesus is, as the post puts it, “not so much for the purpose of being saved but the result of being saved.”

Pip: That’s a quiet but significant inversion of how the passage usually gets preached.

Mara: The companion piece on pistis across Romans 1–5 develops this at length. It argues that the phrase pisteos Iesou Christou — “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ” — in Romans 3:22 is a subjective genitive: Christ is the one being faithful, not merely the object of our faith. The post traces that reading through the whole arc of Romans 1–5, from God’s wrath under the Law in chapters 1 through 3, to Abraham’s faithfulness in chapter 4, to the application in chapter 5.

Mara: The inclusio that brackets the entire letter is telling: the phrase eis hypakoēn pisteōs — “into obedience of faithfulness” — appears in both 1:5 and 16:26, the first and last occurrences of pistis in Romans. That structural frame suggests Paul’s whole argument is about faithful obedience, not faith as a discrete interior event.

Pip: So Romans is less a manual for how to believe and more a demonstration that Christ already did the believing on our behalf — and we walk in the wake of that.

Mara: With the caveat that our own faithfulness still matters — the post is careful to say this doesn’t imply universalism or unconditional security, but rather a call to trust more deeply because God has already demonstrated his reliability. Works, confession, and obedience all follow from that trust.

Pip: From the mechanics of justification to the question of who the righteous one actually is — that thread runs all the way back to Romans 1:17, which is where the deeper argument begins.

Mara: The thread connecting both posts is really one question: what kind of faithfulness is Romans built on, and does the Greek text change the answer?

Pip: Turns out the grammar has opinions. Next time, we’ll see where else those opinions show up.

July 31, 2026

Podcast Episode: Romans And Faithful Obedience

Filed under: Christology,Faith, Faithfulness,Greek,Immersion/Baptism,Righteousness,Romans,Soteriology,Textual Criticism — Scott Stocking @ 5:50 pm
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Pip: Sunday Morning Greek Blog is back, and if you thought Paul’s letter to the Romans was just a greatest-hits playlist of salvation verses, Scott Stocking is here to walk you through the whole road — construction specs included.

Mara: Scott Stocking covers two connected territories this episode: what righteousness actually means in Romans, and how the phrase “obedience of faithfulness” functions as the letter’s spine from opening greeting to closing benediction.

Pip: Let’s start with righteousness — and what it costs to define it carefully.

Righteousness as Foundation

Mara: The central question in this segment is what Paul means by “the righteousness of God” in Romans 1:17 — and whether it’s something God hands over to believers, or something embodied in a person.

Pip: The answer lands hard. The post sets up Romans 1:17 carefully, then offers this reading: “The righteousness of God then isn’t an object to be given. It is embodied in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God.”

Mara: The upshot is that righteousness isn’t a transaction — it’s a participation. Because Jesus fulfilled every requirement of the law, he alone is called righteous, and believers share in that only by being “in Christ.”

Pip: Which reframes the familiar Romans Road considerably. The post uses a road-construction metaphor that actually earns its keep: righteousness is the substructure — the rebar, the compacted earth, the dowel bars — and Jesus’s faithfulness is the surface we walk on.

Mara: Romans 1:17 gets parsed as “from faithfulness into faithfulness” — Jesus’s perfect obedience to the law moving into his faithfulness unto death on the cross. The post ties that directly to Philippians 2:8: “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross.”

Pip: So “obedience of faithfulness” in Romans 1:5 isn’t just a theological motto. It points, specifically, to the crucifixion.

Mara: Romans 2 extends this. Paul warns both Jews and Gentiles against hypocrisy — knowing the law isn’t the same as following it. The post notes that circumcision and baptism function as parallel initiation rites in Paul’s argument, and reads Romans 2:25–29 as groundwork for the baptism discussion coming in chapter 6.

Pip: The small-group kickoff context matters here — this is a congregation being asked to read Romans one chapter at a time, and the post is honest that chapters 1 and 2 alone carry enough freight to slow anyone down.

