Matt Robison

Inclusio of Obedience in Romans…or Something More?

Romans is bracketed by a clear inclusio.

Romans 1:5

…through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations…(ESV)

Romans 16:26

…but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith…(ESV)

Or so it may seem. These verses might be the outer walls of a chiasm that organizes the whole letter. Given how other things begin to line up, I’m leaning toward the chiasm. (A chiasm is simply a literary structure used in ancient texts, including the Bible, to emphasize certain points, draw concepts in parallel, contrast similar but different ideas, or perhaps just aid in memorization. Read the wikipedia article I linked to for more information.)

In Chapter 1:9-15, Paul tells them that he longs to go to Rome. And then towards the end of the letter, starting at 15:22, we have Paul again telling them that he longs to visit, and then offer his greetings to several individuals. That is compelling evidence, I think.

The letter is sprinkled with other, smaller chiasms throughout, and a quick Google search will give you some examples. But I only stumbled on one other site that even hinted at single, foundational structure for the whole letter that took the true bookends as starting points. I probably just didn’t look hard enough, but this gives me an excuse to exercise and flex some synapses.

So here is my rough attempt at sketching out the overall chiastic structure. Key differences are emphasized.

A. The gospel promised through the prophets in the holy scriptures. To bring about the obedience of faith in the nations. (Romans 1:1-7)

B. Longing to go to Rome. Harvest among the Gentiles. The righteous shall live by faith. (Romans 1:8-17)

C. The wrath of God revealed. Men have no excuse and are deserving of death. Idolatry. Dishonorable passions and did not acknowledge God. You have no excuse. In passing judgement, you condemn yourself. God will render to each according to their deeds. God shows no partiality. Obedience. Doers, not hearers. Guide to blind, a light to those in darkness? Name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles. (Romans 1:18 – 2:24).

D. Circumcision is a matter of the heart. Doers of the law, not only hearers. The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. God is not unrighteous to judge to the world. None is righteous. Both Jews and Gentiles are under sin. No distinction: all have sinned. God passed over by his blood (sacrificial overtones) former sins. God is God of the Jews and the Gentiles. What becomes of our boasting? We are justified by faith, apart from works of the law. Abraham the father of all who believe (brotherhood), the father of many nations. Abraham is heir of the world. (Romans 2:12 – 4:25)

D’. No distinction between Jew and Gentile. The Lord is Lord of all. The Jew’s rejection meant the reconciliation of the world. The Gentiles grafted into the promises of Abraham, supported by the root. All consigned to disobedience, so God may have mercy on all. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. One body, many members. Overcome evil with good. No authority except what has been instituted by God, and whoever resists will incur judgement. Love one another, and therefore fulfill the law. (Romans 10:5 – 13:11)

C’. Do not pass judgement on the servant of another. Cast of works of darkness, put on armor of light. Observing and eating to the honor of the Lord, because of giving thanks to God (or, acknowledging God). Each man will give an account. God is praised among the Gentiles. (Romans 13:12 – 15:13)

B’. Offering of the Gentiles. Plans to visit Rome. Greetings. (Romans 15:14 – 16:16)

A’. The gospel revealed (or disclosed, made manifest) through the prophetic writings. To bring about the obedience of faith.

There are many things to tease out of this structure, the most obvious being the play promise/revealed and on harvest/offering in parts A and B. I’ll be expanding some of these concepts in later posts. There is also an overriding theme of “exodus” that shines through in many places, which can be studied for profit.

In chapter 2, there is some overlap of verses that seem to belong to two parts. Each part emphasizes something a little differently. Better to treat the separations more like the gentle waves on a beach and less like sterile, impenetrable walls. There is harmonious overlap, but clear distinction. Paul goes back and forth on some topics several times.

I honestly don’t know how I would structure the middle. I would need to read it a few more times, and look at other chiastic structures besides the most obvious parallelism. But parts A and B, I think are the clear beginnings of a chiasm, and so that gives us a hint as to how everything else is structured.

What do you think? What would you change? Is there an outline or structure that better matches up?

The Purpose of Food

What is the primary purpose of eating food?

