The Wandering Heretic

I am going to ask that indulge me on this post as I entertain a possible interpretation of Paul’s phrase in Romans 11:26 that “in this way all Israel will be rescued.” After this more theoretical reflection, I will return to finish out my analysis of the rest of the Chapter. That [...]

I have now reached one of the most controversial statements in Paul’s letter to the Romans; well, at least in Chapter 11. At the start of the chapter, Paul noted that God was working through a Remnant of the Jewish believers and that Remnant was the “root” to which the “wild branches” of the [...]

 
Continuing on the “World Religion” cruise.

A few years ago, I noted that the Christmas traditionally did not start for my family until we watched Jingle All The Way. Luckily last year we had it on tape as not a single network showed the feature. This year it is all over cable, so Christmas can once again arrive safely [...]

Romans 11:13 represents a transition in the book of Romans. Paul shifts his focus of attention from the Jewish followers of Christ to the Gentiles. This transition is obvious since he specifically says “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles..” You can’t get more obvious than that, yet most commentators miss this [...]

Finally I can feel some comfort in analyzing Romans, Chapter 11. As I have noted, the main purpose of Romans was to reconcile the “Christian Jews” and the “Christian Gentiles” together. Both groups, due to ethnic bigotry, refused to join together into one body.
The lead in to Romans 11 was Paul’s discourse to [...]

Though I am going to concentrate on Romans 11, one cannot discuss a single chapter within the Scriptures without placing its context in the writing as a whole (though most people do!). Since I spent several posts to set the historical and situational context, it would be folly not to set Romans 11 in [...]

 
Continuing on the “World Religion” cruise.

I have reconstructed over my last few posts the historical circumstances that led to the writing of the book of Romans. There is no certainty in such an enterprise, but my recreation has the advantage of being consistent with the major events listed in the book of Acts and well as the internal evidence [...]

Just took the ‘Which Theologian Are You?” quiz here. Frankly, I am in such a state of transition right now, I was surprised I scored high on any particular system. Seeing merits in classical Calvinism as well as Open Theology frankly, I thought I was a lost cause Heretic from start to finish. [...]