Mara: That honesty is part of the argument. The post closes the Romans 1 and 2 discussion with a summary worth quoting directly: if we remain faithful to living in the righteousness of Christ, then as Romans 2:13 says, “we’ll be declared righteous when we stand before our maker.”

Pip: Which brings us to the phrase that holds all of this together — and how it functions across the whole letter.

The Obedience of Faithfulness

Mara: The question the second post takes up is whether “obedience of faithfulness” is a throwaway greeting formula or the actual organizing theme of Romans — and the answer is the latter.

Pip: The post on “Obedience of Faithfulness: A Walk On the Romans Road” opens with personal testimony but arrives at a precise textual claim. Paul, it argues, “told us what he was going to say, he said it, and he told us he said it” — the phrase appears in Romans 1:5 and again, word for word, in the closing benediction of Romans 16.

Mara: That’s not a coincidence. The Greek is only two words, and the post explains that the structure implies the terms define each other: “obedience is faithfulness, and faithfulness is obedience.” Faith, in this reading, is never purely intellectual — it always carries action with it.

Pip: The post traces this through baptism in Romans 6, reading immersion as the believer’s own enactment of the pattern — buried with Christ, raised to new life. That’s the “obedience of faithfulness” made physical.

Mara: And Romans 12:1–2 closes the arc: “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” and “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The post is careful to note these are promises for life now, not only for life after death.

Pip: Two posts, one through-line — the road Paul built was always meant to be walked.

Mara: Righteousness as foundation, faithfulness as the road you actually travel — that’s the frame Romans keeps returning to.

Pip: Next time, we’ll see where else on the blog that road leads.

July 30, 2026

Podcast Episode: Does the Structure of Exodus 21:1–27 Tell the Patriarchs’ Story?

Filed under: Exodus,forgiveness,Greek,Hebrew,Moses,Righteousness,Ten Commandments (Decalogue) — Scott Stocking @ 8:19 pm
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Pip: Sunday Morning Greek Blog — where the laws of ancient Israel turn out to be hiding a family scandal the whole time.

Mara: Today we’re following Scott Stocking into the structural heart of Exodus 21, where a chiasm built around slavery, parents, and kidnapping turns out to be pointing directly at the patriarchs.

Pip: Let’s start with the structure itself and what it reveals.

Does Exodus 21 Hide the Patriarchs’ Story?

Mara: The post opens with a seminary assignment — Exodus 21:12–27 — but when the Hebrew text revealed that verses 1–27 formed a complete paragraph, the scope expanded, and so did the discovery.

Pip: And what the expanded passage reveals is a chiasm — ideas presented in one order, then mirrored in reverse, with the most important element locked at the center.

Mara: The center, in this case, is kidnapping. And the post explains why that placement matters: “Kidnapping was the ultimate form of mistreatment of another person. That is why it was at the center of the passage.”

Pip: So the architecture of the law is doing theological work — the center of the structure is the center of the argument, not just a formatting choice.

Mara: Right, and the Hebrew confirms it. The word translated “kidnap” is the phrase meaning “the one stealing a man,” using the same root — ganav — as “steal” in the Ten Commandments. Same word, much higher stakes.

Pip: Stealing a man means removing him from his covenant community and erasing the life he had planned. That is not a footnote crime.

Mara: Which is why it sits flanked by laws about striking or cursing parents, and by the Hebrew slave provisions that open and close the passage — all of them potentially capital offenses, all gathered under the shadow of the lex talionis.

Pip: And then the historical context lands, and the whole structure suddenly reads like an indictment.

Mara: Exactly. Joseph’s brothers kidnapped him, sold him into slavery, and lied to their father — which the post calls equivalent to a curse. The first law code after the Ten Commandments is a direct mirror of what Israel did to its own.

Pip: The message being: you are the case study. The law you just received describes crimes you already committed.

Mara: The post frames it plainly — even though God intended it for good, that cannot become an excuse. Structure and context together make the passage a warning, not just a statute.