The common answer is that it keeps us alive. It gives us strength. Food certainly accomplishes this and more. But if that were the primary purpose, if that were the main reason we needed to eat, it seems there is a whole lot of wasteful abundance.

God could have just made a pill that fulfilled all of our nutritional needs. Take once a day, and…that’s it.

Instead we see an all-you-can-eat buffet spread out before us. A variety of trees carve up the same air molecules and produce a variety of different types of fruit. The list is too long to recite.

A rainbow of vegetables spring up from the ground. Do you know how many different cuts of meat, different flavors and textures, can come from a single cow? At least 12. And that’s just one animal.

Why? Why all the apparent excess? Surely we could get by with far less. And if the primary purpose of food was to sustain us, then that would be a fair point. But the primary purpose of food is not really to feed the body. The primary purpose of food and eating is really to minister to the soul.

David hints at this in Psalm 34:8a. “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!”

And in this meal, the Lord’s Supper, this is infinitely true. Here, above all other meals, we taste, and see that the LORD is good. We look to the cross and see that the LORD is good. We look to the Son’s broken body and shed blood and see that the LORD is good.

And then we look at the empty tomb…and we see that the LORD is very good.

At the beginning of creation, the second instruction God gives to man is that he should eat of the earth:

“And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.” (Genesis 1:29) (ESV)

God gives man no less than the world itself, laid out like a grand banquet, to give Man life. Man did not deserve it. It was given freely as a gift. This Father, whose imagination knows no limits, who already gave man everything, then gave his own Son so man might have life more abundantly (John 10:10).

Not surprisingly, this abundant life, this new creation, is described throughout Scripture as a glorious banquet, bursting at the seams with good food and rich wine. In the context of the institution of the Supper, Jesus says in Luke 22:29-30, that “I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom…”

We are given a kingdom SO THAT we can eat with Jesus.

So what is the purpose of food? Like everything else in creation. To point to Christ. To point to the one through whom it was made. To point to this meal and the great meal we will share with Him in the world to come. So that we can dine at the table of the Great King.

So taste, and see that the LORD is good.

The Objective Scoreboard

The postmodern goo continues its attack on basic reality. Jason Collins is now the first ever pro sports player to be openly gay. Gauging the reaction, you might be led to believe that the revelation is as big of a deal as Jackie Robinson or something…oh wait. People are explicitly making those comparisons now.

What I’m about to say is related to the fact that gay is not the new black, no matter how much our culture really wishes to frame the debate.

As someone said recently, institutional racism first began to crumble in sports, because abstract lies can’t survive an objective scoreboard. Jackie Robinson’s talent could not be questioned. Those who did were objective idiots.

But now we have the opposite effect. An average NBA player, by most accounts, comes out as gay, and suddenly he’s on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The objective scoreboard, like everything else in our flailing culture, is now subservient to the sexual preferences of those involved. The press now moves to glorify the accomplishments of a man who, for the most part, has had a pretty mediocre career.

When I say mediocre, I’m obviously comparing his career to those we would call “top tier” in his profession. Me playing Collins in basketball would be a frog versus a fly situation. Being gay doesn’t suddenly make him better at basketball, anymore than having black hair makes me a better cook.

To compare him to Robinson also cheapens the true bigotry that existed back then. Robinson was barred from playing in the Major Leagues. Collins has been playing in the NBA for years, with people happy to pay him millions of dollars to do so. While I certainly wouldn’t want to lessen the harmful effects of words and locker room slurs, or whatever may cause the ears of those in the closet to burn, this is not a situation of widespread, institutionalized bigotry, and we shouldn’t treat it as such.

The press will continue to spin this as demolition for a major wall, and that now other pro athletes currently playing will feel more comfortable coming out of the closet. The key phrase in this is other pro athletes currently playing. To compare it to Robinson’s time shows a frantic leaping for straws, and comes across about as desperate as a bad car salesmen trying to reach his quota.

