Welcome to the premiere issue of Theology Thursday! If you have written anything this week that has anything to do with your theology, please link up! It can be straight from scripture or just an inspired thought that has to do with your relationship with God and Jesus Christ! Make sure that you link to your specific piece and not your blog, or the link will be removed. Also, please only submit a piece that fits this subject or it will be removed. And please link back here so that everyone else knows where the fun is!
On to my submission for this week;).
Romans 6:20 (NASB) “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.”
This is a verse that popped up in my Bible Study this week and we were asked to expound on what we thought it meant.
At first I was going down the road that is familiar to me. How can we as Christians get mad at people because they don’t keep Christ’s rules when they don’t even buy into His lordship or that He is the Son of God? Because apart from Christ what rules are there? What morality truly is there? Sins against man are very clear (killing) but not universally accepted as wrong. And sins of against God can’t truly be known without a clear knowing of who God is. Christians not understanding this is a pet peeve of mine. For example, why do you lecture that sex is meant for marriage only when the person you are talking to does not accept the sanctity of marriage.
But then I got another insight. What about those people who seem to be Christians for a time but then go in the complete opposite direction? Some, I daresay, actually seem to bring a non-Christian evil into the church (and I am not just talking a sin, but a sin followed by them walking away from God completely). Or say that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God but do some righteous things? How does that relate to this verse? This comparison hit me, not sure how solid it is so I am just throwing it out there.
When you work at a job you are not expected to obey and produce results for another employer. While if you did, the results would be real and have value (possibly even a check for you), but nothing further would be demanded of you. Likewise, you wouldn’t necessarily receive a benefits package beyond that one exchange or series of exchanges. Traditionally contractors don’t receive all the benefits and perks that employees have because you have your loyalties elsewhere.
Righteousness when you are ruled by sin is similar. It can produce good things but the long term benefit, the light yoke of Christ and eternal life, just isn’t there. That explains that “good” person who never chose to give Christ that lordship over their life and so they never became slaves of righteousness.
That is my thought for the week! Now jump in with your link!
. Last week we were looking at Romans 6, which is a very familiar chapter to many of us who have been in church a while. So familiar that you just kind of go, “yeah, yeah. No longer slaves.”