Pip: Moses built a legal code that doubles as a confession. That is a long way from a seminary homework assignment.

Mara: The deeper point is that how a text is arranged is part of what it means — structure carries argument.

Pip: Which means reading carefully is not optional. It’s the whole job.

June 15, 2026

Justified by Christ’s Faithfulness (Romans 5:1–12)

Filed under: Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Grace,Immersion/Baptism,Righteousness,Romans,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 6:20 pm
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I delivered this message June 14, 2026, (Proper 6, Year A, Third Sunday after Pentecost). I broke from the practice of preaching from the gospel passage this day because I recently did some pretty intense study and writing in Romans (the epistles passage from the Lectionary for this Sunday) and wanted to share my thoughts.

Good morning! The Lord be with you!

This past semester, the church Jill and I attend had their small groups going through the book of Romans. In seminary, one of my professors had published an article about Romans 1:16–17, the passage about “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes,” and it opened my eyes to a whole new understanding of what Paul meant when he talked about the relationship between our faith and Christ’s faithfulness.

Prior to that, I had spent a great deal of time in Ephesians, memorizing the entire epistle. But the more I studied Romans, the more I saw the connections and the organization of Paul’s logic as he built the theology of justification by faithfulness. I began to understand why it was placed first among the Pauline epistles, and I was not disappointed. I was asked to speak for the kickoff of our Romans study at the church, so with those thoughts fresh in my mind, I wanted to share some of my insights the next couple times I’m with you using the Romans passages from the Lectionary readings for those respective Sundays. We’ll look at the first half of Romans 5 this morning. In two weeks, I’ll tackle the last half of Romans 6.

Since we’re diving into the middle of Romans here, I want to give a brief summary of chapters 1 through 4 to catch us up. Broadly speaking, chapters 1 through 11 form a cohesive argument about the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and how each group understands their own respective shortcomings in the eyes of God. In chapters 1 through 4, Paul’s theme seems to be centered around what “faith” looks like for both Gentiles and Jews in spite of their lapses. After Paul introduces the overall theme of “the obedience of faithfulness” in Romans 1:5, he finishes his introduction with the statement: “For in the gospel the Righteousness of God is revealed—from faithfulness into faithfulness, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faithfulness.’”[1] You might be interested to know that this “Righteousness of God” that is revealed is NOT a concept or abstract idea; it refers to Jesus himself. Jesus IS the Righteousness of God.

In the rest of chapter 1 and the first part of chapter 2, Paul addresses the Gentiles in the church at Rome, primarily indicating that nature itself demonstrates the existence and glory of God, and that those who violate their natural state are not respecting that natural order that God has otherwise made obvious to them. From the middle of chapter 2 to the middle of chapter 3, Paul makes the argument that the Jews have the benefit of having been chosen by a God who revealed himself to them directly, and yet, like the Gentiles, they still refuse to acknowledge God, causing Paul to quote Psalm 14:1: “There is no one righteous, not even one.” This is as much a criticism of the Jewish believers as the last half of chapter 1 was to the Gentiles.

From the middle of chapter 3 to the end of chapter 4, then, Paul begins to talk about what true faithfulness looks like and what it accomplishes, that is justification, first in Christ, then in the life of Abraham. He brings home the point that it is Christ’s faithfulness to fulfill God’s purposes through the cross and the resurrection that is the foundation of Paul’s mission to bring Jews and Gentiles to “the obedience of faith.” We even will get hints of this overarching theme in 5:19 and 6:16 as we move forward.

Now the other thing going on in the text of Romans is something that the average reader might miss. In chapters 1 through 4, Paul mentions the word “faith” or “faithfulness” 27 times, while only using words for “life” and “live” twice. But in chapters 5 through 8, Paul flips those numbers around. Paul has 25 occurrences of the two Greek terms for “life” and “live” while only 2 occurrences of the word for “faith” or “faithfulness,” and those two occurrences are found in the first two verses of chapter 5, so let’s dive into that text this morning.