Gosnell – Our Idols’ Names Rhyme with Molech

Members of the media are starting to make some embarrassed apologies about the lack of coverage for the one of the most successful serial killers this nation has ever know. If you haven’t heard of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, no one can really blame you. It hasn’t really been covered by any of the major media outlets, let alone even a mention on the national nightly news.

Here is a rundown of the situation from The Gospel Coalition. You might not be able to finish. The stories contained in them are not of the train-wreck variety.

Other authors have made shown examples of other, far less monumental news (and in some cases downright trivial) making national headlines and sticking around in the news cycle far past their welcome, like lonely house guests on a school night. Sandra Fluke, Trayvon Martin. There wasn’t much restraint when these “local crime” stories were thrust into the national spotlight.

So why, when it comes to the horror show that was Gosnell’s abortion operation, has everyone suddenly found their restraint? This is a story of chopped up babies lying everywhere, unlicensed practitioners, medical rooms about as clean as gas station bathrooms, not to mention rampant racism and the failure of several governmental agencies.

I’m not suggesting any malicious intent to hide the truth or that there is deliberate selection bias going on for all parties. Only God knows the heart. We all have our own set of blinders that we wear. People are fully capable of making big mistakes on accident.

But why is this case being ignored? There were some rudimentary articles written about it back in 2011, but no serious digging. No real interest in the details.

This case presents the underbelly of sterilized infanticide…and people don’t like it. It throws back the curtains and shows the ugly monsters living under our beds. Turns out, their names rhyme with Molech.

Deep down, our culture has severe blood guilt. How can we not, with the killing of over 40 million innocents? Surely, the ground itself cries out the fact of our guilt.

We already know it. We don’t want to be reminded yet again, and slapped in the face.

We are a tragic people, because we have a strong sense of morality, left over from the dregs of Christendom, and yet turn our eyes when children are dismembered. So we compensate. We pour ourselves into saving puppies. Into crusades against factory farming. Into self-righteousness about organic foods. Into guilting others to drink fair trade coffee. We desperately want to be moral, to cleanse our conscience. But nothing can do that but the blood of Christ.

So normally, the media scrambles at the first sign of a juicy story about a horrific crime. It happens all the time. But in the case of Gosnell, they would simply be looking into a window of what they…WE…have allowed to happen.

In a time when a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman can say, with a straight face, that mothers should be able to kill their baby if it survives an abortion and is born, Gosnell’s abortion clinic reminds people how sick we really are. How infanticide is really the next logical step in our rampant idolatry of the orgasm.

Is it any wonder that no one really wants to talk about it?

Book Review: The Four: A Survey of the Gospels

I can say, without any exaggeration, that Peter Leithart’s A House for My Name is a book that helped change my life. Its a whirlwind tour of the Old Testement, and such a good introduction to looking at the Bible with new eyes, that it will make you want to sit down at a table and do something strange: just read Scripture for the pure enjoyment of it.

And if you are one of the Christians who think the majority of the Bible is just a collection of moralistic stories (some cool, some boring), genealogies, and archaic building instructions with nothing beyond the immediate surface, that book will string you up by your ankles…and swing you around until you don’t know up from left from north. I would say it encourages you to go further down the rabbit whole, but that would clearly be going in the wrong direction. Rather, it encourages you to take another step up the mountain, beyond the tame foothills.

The Four: A Survey of the Gospels is (sort-of) the direct follow-up. He gives the gospels a similar, though more varied, treatment. Each Gospel gets its own chapter, which seems absurd. Any one of the Gospels can, and has, inspired books upon books upon books. But Leithart’s book is exactly what it claims to be: a survey. While not meant to be exhaustive, each chapter offers a clear invitation to dig deeper, to study and meditate more. Leithart also identifies a theme or thread that runs underneath each Gospel.

The Meat of the Book

Matthew: Righteousness That Surpasses the Scribes. Jesus is the fulfillment and the true interpreter of the Law. He is the new lawgiver, the new Moses, the living embodiment of Israel.

Mark: The Way of the Son of Man. Jesus is a man of action, always on the move. Jesus is the strong man, taking the battle to Satan and his demons.

