Or maybe the dinner table… Paul has been spending all this time “getting us on the same page”.  In chapter 12 and the beginning of 13 he has circled back to our lives as children of God. And, to me, what he just said there is all in the category of what we “ought to do”. This is our duty. But knowing our duty and doing it, cheerfully, are two different things. The only motivation that works is love.

It has taken Paul eleven chapters to lay a foundation on which both Jewish and Gentile Christians can stand as equal children of God. Along the way, he has reminded us that this Salvation is accessible to everyone else in the human race because it is a plan God established before the foundation of the world. This speaks of purpose.

In Chapters 9 and 10 of Romans, Paul finally dealt with what could seem a paradox to an outside observer: That the very people who had, in writing, all the story about God’s plan and the Messiah could actually choose to reject Him. This was a very personal pain for Paul. But Paul took the opportunity to preach the Gospel: to point out that bloodlines or circumstances of life do not determine our choices. We all hear the call and we are all responsible for how we respond. That allows him to bring the conversation back, full circle, to the conflict at hand: Gentile Christian versus Jewish Christian.

Two wrongs don’t make a right; but three lefts do. Isn’t it human nature to try to find a different way? Especially being an American, I want to be able to do things “my way.” (Ask Frank Sinatra.) But that is not the way this Universe works. Gravity pulls you down, whether you like it or not. It would be foolish to go stand on the edge of the roof of a ten-story building and say, “I think Gravity is unfair.” Until you can make your own Universe, I’d advise against taking a step over that edge.

Pitting God’s sovereignty against human free will has been the subject of discussion by theologians for centuries. Some focus so much on defending God’s sovereignty that free will appears to go by the wayside. And it is understandable that this would be deemed an acceptable strategy, seeing as the concept of “free will” is implied rather than explicitly discussed in the Bible whereas God’s sovereignty is explicitly stated. But this approach eventually subjugates the question to one of two positions regarding how humanity is saved: Are we saved only by Grace, in fact elected to be saved by God before we were ever born? Or are we saved by choosing to Believe?

Jesus told his disciples at the end of the gospel of Matthew: “I am with you, to the end of the age.” In John 14 he tells them “In my Father’s house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you: for I go to prepare you a place; and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be.” He reiterates this a few verses down: “I will not leave you orphans; I am coming for you.” Why did we need that assurance?

You might recognize the phrase “Lost Horizon”. It is the title of a 1933 novel by James Hilton which was turned into a movie of the same name, directed by Frank Capra. It is a story about the utopia, Shangri-La. It is a fictional Paradise on Earth, where people age extremely slowly. The Gospel tells us about another place or state in which we will never age, it calls it eternal life.

In one of my favorite movies of all time, “The Princess bride”, Vizzini, the Sicilian, keeps using the exclamation, “inconceivable”, over and over again.  And finally, Iñigo Montoya, the swordsman, tells him: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Have you ever had to take the long way around to get to your destination? Maybe it was because there was construction going on in the normal route or just because at that time of day the traffic was awful in some parts of the route. Whatever the reason, you finally got where you were going. But to someone who doesn’t have that context, if he looked on a map at the path you took, he’d be scratching his head.

I was taught a long time ago that whenever I have to write a paper or a report, I should leave writing the Introduction for the end. Why? Because often it takes going through the whole analysis and argument to figure out exactly what I have accomplished. I don’t really know what my story is until I have told it. After I am done, then I can write an Introduction that prepares the reader to see what I mean, even foreshadow the concepts that I want that reader to get. And, certainly, then I can write a conclusion.