Paul begins chapter 5 with the conjunction “Therefore.” If you’ve been in church long enough, you probably know the old saying: “When you see the word ‘therefore,’ we should find out what it’s (say it with me) ‘there for.’” Well, we already covered that briefly in the summary I just gave. What I want to unpack here is the summary that immediately follows the “therefore”: “Since we have been justified through faith.” That’s the point he just demonstrated in the first four chapters.

The verb “justify” (δικαιόω dikaioō) simply means “to be made right with God” in the context of Scripture. In some contexts, the word is translated “declared righteous,” so the noun “justification” (4:25, 5:16; δικαίωσις dikaiōsis) is closely related to the word “righteousness” (δικαιοσύνη dikaiosynē). The word is used several times throughout Romans 3 through 5 but not always associated with the same phrasing.

In 5:9, Paul says something similar to 5:1, but he swaps out one key word: “Since we have now been justified by his blood.”[2] Why does Paul switch from talking about “justified through faith” and “justified by his blood”? Let’s look at few more verses to fill that out.

In Romans 3:22, Paul indicates that God’s righteousness, or justification, is given through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, the “Righteousness of God” whom the Law and Prophets point to.

In verse 24, Paul continues by saying “all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”[3]

In verse 26, Paul puts the emphasis on our own faith in Jesus: “[God] did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”[4]

From these verses, we can see that the concept of “justification by faith” has two components to it. The first is that the word for “faith” can also be translated “faithfulness.” In that sense, it refers to how Christ’s sacrifice brings about the possibility of our own justification: “By his blood,” “through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” In other words, he’s referring to Christ’s faithfulness to his earthly mission as I mentioned earlier.

On the other hand, we also see the importance of our response to that faithfulness: putting our trust (i.e., our faith) in Christ. We see the great love he showed us through his sacrifice and his victorious resurrection from the dead and are compelled to make but one response: declare our love and allegiance to Jesus.

Now I mentioned earlier that there is a shift from chapter 4 to 5 about Paul talking about, primarily, the faithfulness of Christ and its relation to our faith to the life we live when we are “in Christ.” We see that in vs. 3 as Paul begins to write, in general, about the sufferings they have endured for Christ. He doesn’t get specific with the Romans, because I’m sure each of them recognize the sufferings they’ve all endured, especially since the Jews had been expelled from Rome prior to Paul’s writing Romans and have just recently returned to find the Gentile believers still thriving in their house churches in Rome.

This is another reason why Paul had to address both Gentiles and Jews in Romans 1–4, so he could get the returning Jewish exiles on the same footing as the firmly established Gentiles. He knows that if they persevere under these difficult conditions, they will build a strong character that can withstand further challenges and help unite them as they were before. As they grow in unity, they will also grow in hope. They will truly experience and share the outpouring of God’s love through the Holy Spirit as they once again gather together to worship.

Paul also reminds them that there wasn’t anything Jews or Gentiles in Rome did to earn this blessing. Verse 8 is somewhat profound if you think about it: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”[5] Did you catch that? We didn’t have to do anything, because God was already at work through Jesus on our behalf “while we were still sinners.” We didn’t have to clean up our lives first. He reemphasizes that in vs. 10: “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son [there’s the “how” of justification again], how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”[6] Not only are we set free from God’s wrath, but we also have confidence to boast in God about the reconciliation we have received through Jesus Christ.

As we head into the summer months, I would encourage all of you to read through Romans at least once. You will begin to see why the early Church Fathers chose to put it as the first book, the shining star of Paul’s epistles in the New Testament. It is full of encouragement and hope and will help you see more clearly your place in the kingdom of God and in the local congregation. Paul wrote compassionately to those who were reuniting after a long separation, and he helped to restore the unity of the church in Rome so they could continue to be a mighty witness for the Gospel. I pray that you all will continue to be a mighty witness here at Mount View. Amen.

My views are my own.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

Here are some of my other writings on Romans:

Romans

[1] Romans 1:17. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. I modified the translation a bit.