Luke: A Table for the Poor. Jesus came to bring good news to the poor. He eats with sinners, moving from one meal to another. Jesus proclaims a true Sabbath.

John: Seeing the Father. Jesus is the Son. Jesus is the one born of the Spirit. Jesus does only what he sees his Father doing. The Father is revealed by his Word.

While each portrait has something interesting to say, my favorite to read were the chapters on Mark and Luke. In Mark, Leithart points to some examples of subtle irony that make the Pharisees look even worse than they did before, and even in some cases has the disciples looking even more confused than they had before. But the chapter ends with two questions: “Are we not as blind as the disciples about Jesus, the stronger man? Would we recognize Jesus as Son of God as He’s dying in anguish?”

With Luke, Leithart treats both the Gospel and Acts as a single volume, and that perspective offers some thought-provoking questions. Luke spends much time on the journey to Jerusalem, while Acts moves outward from Jerusalem.Some themes are left hanging, only to be completed in the second book, and there are many other parallels. It also suggests that the Jews not only have Jesus as a witness against them, but the apostles. The hardening of the Jews and their rejection of Jesus doesn’t come to completion until they also reject the apostles of Jesus. The structure of Acts also has both Peter and Paul repeating the pattern of the life of Jesus.

This will make it very hard in the future for me to study Acts as a self-contained book without making it also a study of Luke.

Each section is appended with a series of questions, which is the same format Leithart took advantage of in A House for My Name. The first sets of questions are “review questions,” which ask basic questions about the section you just read. To find the answer to these questions, you simply need to pay attention while reading. The second sets of questions are “thought questions,” and this is where you try and workout your own Biblical thought processes. Be sure and stretch first, however, because many of these have the potential to cause a sprain.

These thought questions force you down some helpful paths, offering tantalizing hints. Many would be great to kick-start a discussion in a group setting or other Bible study. Many could also be used as the premise of an entire essay. Don’t skip them. They are worth thinking about.

My only issue with them is that some of them seem so obtuse to those of us who are not as learned as Leithart. They feel like they are pointing you to a raging river with no bridge. Or maybe pointing at some tower in the distance, hidden with fog, with no obvious path on which to proceed. The way looks insurmountable. I wish the author had answered some of these harder questions himself, or at least offered some more hints. Undoubtedly, some of them are answered in some of his other books, but it would be nice to know which ones.

Here are examples of some of the more accessible thought questions:

Why is it important that Jesus turns water to wine at a wedding? See John 4:27-29.
Compare the early chapters of Acts to the early chapters of Joshua. How are they similar? Why?
Mark mentions that there are wild beasts in the wilderness where Jesus is tempted. Why?

Going Meta with the Gospels

Before Leithart even gets to the main event of the book, however, he opens with a series of introductory chapters, which help prepare for what is to come, and gives some much-need history lessons and context. The second chapter is essentially a summary of the NT Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God, and Leithart readily admits this in the footnotes. This was helpful, as it has been over six years since I’ve read any of Wright’s tomes, and things have gotten jumbled and layered with other books and experiences. It was a welcome review.

However, I can see it being jarring for those who have not at least dipped their toe in Wright’s views. While Wright builds his case bit by heavily-footnoted bit, gradually drawing you into the world of the first century, Leithart races through at a speed that could cause some awkward tripping. The pace is unavoidable in a book like this, but it is a slight negative.

To resolve it, just go and read Jesus and the Victory of God already. What’s taken you so long?

Another preliminary chapter has to do with the “synoptic problem” and dating the Gospels (and by good and necessary consequence, the rest of the New Testament). Regardless of what Leithart himself says about the chapter (that it is more technical and can be safely skipped or skimmed), you should read it. It summarizes some recent scholarship and offers some ammo in accepting an early date for the entire canon. How early? At least four years before 70 AD, the destruction of Jerusalem.

Overall, this is a great book. It makes you want to read the Gospels again, and with more attention than you have before. It also offers the teacher many springboards from which to jump from, both for general direction of the class or sermon itself, but also in discussion questions to engage participants.

Verdict: Buy.

This is on a simple scale of three: don’t read, borrow, or buy.