[2] Romans 5:9. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] Romans 3:24. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[4] Romans 3:26. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[5] Romans 5:8. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[6] Romans 5:10. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

February 22, 2026

Walking in Jesus’s Righteousness (Matthew 4:1–11; Romans 5:12–19)

Filed under: Biblical People,Biblical Studies,Christology,Christology,Courage,John Gospel of,Lent,Matthew Gospel of,Repentance,Righteousness,Romans,Spiritual Warfare,Temptation — Scott Stocking @ 2:37 pm
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I preached this message on February 22, 2026, the First Sunday in Lent, Year A.

When you think about it, Satanism, the worship of Satan, is an oxymoron. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. “That’s a weird way to start a sermon, preacher!” Yep, guilty as charged. But seriously, why would anyone want to put their “faith” in Satan when all the evidence points his core nature? He’s pure evil. He’s deceptive. He hates those who worship God. I would dare say he’s more interested in getting you to not worship and serve God than he is having people worship him. But he can ignore those people, because they’re already solidly in his camp.

John says this about the devil when he confronts the Pharisees in the Temple in John 8:

44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? [1]*

Adam and Eve had a first-hand encounter with Satan in the very beginning. He lied about what eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could do for them. Yes, after eating the apple, they did experience the shame of their nakedness, so at least that much of what Satan said was true, but it was a half-truth at best. The lie that Satan told Eve was “You will be like God.” That was a lie in so many ways, and here’s why:

God is not just omniscient, knowing all that can be known, but he is omnipotent and omnipresent as well. Adam and Eve, relatively speaking, only got a fraction of the knowledge that God had about such things and NONE of the power or presence that God had. Their shame at disobeying caused them to fear the presence of God when God had designed Eden and the world for them to live in his presence. They lost power, because at that point, death became a necessity for survival. An animal would have to die to clothe them. Blood sacrifices became necessary for temporary atonement. And God’s son would have to die to redeem them forever from the curse.

Satan won that first round with God’s precious new creation, but out of that came the first prophecy of Satan’s defeat at the hands and feet of God’s son. It’s no wonder, then, that he thought he could try and pull that off when God’s one and only son came on the scene. If he could get Jesus to stumble, the world would be his, or so he thought.

In the garden, Eve had become convinced somehow that the forbidden fruit “was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.” It shouldn’t surprise us that Satan used those same three categories to tempt Jesus in the desert as in our Gospel passage this morning. “I know you’re hungry for some food, Jesus. Go ahead and turn these stones into bread.” But Jesus knew, unlike Adam and Eve, that there was more to God than producing a little supernatural “manna” to satisfy what must have been an intense human experience of hunger. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Satan tried to trick him by twisting a promise of God into a perversion of wisdom. “Come on Jesus. You know God will catch you if you jump off the top of the Temple here! Imagine the scene when the crowd watches the angels swoop you up at the last second! You’ll be a superhero!” But Jesus knows it is foolish to put God to the test like that, and rebuked Satan with that fact in no uncertain terms.

Satan had one more chance. He took Jesus to a high mountain where he had a “pleasing sight” awaiting him—”all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.” But once again, Jesus knew the price was too high to go along with Satan’s schemes, and he knew none of them would bring about what God had promised him when he fulfilled his mission. “You know the commandment, Satan. I will have no other gods before me. He was there to “worship the Lord God and serve him only.” The liar failed at trying to fool the one in whom there was no lie and only truth.

And that was the beginning of the end for Satan. Jesus won that battle, but Satan didn’t give up that easily. He had to switch his focus to others, and most of you know who that would be: someone from his inner circle. The signs would be there early on that something wasn’t quite right with Judas. Even Peter gets some of the blame, but that, it seems, may have been more to his impetuous nature at times, and Jesus had other plans for him anyway.

The power of death was defeated at the cross. I’m sure that was something that Satan actually felt. Jesus had even told Peter that the gates of hell could not withstand the coming of God’s kingdom, and I think for a while anyway, as the church began to coalesce after Pentecost, God and Jesus kept Satan at bay to give the fledgling believers a head start at getting the gospel out.

I want to turn now to Romans 5:12–19, the other New Testament passage in the Lectionary readings today, to look at the results, if you will, of Jesus’s victory over death and how he, as the New Adam, broke the curse brought on by the First Adam, who through passivity allowed his wife to give in to the serpent and joined her in her disobedience. Romans 5 has a powerful message about how you and I can be strengthened in our own faith walk because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross and in his resurrection from the dead.

Hear what Paul has to say:

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.[2]

Even though Paul says plainly in 1 Timothy 2:14 that it was Eve who was deceived and sinned first (sorry, ladies, I’m just the messenger here), Paul considers the blame for “original sin” to be squarely on Adam’s shoulders. Adam had one command, and he (and Eve) blew it. But because it was a single command and the Law had not come yet, God could not permanently charge Adam with a violation of his law. Instead, they were expelled from the garden because they could not be trusted. That doesn’t mean they weren’t loved, though. God would declare even as he announced their punishment that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

Paul demonstrates that Jesus fulfilled the role that Adam never could. Adam’s disobedience or lack of faithfulness brought sin into the world, but Jesus’s one act of faithful obedience, submitting to crucifixion, is the only act that could defeat the power of sin once for all and bring righteousness to all who would follow him. It took one sin by Adam to mess up things for everybody, but one faithfully obedient savior to restore us to God in his righteousness.

Romans says that Jesus Christ is our righteousness. He earned that designation by fulfilling the whole Law of God. But God still needed that once-for-all blood sacrifice that would make the animal and grain sacrifices of the Old Testament completely obsolete. Jesus was the only one who could be that spotless lamb. But it wasn’t just because of his 100% obedience to the law. The crucifixion had one more element that made it absolutely effective and impossible for the devil to challenge or destroy: It was love, pure and simple.

“For God so loved the world.” Only a perfect man with a fully divine nature who showed us beyond a shadow of doubt how he and his Father loved us in person and face to face could make that sacrifice. The bulls and goats and birds that were sacrificed under the Old Covenant could not ever love us the way Jesus did and does, which is why his sacrifice stands not only above the old sacrificial system, but above every other religion as well. Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was a real person, but he never loved anything about the world that should have mattered to him. He just tried to obtain a state of nothingness, a very selfish goal that no one else, by definition, could help him achieve. There’s no personal connection there and no promise of any help from the supernatural realm. Jesus’s sacrifice was by far the most superior of any that could have happened on this world God created with love, and the only one that can guarantee us eternal life in God’s glorious new kingdom.

As believers, then, know that you are “in Christ” in every sense of the concept. We are baptized “into Christ,” which means we are baptized into his death. So we share in his death so we can be free of the requirements of the law, beneficiaries of grace, and servants of righteousness. As you go forth in the world from here, declare God’s word unashamedly to those who need to hear the hope of his good news. Amen.

[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. *I didn’t say it in my message, but I sure thought about adding: “The Pharisees must have had Jesus Derangement Syndrome.”

[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

February 21, 2026

The Ten Commandments in Community (Exodus 20)

Filed under: Biblical People,Exodus,Faith, Faithfulness,Hebrew,Moses,Righteousness,Ten Commandments (Decalogue),Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 12:12 pm
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This paper on the Ten Commandments was the last major paper I did at Lincoln Christian Seminary before I graduated in 1995. I majored in Old Testament under Dr. Gary Hall, to whom I will ever be grateful for instilling in me a love of the Hebrew Scriptures. I went all in on the paper because I wanted to go out with some solid evidence of all I’d learned at Lincoln from Dr. Hall. I discovered the file with the paper a few years ago, but I had prepared the paper in WordPerfect, so it didn’t translate too well into Word. I spent a couple months diligently working through the file and checking all sources again to ensure my citations were accurate. I also didn’t have Logos Bible Software available to me at the time, so all of my word counts were done manually. I updated the word counts at the end based on Logos search results. It’s too long for a Web format, so I’m including the link to the .pdf below. I hope you enjoy! Feel free to submit comments using the Comment feature below or e-mail at the link in my signature. Peace to all!

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My views are my own

Exodus20SeminaryPaper-FinalDownload

February 15, 2026

Lectionary Help (Matthew 4:1–11 First Sunday of Lent)

Filed under: Biblical People,Christology,Evil,Faith, Faithfulness,Lent,Matthew Gospel of,Prayer,Righteousness,Romans,Spiritual Warfare,Temptation — Scott Stocking @ 8:20 pm
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Welcome to Lectionary Help for the first Sunday of Lent, February 22, 2026, the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. The celebration of Easter/Resurrection of the Lord is on April 5 this year.

For my full treatment of the Gospel passage today (Matthew 4:1–11), see my message that I preached last year on the parallel passage in Luke: Temptations Lose Their Power (Luke 4:1‒13) | Sunday Morning Greek Blog.

I’ll just pull a relevant quote from the sermon linked above, as I think it’s succinct enough to give you the sense of the words used for “temptation” and “testing.”

Word Study (from the sermon linked above)

Tempt, test (πειράζω peirazō)

Temptation, testing (πειρασμός peirasmos)

So why do three of the versions I mentioned use “test” instead of “temptation” for the same Greek or Hebrew word? Well, as I tell my students when they ask me questions like that, the answer is “context, context, context.” If you follow the use of the words in their respective story settings, you find that “testing” has to do with the relationship between God and humans. The general thrust of the verses in question goes one of three ways: either God is testing his people to see how they respond, or the people are testing God by NOT doing what he’s commanded them to do, or one person is testing another’s character. And consistent with the concept of testing, sometimes there’s a judgment or “grade” on how we responded to the test.

“Temptation” is a subset of testing. That is, all temptations are tests, but not all tests are temptations. The word “temptation” is used by these English translation committees to indicate a situation in which some personified evil power or influence is at work.

Application

In the message above, I offer three ways after the example of Jesus to fight against temptation and weaken their influence in your life:

  • Pray! (Hebrews 4:15–16)
  • Live in the will of God; Live “in Christ” (1 John 2:15–17)
  • Memorize and proclaim God’s word (Psalm 119:11)

Epistles passage (Romans 5:12–19)

If you’re looking for a different angle to approach the theme, consider using Romans 5:12–19 as your starting point. I’ve had Romans on the brain for the past couple months because I gave the kickoff message to our 2026 first semester church-wide small group study in Romans (Romans 1 & 2: Jesus Our Righteous and Faithful Savior (StoneBridge small group kickoff) | Sunday Morning Greek Blog). I side with the subjective genitive approach to Romans when it comes to talking about both righteousness and faithfulness, so Jesus is “the righteous one who lives by [his] faithfulness” and we’re saved through the faithfulness of Jesus, the Righteous One.

Having established my foundation for my understanding of Romans, I’ll give some quick hits here.

The “sin entered the world through one man” concept is countered by Jesus, the Righteousness of God, the “one man” through whom all are made righteous by being “in Christ.” Jesus’s faithfulness secures that for us.

Verse 19 makes the connection to the stated theme of Romans (leading the Gentiles to the “obedience of faithfulness”; 1:5 & 16:26): “Through the obedience [of faithfulness] of the one man the many will be made righteous.” This is the set-up for Paul’s discussion of baptism in chapter 6: If we’re baptized into Christ, we’re baptized into his death. That “death” is how we’re freed from the law (Romans 7), and our subsequent emersion (coming out of the baptismal waters) results in life “in Christ.” Our righteousness is not something separate imparted to us; it’s something we walk in when we walk “in Christ.”

Blessings this week as you enter into the Lenten season. If you’re in a tradition that gives up something for Lent, try giving up those things that keep you from drawing closer to your Savior. I’ve preached the above sermon twice in the last four years, so time for me write something afresh.

Peace,

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

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